OPINION: A message for White folks who are going full colonizer; your threats will no longer go unanswered
Why do white folks think it's a good idea to try us? What do they think will really happen if they keep harassing our children from trying to swim in pools, sell bottled water on hot days, mow lawns or deliver newspapers?
I’m not as surprised as I should be by the recent, and clearly racist, series of videos featuring White men and women laying their grubby mitts on Black people who are simply minding their business.
By now, it’s commonplace and even numbingly familiar to see footage like this week’s atrocity in West Hollywood, during which a foaming-at-the-mouth White man called a Black woman the N-word and a bitch while wildly swinging around what witnesses described as metal rods in her direction, smashing her belongings and throwing a chair.
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The target in this latest incident, Angela Jefferson, told CBS Los Angeles that she had been simply studying and listening to music when the man attacked her.
Other examples are just a scroll away, but on July 12, this video sprang into the socialsphere depicting a White man apparently yelling horrific racial epithets in the vicinity of diverse fellow passengers on a Chicago train platform before being two-pieced with a side of mild sauce and deposited down on the tracks for an unanticipated nap.
Take a look at this:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlJhqapDVBs2WaUsZkeS75ACot70BrekohmnDY0/?igshid=16k0wctbv96sk&utm_source=fb_www_attr
Oh what, you thought I was going to decry answering this level of madness with violence?
Aw naw. Think again.
These Permit Patty, Barbecue Becky, ID Adam and other “show-me-your-freedom-papers” Whites have riled up the most confrontational and diehard members of their base. Because these degenerates see Black people on videotape trying to appeal to these bigots’ sanity, diffusing situations where the police are unjustly called or being Lake Placid like this Auntie in the jaw-dropping clip to follow, they may feel even more emboldened to attack.
Watch as this unseasoned demon tries to force this Black woman out of her seat just so that she can take her usual perch. This, despite what seems to be a literal stadium of seats in the vicinity.
Following in the footsteps of Rosa Parks, this Auntie did not stir even when this shrill old bag tried to sit on her in petulant protest. #BlackAuntieMagic possesses admirable levels of chill in the face of unforgivable idiocy, but please know that she, and a handful of others, are more the exception than the rule.
In the words of a 90s-era Negro spiritual brought to us by Brand Nubian: “punks jump up to get beat down.”
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Black people have been whupping tail for quite some time, and according to many members of law enforcement, our men and women (even as children and preteens) strike such fear into the hearts of white folks that it leads to us eventually receiving disproportionate levels of police brutality.
Why then, do those possessed by the Spirit of Jim Crow, think it’s a good idea to try us? What do they think will really happen if they keep harassing our children from trying to swim in pools, sell bottled water on hot days, mow lawns or deliver newspapers?
READ MORE: Neighbor calls police on Black boy delivering newspapers on his route in Ohio
Nobody could really believe that throwing chairs at a Black woman minding her own damn business would go unanswered, and even in that West Hollywood incident, that drunken dolt had about two more minutes before he was going to be laid out in the California sunshine. You could clearly see that one of the onlookers was ready to go Kimbo Slice on his behind.
Do emboldened supremacists realize that videotaping is not an act done out of fear or hesitancy to fight back, but is instead a needed precaution because we know that we are too rarely given the benefit of the doubt? Just in case they are confused, they might want to recall that the power of smart phone technology means that we only need one hand to capture all types of disturbing videos and then post and stream them for the world to see.
I’m saying, however, that other hand, plus the hands of fed-up witnesses, is free for fistifcuffs. I’m no Nostradamus, but I predict that as these indignant and deeply racist encounters continue, it will start bringing out just that.
As we witness the rise of racism under the umbrella of 45 and the blanket of Brexit, let my words serve as a reminder to all those who’ve been lulled into delusion by a noxious cocktail of “Driving Miss Daisy” and “The Help” followed by a chaser of “Mississippi Burning.”
To put it plainly: We are not scared of y’all. Further, despite the best efforts of the only First Lady I recognize, Michelle Obama, there are powerful rumblings of us totally giving up on “going high.”
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In fact, I personally have programmed the “low road” into Google maps and Waze just in case somebody haunted by the soul of segregationist, Strom Thurmond, decides to test me in the public square. And this is coming from a person with ALL the home training.
You and your half-cocked Confederate flag-loving friends need to find something better to do, and fast because being fired from your sad jobs or being forced to defend your evil on the nightly news is the LEAST of what could happen if you keep following in the footsteps of your racist, bigoted and backwoods-minded forebears.
Contrary to Gil Scott-Heron’s proclamation, the revolution will be televised and so will your ass whopping.
Kyra Kyles is a multiplatform media executive, author, and speaker on media diversity. In addition to her 20-plus years as a journalist, including a tenure as Editor-in-Chief of EBONY and a multimedia correspondent/columnist for the Tribune Company, Kyra is the Chicago-based co-founder of content development collective, Myth Lab Entertainment. Follow and feel free to interact with her via @thekylesfiles on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
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