No matter how high we climb, white people will find a way to put us in our ‘place’
OPINION: Black people were enjoying themselves at a private dinner party. White people came and messed it up.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
I know we avoid talking about Kanye as much as possible, but in the days before he became what he is now, he put out some good music and had some good quotes.
One of those quotes came from his song “All Falls Down,” which featured Syleena Johnson and appeared on his first album “The College Dropout.”
The quote says, “Even if you in a Benz, you still a nigga in a coupe,” and I always found that quote to be a perfect encapsulation of how (some) white people see us.
There are so many people who believe respectability politics will save us from the negative opinions of (some) white people, and I like to remind those people that Martin Luther King Jr. wore a suit and tie every single day, and they still hated him, and they still killed him.
No matter our achievements, no matter the amount of money we have, no matter the friends we keep, there are (some) white people who will always feel like they are “better” than us and who will believe it’s their job to put us in our place.
Let me tell you a story about how white people unnecessarily policing the actions of Black people has led to a lawsuit that I hope the white people lose.
In September 2022, Dr. Yves Duroseau — who is the chair of the Department of Medicine at Forest Hills Hospital in Manhattan and also the first physician in the U.S. to take the COVID vaccine — and his wife Claude, who is a designer, hosted a surprise party for Duroseau’s sister, Rosevony Duroseau — who had just turned 47 and gotten engaged.
Rosevony is a graduate of Fordham Law School and a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asylum officer. Both she and her brother are Haitian-American.
The party took place in the garden of the Forest Hills home of Dr. Duroseau and Claude, and the guests were all Black or Latino except for one person.
According to the lawsuit, as the party was coming to an end, a white woman walked into the Duroseau home uninvited with a “large, menacing German Shepherd” and demanded they turn the music down. Duroseau told her they were having a birthday party and that it was wrapping up soon. He asked her to leave and went back to the backyard where guests continued to socialize.
That’s when another white neighbor, a man identified as 48-year-old Marcus Rosebrock, decided to turn his water hose on the partygoers to make them leave.
I’m going to allow you some time to read that again.
I’m going to assume Rosebrock decided his Black neighbors weren’t “following orders” fast enough, so he got his backyard water hose and proceeded to spray them with water, and when they asked him to stop, he responded by increasing the water pressure as he went along until every single person at the party was drenched, according to the lawsuit.
Each time another guest asked him to stop spraying the hose, he sprayed them with more intensity, the lawsuit claims.
Keep in mind that this was a dinner being attended by attorneys from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, members of New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration, two bank executives, a New Jersey public schools administrator, at least one public defender, high-powered music industry player Rigo Morales (co-founder of the Recording Academy’s Black Music Collective), and Rosevony’s fiancé, who is the co-founder and CEO of a cybersecurity risk management consultancy. The dinner was catered by the 2011 winner of Bravo cooking competition show, “Rocco’s Dinner Party,” Vanessa Cantave, and it was a 9-course meal.
None of that seemed to matter to Rosebrock, who apparently felt like it was his duty to put these “uppity negroes” in their place.
I am very sure a bunch of white people are going to start sending me hate mail and leaving comments on my personal website and all my social platforms telling me how wrong I am, how I am the real racist, and how I am making everything about race, and I want those white people to ask themselves this question: Would his response have been the same if that party was full of fancy white people?
We all know the answer to that question, and the answer is, no.
If this had been a party full of white people, Rosebrock would have likely either ignored it or gone to politely ask that they turn the music down. He would not have turned a water hose on them; he probably would not have even raised his voice.
But because these were Black people and because there are (some) white people who feel like it’s their job to police the behavior, actions, words, and very presence of Black people any chance they get, this is what he did.
Dogs and water hoses. This sounds so familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it …
Oh, wait!
This is exactly what white people did to Black protesters during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Firehoses and police dogs were turned on Black people as a form of racial terror to get them to stop demanding that their basic humanity be recognized and acknowledged.
Was this what Rosebrock intended to emulate?
He didn’t just turn the hose on the party guests; the suit says he sprayed water on the caterers and other staff working the fancy dinner as well.
And it has to be stressed repeatedly: this was a fancy dinner party in a garden. It wasn’t an out-of-control white boy college frat party. It was a dinner party with 19 guests that was already ending.
The white lady, who is named Jane Doe in the lawsuit, allegedly trespassed onto their property with her dog. She allegedly walked onto the Duroseaus’ property with her big-ass dog and demanded they shut down a party that was already in the process of ending. And when her implied threat with her dog didn’t work, she received backup from Rosebrock, who turned his water hose on people who were already preparing to leave a dinner party that was already ending.
That’s a whole lot of white privilege, white entitlement, and white supremacy all rolled up in one.
There are (some) white people who get so irrationally upset when Black people don’t immediately fall in line with whatever it is they are demanding, no matter how ridiculous the demand.
If I am having a party in my backyard, and you feel like the music is a little too loud, there is a proper way to address that. This was not the proper way to address that.
This was violent. This was insulting. This was traumatizing to the people in that garden. He ruined their clothes, the dinner setting and the party itself.
There is no way 19 Black and Latino people were making so much noise at a dinner party that it needed to be escalated the way it allegedly was by Rosebrock and Karen with the dog.
It was racist, and anyone who tries to claim it wasn’t is a liar.
I hope Marcus Rosebrock and Karen with the dog have to pay a hefty sum to Dr. Duroseau, his wife, his sister, and their party guests.
White people have a lot of damn nerve.
Most of y’all, anyway.
Monique Judge is a storyteller, content creator and writer living in Los Angeles. She is a word nerd who is a fan of the Oxford comma, spends way too much time on Twitter, and has more graphic t-shirts than you. Follow her on Twitter @thejournalista or check her out at moniquejudge.com.
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