Black By Popular Demand

Emil François Thomas A Black Man's struggles at making the world hear him while trying to sound more educated than angry.

[angryblackstudent-blog]

Working on the magnum opus 

[angryblackstudent-blog]

Same Shit, Different Year

Tomorrow marks one-year since of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. I was planning on writing something about how our recognition and response to police brutality has changed in this past year, and as I was about to start I learned of the death of Christian Taylor. Yet another unarmed Black man killed by a police officer in training under suspicious circumstances and with varying accounts of what actually happened, and everyone is awaiting the release of video surveillance footage to get a glimpse of what really happened. 

Taylor, a 19 year-old football player, has been described as an incredibly generous and kind soul by his friends and family, and his tweets even showed he was active in the ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬ movement and spoke out against police brutality. He is dead for allegedly breaking into a car dealership at 1 in the morning and following an “altercation with an officer”, though the particular circumstances around his death are unclear. What is clear is that (allegedly) breaking into a car dealership does not carry a death sentence. Neither does (allegedly) having an “altercation” with a police officer. 

To hear about Taylor’s death just after myself turning 19 and just before the anniversary of Michael Brown’s murder was truly heartbreaking, and even that is a gross understatement. I found myself incredibly discouraged - what is the point of fighting so strongly for police reform when nothing seems to change? I decided we have to keep fighting for every name that we have a hashtag for, and even more for all the names that we don’t. This year 701 people have been killed by the police, and nearly every month has more deaths than the one before it. Let’s keep fighting so that next year we’ve reversed that trend. So it’s with the heaviest of hearts that I say Rest in Peace to Christian Taylor, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Zachary Hammond, and 697 other people taken way too soon by the people who’re supposed to protect us.

[victoriapaigexs]

Rest in peace to Sandra Bland, a beautiful, powerful and strong woman who’s life was ended too quickly due to the arrogance and stupidity of people who are supposed to protect us. Sad, sad world we live in. You will always be remembered and loved. 💘👼🏾😔

[angryblackstudent-blog]

With a Purpose

Growing up in a Black family in a predominately White suburb, you have many talks with your family about race. One of the first such discussions that my dad had with me was about the concept of the Angry Black Man. “Angry Black men get shot,” he told me, “it doesn’t matter if they’re rich, poor, or anywhere in between. Once you become an Angry Black Man you aren’t seen as anything other than a threat, as someone who can be killed for being too imposing.” Sensing my incredulity he went on to explain to me that yes I could get angry, but my anger should never be as a direct response to another person’s anger and it should never be displaced. He also said that I should never stay angry for the sake of being angry, and that once the cause of my anger was gone, my anger should go with it. I could be angry as a Black man, but I would have to be angry with a purpose and not just be another Angry Black Man. Naturally this teaching was categorically rejected by my 8-year old mind, but nearly every time I would get angry while growing up my dad would remind me of this talk and say, “With a purpose!”

As I grew up and learned more about race outside of Kennesaw, I began to see the truth in what my dad kept trying to teach me. I watched on the news as armed, unarmed, old, young, innocent and guilty “Angry Black Men” were shot and killed because someone had felt threatened. After years of hearing and reading about such deaths I found that I had become strangely desensitized; each one built elicited an anger that I couldn’t let go and as I finally did, another one would take its place. The recurring anger soon became a constant; I was always angry, not just for each individual shooting, but for the system that continually allowed them to happen. It was recently during another discussion about race with my dad caused by the shootings of two unarmed Black men within a span of mere hours, that I found a purpose and an outlet for that anger.

I wrote. I hammered my emotions out onto my keyboard and didn’t stop until I couldn’t think of any more words to put on the screen. I wrote about their deaths, I wrote about the system that failed them and took their lives, I wrote about how I felt that the system was failing me. It was cathartic to finally be able to see and read clearly what I had been shouting inside for years. I did nothing with those initial pieces. I saved them and I stopped typing. My anger was gone. Then another shooting happened, though this time there were no Angry Black Men to blame. This time is was the system directly at fault, and I found myself overcome with sadness and anger once more. So I wrote again. I wrote about a symbol for the system, a flag. I knew that I couldn’t keep that piece to myself and I planned to post it, but first I had my dad read it.

He told me not to do it; he said that I was becoming an Angry Black Man. He said that it was pure anger in response to someone else’s and it would only be met with more anger. We debated whether he was right for the next 4 hours, until it was 5 in the morning.“I would be posting it anyway; he was absolutely right, it was pure anger, but I didn’t care. I told him that I would be posting it anyway, but he was absolutely right. It was pure anger; I just didn’t care anymore. My purpose became to be that Angry Black Man that I had spent so long trying to avoid. His teachings weren’t for naught; I decided to be more than a simple Angry Black Man wildly trying to take on a system of oppression rooted for hundreds of years. I set out to learn the system and figure out how to defeat it, and write out all of my anger along the way. I set out with a purpose. I decided to become an Angry Black Student.

