Lessons at the Gate

When I was at Spelman College, the back gate was one of the most important things for me.  Why, you might ask? Because the back gate was the place where we Spelman women were picked up for our dates.  It was where the action was.  There, you might see cars of all sorts zooming by to gaze upon the dynamic beauty gathered at the gate. Often, groups walked up and glided away with their special one, while a few seemed to just stand, hoping someone would approach them.  Like hunters, they waited to perhaps pick off the weak ones for an impromptu date.

One evening, I stood there at the back gate waiting for my date.  I had met this young man and he was intriguing!  All week, we talked to each other by phone, for hours on end.  He was smart.  He was talented.  He was handsome.  He said he liked me very much. And maybe, just maybe, we could be in a relationship. This seemed like a miracle to me, because long-term relationship was elusive for me during college, though I tried with all my might to make it so.

I had it planned out. This date would be magical.

A group of us went down to the gate at about 7 p.m.  We were high-fiving each other, laughing and hopeful.  By 7:05, most of my friends were gone. I waved them away with a smile on my face, so glad my friends were happy. By 7:30, I was the only one left standing.

I stood there at 8:30, standing there in the cold. My smile had faded into a grimace.  I wanted to continue looking pleasant, just in case he came. My lips mouthed practiced phrases like, "That's ok..." for when he arrived. 

My naivete was enormous, and my hope was really more brutal stupidity.  I wondered if he had been in an accident.  Or if he had some emergency that called him away. I imagined that a UFO had taken him away.  All the possibilities were plausible because I wanted them to be.

It was 40 degrees, but I stood there, like a good soldier.  Forty degrees. Arctic fingers crept steadily up my thighs until I felt like I had pneumonia all over my body.  My hands, feet and legs were numb.  And so was I.

My moist eyes saw couples caught in the glow of romance which was held in lingering kisses.  I observed a few folk who had drunk too many beers in a spade tournament or a night on the town.

I also saw the young man with whom I had previously been madly in love picking up a friend of mine in his car, going to do what grown folk do.  

The night waned on, and I danced to keep from freezing.  I returned to my room only after I saw a car that held one of my friends from the early march to the gate return to campus.  At first I hid in the shadows, and then I walked into the light, pretending that I too had just returned from a fantastic date.

I spun a story of how sweet he had been, how he never touched me and was such a gentleman.  I didn't really lie.

I never received a message or an apology.  In fact, I never heard from him again.

The back gate is a metaphor for my life. Too many times, I have stood at gates hoping folk will show up and keep their promises. My gate experience has been in every part of my life, from my parents to significant others (or the lack thereof) to friends to employers.  I am grateful that now, my wait is exponentially shorter before I leave the gate for self-care and dignity's sake.  I keep my promise to never dance in the cold again.

I invite those who have been disappointed too many times to do the same.

An Invitation to Believe

For those of us that feel anxiety or defeat that some can look at a fact, data, a video, or a testimony, and never concede that it is true, consider this: The people of this country dunked women in water and called them witches if they survived, and innocent only if they drowned. Eugenics sought to measure the brains of Black folk for the sake of proving they we not human, and classified and institutionalized the poor, the mentally ill and disabled, women, homosexuals, and others in order to justify segregation and sanitation. There is a huge movement to remove and reduce information of chattel slavery from the text books that our young people use, in an attempt to redeem and sanitize American history because of the apparent fragility of the privileged.

This movement seeks to dispel the idea that slavery was legal, institutionalized terror, and violent, torturous, or evil, and that slave owners were benevolent, compassionate folk who simply took advantage of a free-market opportunity. Across the world there are groups in existence simply to disprove the Jewish Holocaust, and every historical genocide has a group of privileged folk who will deny that mass murder was genocide, or that the numbers of those killed are significantly over-reported in the data. The Japanese internment was simply a necessary evil, an extended vacation, if you will, with propagandized pictures to prove how productive and happy the banished American citizens of Japanese descent were.  

