I’ve just completed watching “Strong Island,” Yance Ford’s moving documentary about his brother William’s murder (on Netflix). As Tre'vell Anderson, in the L.A. Times, summarizes the documentary, “Yance Ford's 'Strong Island' asks white people to 'interrogate their fear' of black bodies.” Anderson summarized the murder thusly:
In April 1992, Ford’s brother, then a 24-year-old teacher, was killed by a white 19-year-old mechanic. Though the city’s police investigated the case, the shooting was deemed justifiable by a grand jury and the shooter never faced any consequences. William was unarmed.
Fear of black bodies is a part of institutionalized racism, in which racist ideology is made an on-going, common part of every aspect of our culture. Racist messages are so common in America, in fact, so “normal” because they are everywhere and this is why most whites fail to even recognize that what we are ingesting is racist ideology (e.g., there are tons of examples online, just google “racist ads” or go to www.businessinsider.com/...).
We see racism depicted in ads, in television programming, and popular films that have for a very long time made racism quite unquestioned, mostly invisible to white people who typically just don’t question their white privilege—the attitude is “it’s always been that way,” so it just appears normal. This is why those young people protesting American racism at Fenway Park wrote what they did on their protest banner—and it is equally why most people didn’t understand their profound message. Racism is “as American as baseball” because we love all those cultural artifacts without even recognizing that what we are comfortable with, what we unquestioningly embrace, and what we love, is too often also racist.
This invisible (to most white people) racism, and the white privilege that it confers, but which racism also produces, can only continue to function as it does because we white people are so good at ignoring it and denying it. This ignorance of how racism functions is easy for us white people to maintain, because we benefit from ignoring it. Admittedly, acknowledging it can also sometimes be dangerous. Many whites turn a blind eye to racism, because “hey, I’m not black, so it’s not my problem.” And whites need not be extremely racist in their actions, need not be white supremacists to help maintain American racism, because it is so well-established, and so entrenched, all whites need do to enable American racism to flourish is—nothing.
The “Strong Island” documentary minutely explores a wide variety of factors that, over William’s lifetime and to varying degrees, contributed to William’s murder, and in doing so it reveals some very basic, but exceedingly horrific truths about how American racism operates and, in particular, how this brand of racism works to erase the criminal actions of whites who murder blacks.
For example, William’s mother, Barbara Dunmore, explains that after her son’s murder she came to believe it was partly her fault because she and her husband had taught their three children to judge a person not by the color of their skin but by their character. Although this is an ideal we should all aspire to, Ms. Dunmore felt that in teaching this lesson that she actually set up her son to be too trusting of whites, and thus too trusting that he, a black man, would be treated as fairly as a white man. I believe Ms. Dunmore felt that had she only told him to not trust whites, he might have not put himself in harm’s way and he might not have been murdered. However much this attitude acknowledges the realities of American racism, and however much this might have saved William’s life had he learned such a lesson and chose to live by its strictures, this too would have been a desired result of racists everywhere—because one way or another the endpoint of racist ideology is to control black people, to “keep them in their place.” Which is also why black bodies are too often murdered by white bodies without it being judged a crime.
In every war humans across the globe, in every culture, devise derogatory language to dehumanize the enemy (e.g., japs, gooks, ragheads, etc.) so that soldiers can surmount a basic human value shared by most societies on earth—that of the sanctity of human life. In making the enemy less than human, soldiers are able to do what most human groups have been taught is forbidden—to end a human life. This is how historically whites have circumvented this common value by using racism as an excuse to take human life, in order to ultimately grasp and maintain power, since from their initial interactions with all others defined as not white (Native Americans, blacks, Chinese, Irish) they have denigrated their humanity out of existence. In the case of the Irish in early America, they actually defined this particular group of people with white skin as “not white.” This example shows how the power of racist ideology can create a supposed reality that flies in the face of evidence to the complete contrary—which demonstrates just how powerful racism is and how it is exactly a strategy designed to privilege certain groups through any means.