[angryblackstudent-blog]

A white supremacist sign from outside a small businesses in my town and then a coloring book found in my local book store. This is why we can’t just wait for all the racists to die out “because people don’t think like that anymore.” People aren’t born racists, they observe it in the world around them as normal and continue the practices. The fact that a coloring book exists glorifying Confederate generals and subtly explaining that the Civil War was about state’s rights and not slavery is appalling and bordering on brainwashing. This is why people are serious when they say, “the South will rise again!” They grow up being spoon-fed this history of the Glorious South that lost a war to an oppressive North. 

[angryblackstudent-blog]

“It’s not about race, why do you always have to make it about race?”

Because it was about race. It continues to be about race. My race was enslaved by another race, and though now free, we continue to be oppressed and belittled by that same race that publicly denies its racism but continues to profit from its racist systems. I am my race every single day; I didn’t choose it; I can’t change it. Despite being powerless to change it, I have been judged countless times on nothing other than my race. So my entire life, I’ve been made brutally aware of what race I am and that no matter how I act, I will always be a Black man. So how dare you even suggest that it’s about anything but race?

[angryblackstudent-blog]

21st Century Racism

21st century racism is my parents telling me from an early age that I have to work 10 times as hard as someone else in order to receive the same respect and recognition. 21st century racism is growing up being called “positive adjective for a black guy/girl” and having to say thank you to what is actually an insult. 21st century racism is my friend in middle school not hugging goodbye only me outside of a movie theater after hugging all of our other friends because her father is watching and “wouldn’t like it”.  21st century racism is my high school crush’s mother initially forbidding her from dating me because of what her grandparents would think, then finally allowing the relationship but provided that it be kept secret from relatives. 21st century racism is my dad betting me that at some point I would be pulled over solely driving a BMW late at night and being right multiple times over. 21st century racism is working your ass off applying to colleges only to have other people tell you, “Oh it doesn’t matter, luckily you can get in anywhere! You’re black!” 21st century racism is my own parents warning me repeatedly to fear police officers, and then seeing them kill people just like me on the news. 

21st century racism is going your entire life seeing and feeling racism all around you only to have people tell you over and over that it doesn’t exist anymore.

[angryblackstudent-blog]

What a difference personal motivation makes: I just wrote a 700 word essay describing a key part of my upbringing/reason for making this blog without stopping to wonder what I was doing, yet I labor to crap out an essay of that length for school. 

I’ll post it later along with some other old writings/writings from today, but first I need to take a nap as I haven’t slept in a day and a half

[angryblackstudent-blog]

I, Racist

Here's the thing that all the "angry Black people know", and no "calmly debating White people" want to admit: The entire discussion of race in America centers around the protection of White feelings.

Absolutely beautiful article explaining how we deal with race as a society and one of our biggest obstacles in overcoming it, having people recognize their privilege and work for those without it

[angryblackstudent-blog]

“Post-racial America”

Saying racism is over because we have a Black President is like saying the economy is cured because you found a $20 bill on the ground outside that you plan on spending. Though technically a step in the right direction, it doesn’t come close to solving the much larger problem and leaves you sound like an much larger idiot 

[angryblackstudent-blog]

#TAKEITDOWN

I hate the Confederate Flag. Every time I see it, my skin crawls and my stomach turns. To me and millions of Black people it serves as a hideous reminder, a reminder that the people who once flew that same flag owned us. We weren’t people then, we were actual pieces of property, to be bought and sold. Our family ties meant nothing and could be broken up by a mere business transaction. Then there was a war, and the people who fought under that hideous flag wanted to keep us enslaved.

Now free, the flag still served as a symbol of terror. People hoisted the flag as they went around lynching and murdering Black people with impunity. For nearly a hundred years the sight of the flag waving on a front porch was a reminder that though legally free, the South was still a dangerous place where, at any time and for the amusement of other people, you could be taken from your home, dragged through the streets, hung from a tree, beaten, whipped, and shot until you were dead, after which your body would remain on display as a message to everyone else in the community that this could happen to them too.

Today people still venerate a flag that has been a visual symbol of oppression and racism for a century and a half. People argue that the flag isn’t racist, it’s just a nod to Southern tradition and values. Those traditions include slavery, beatings, and lynchings. Those values include white supremacy, violence, and racism. The Flag’s hateful history is as deeply ingrained as the “good, Southern values” people use to defend it. There is nothing wrong with loving and being proud of where you are from, but to do so by using the Confederate flag is also saying that you loved all of the atrocities committed under it. Some may look upon the flag and only think of the value of religion and strong family ties, but I only see the hatred that tied up and killed my people.

I hate the Confederate Flag. I hate that it still has a place in our society outside of museum exhibits about our nation’s racist history. I hate that every time I see one I am filled with the anger of hundreds of years of oppression, and that the person sporting it refuses to recognize what it means to anyone other than themselves.

The Confederate Flag is racist and its continued use only serves as a reminder that racism is alive and well within our society. Take it down.