There are others who simply do not have the mental constitution or the strength of soul to accept the truth from other perspectives, period. Fear and lazy ignorance prevents these ones from growing and gaining relationships and the invitation to participate in the universe whole.  

For this reason, I intentionally tune my ear for the voices on the bottom-- the bottom meaning those who are most oppressed, those who do not get the podium, or whose voices are being muffled. For this reason, it behooves us all to be confident in what we know to be true, to make a habit of believing and believing in the other, and to not let the loud, lying screams of fearful doubt deter what you know you must do.

ReConciling Act:  Seeing is not believing.  Choosing to believe is believing. It is revolutionary.

The McKinney Condition

Some don't see the need for some things they learned in high school. I understand that. I won't ever need to use my physical education on archery.  However, I am so grateful I can make connections based on things I didn't think I'd need, yet do.

When I saw the video of the young people, and particularly the young woman, who were violently engaged by McKinney, Texas officers, my mind retreated past trauma and sadness to an old lesson on classical conditioning. As I watched officer Eric Casebolt chasing children as if he was on a laser tag field, grabbing Dajerria Becton's hair and twisting her arm, and pushing her to the ground, I was reminded of my lesson from a science class.  When I watched him kneeling his full weight upon her, like some sort of inanimate and useless prayer bench in a church basement, or more rightly, like a young, scared girl coerced into torture porn, I was reminded of Pavlov and his dogs.

Remember Pavlov?  In his research, Pavlov named the phenomenon he discovered when he paired meat powder with the sound of a bell as stimuli. This combination made the dogs salivate.  Over time, he found he could ring the bell without presenting the meat powder, and surprisingly, the dogs would salivate anyhow. And this, friends, is classical conditioning. 

In the context of the McKinney event, the bell is Black skin, and this bell has been ringing for centuries for folk who believe it their duty to behave like aggressive dogs.

I am baffled by the responses to what happened.  Some act as if policing and racism haven't gone hand-in-hand in this country, as if Back people have nothing better to do than make up sobs stories even while the videos prove our horror. Black people assembled is the equivalence of a mob, and the police assume the only way to react is with violence.

Many claim no knowledge of Jim Crow laws, or admit that the residue hasn't evolved into something just as dangerous and terrorizing for Black people.  Many forget that racism was legislated, and forget that the police were legally complicit in many lynchings, in violently encroaching on nonviolent protestors, and in many activities deemed righteous to maintain the social hierarchy for those of the dominant culture.  The conditioning has been thorough and consistent.

The sight of Black skin is enough to cause some police officers to forget professionalism, extensive training, and the fact that someone is recording them in plain sight.  The sight of black skin turns some officers into aggressive, salivating dogs who will swear their fear is more important than the safety of Black children.  Black skin gives them permission to pull a gun on young people trying to save the young woman under attack.  Once the bell is rung, there is no need for respectful language, for listening when they tried to express themselves, for even attempting to appear as if .  As the bell resonates, Black children don't deserve the benefit of the doubt, and the officers don't even have to pretend that they aren't targeting Black children. It is obvious and ugly and loud.  Passers-by will even help the police to carry out their deeds, becoming instant deputies, and claim children saying, "Call my mama," is dangerous and aggressive.

Officer Casebolt heard the bell more than likely before he arrived, and acted accordingly.  He seemed to be salivating on arrival, behaved like a hungry, conditioned dog who was only concerned with his primitive need to tackle his perceived duty. Of course, this is not to say he isn't fully responsible for his actions and shouldn't be held accountable.  He absolutely had the choice to be helpful and disperse the crowd in a more effective way.  However, I contend that with each chapter of this endless, tortuous book of police brutality toward Black people in this country-- for us who cannot rely on safety at a pool party, who are treated as if we can hide weapons of mass destruction in a bikini--we know for whom the bell tolls. 

It tolls for us.