Ms. Dunmore’s explanation reveals how American racism works, because despite the ideals of a society that promotes equality, fairness and justice for all, the racist fear of black bodies means white murderers are often not held accountable for their crimes—whether they are white policemen or white civilians. In other words, crimes against black bodies are not defined as actual crimes in many areas and much of the time in America. Racist ideology defines black bodies and white bodies as qualitatively different; white bodies are fully human, black bodies are not. Which in America’s racist “justice” system, means much of the time murdering blacks because one is afraid of black bodies is the only justification one needs to be not arrested or tried, or to be found innocent of murder.
Yance Ford also felt some responsibility for William’s death, because he encouraged him to act as a “real” man, as a “hero.” Yance explained that he was proud of his brother for standing up for his rights to be a fully masculine black man. But American racism also dehumanizes black men and women by defining both black femininity and black masculinity as tainted, as insufficient—exactly because they are not white women or men. How better to completely structure a system of injustice, of oppression, than to define a group’s humanity, on every front, out of existence?
Racism is an absolute oppression, which means that every possible means of escaping that oppression are cut off—which is why it is not just race, but gender and class that are involved in the mix in order to make certain that black people of either gender or any class cannot escape race oppression. Even being a middle class or professional black individual does not allow one to escape from the oppression of racism. This is why Henry Louis Gates, a renown black professor at Harvard University was arrested for trying to enter his own home. This is why President Obama, despite being the first black POTUS and being one of the most intelligent and caring presidents we’ve ever had and who was(is) as upper class as any person can be, as well as being far more than adequately masculine, was nevertheless depicted by white racist protesters—people who no doubt had far less status, far less education, far fewer accomplishments, and virtually no consciences—as a monkey. The sheer idiocy of these people cannot be overestimated, but because they were white (and racist) they believed they were superior to Obama. The racism directed at Obama is a shame this country will likely never live down. Yes, racism is an absolute oppression, a system designed to not allow any black person to escape the dehumanizing and murderous impact of white hate and power, as well as white apathy.
I admit it, I cried through much of “Strong Island” because Yance Ford not only explained the highly abstracted way in which racism operates, he personalized it by showing the reality of his brother’s and his family’s humanity, as well as Yance’s own humanity—and in doing this, he showed the lie that is American racism. Demonstrating one’s family’s humanity shouldn’t be necessary, but under American racism too many whites need to see and comprehend that all people are human, no matter the color of their skin.
However, for racists to comprehend, finally, that those who are not white are as human as whites is not a sufficient measure to end racism. Because racism is so much an integral part of American culture and its institutions, the very way in which we as a society operate day to day must be changed. This will not be easy, because it means first acknowledging that racism is as American as apple pie, and as “American as baseball,” for that is the only way we will be able to clearly recognize the many beliefs and practices that we accept and engage in are actually racist. It means recognizing that whites as a group are advantaged by white privilege. It means we must all recognize and try to stop blacks being murdered by the very people who are supposed to protect them. It even means that when we watch the Miss America pageant we see and acknowledge that there are commonly very few to no women of color who were judged “beautiful enough” to be included in a white racist American institution, still to this day. However much that is a blessing in disguise because that pageant works to dehumanize white women too, by reducing their value to primarily the superficial, excluding black women is also racist because that defines feminine beauty as being only a white quality. Racism is complex, it is intimately interconnected with gender inequality and classism, to make it an absolute oppression that is firmly entrenched in American society.
As any thinking person can see, despite many laws that are ideally designed to be applied fairly and equally, whites who murder blacks are more likely to get a “get out of jail free” card, because fear of black bodies, even those that are unarmed, or are held captive and restrained, or have been outnumbered and beaten senseless by those responsible for law and order, and for justice, has been defined by the practices of our racist legal system as a sufficient excuse for murdering blacks. Until we change this, a justice system operating in an extremely unjust, illegal and specifically racist way, black lives do not and will not matter in America*.
*I strongly support Black Lives Matter.