On April 20th, 1999, two students named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered their school armed to the teeth and murdered twelve of their classmates and one of their teachers. It was a worldwide event, fascinating in its calculated brutality and terrifying in its implications. In effect, the Columbine Massacre gave birth to the twenty-first century; it was the first symptom of a diseased mentality that has grown to divide America and propagate the scared, knee-jerk-violent, paranoid and xenophobic culture that has grown from a silent undercurrent to a deafening roar.
I bring up Columbine because it established a constant looming dread that at any time, someone could walk into my classroom and shoot me. It made me feel unsafe within my community, which was something I had never felt before growing up in Littleton, Colorado just a few miles away from Columbine. Harris and Klebold were the embodiment of dissatisfaction with the White American Dream, and the first violent reaction of many.
This is by far the closest (and not even close at all) I have ever come to understanding the aspect of the African American double consciousness in which they must live in constant fear for their bodies. Ta-Nehisi Coates, in his incredible essay “Letter To My Son,” puts it so: “In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body— it is heritage.”
And it’s true. Two men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castille, were murdered this week by white police officers. Arguments have been bantered back and forth as to why this has happened and what should have been done differently, but I have no interest in discussing that here. All that matters is that these men’s deaths are awash in a sea of similar incidents in which white police officers have used excessive force against black males. That they happened in 2016, and were filmed for the whole world to see, is what makes them particularly shocking and sad. It’s terrible to say, but this exposure is absolutely necessary if any change is going to be affected.
Violence against the black body is absolutely American heritage. America was built on slavery. As Killer Mike says in his song "Reagan," “...free labor is the cornerstone of US economics.” The path from slaves to Freedmen to segregated citizens to civil rights activists to “equal” citizens has been wrought with African American sacrificial blood. The five officers who were murdered in Dallas on Thursday got swept up in the same churning sea of violence as Alton Brown and Philando Castille. They were sacrifices also.
I read an essay by Michael Eric Dyson in which he diagnoses the problem as distance. In his words, we as white Americans “…are given a pair of binoculars that see black life from a distance, never with the texture of intimacy.” This is also true. I suppose upon further consideration that I always considered myself different than other white folks because I actively sought a better understanding of African American culture. My methods were hardly innovative; my main route of discovery was through hip-hop. My introduction to hip-hop was “The Marshall Mathers LP” by Eminem, released in 2000 when I was in eighth grade. Eminem was a diplomat, an ambassador to the hip-hop world for outsiders to the culture. Though he was by no means the first white rapper, he was by far the most successful in respectfully integrating the tropes and tenets of hip-hop into a package that greatly appealed to white suburban kids like me.
I think it’s important that my introduction to this wonderful component of African American culture was through a white man. Like Elvis, Eric Clapton, and The Rolling Stones before him, Eminem re-appropriated this art form and translated it for white culture. But, importantly, through Eminem I discovered the black artists by whom he was inspired and then stumbled upon the vast expanse of rap music that gave me a first person view into a culture of which I had little understanding. It was, and still is, fascinating. My efforts were not wholly altruistic, however. Something about hip-hop made me feel cool for listening and allowed me to adopt aspects of it that suited me. But my adoption came without risk. There was no risk of me getting murdered at a routine traffic stop, or discriminated against for the way I looked or acted; I was able to re-appropriate aspects of African American culture to my benefit without having to contribute anything to it. And therein lies the problem. I am absolutely no better than any other white dude; I have done nothing to actively combat the treatment of African Americans suffering at the hands of institutional racism. I have only taken from them.
Something is very wrong in America. Something is toxic, and is actively poisoning us. We’re turning on each other. I’m not intelligent enough to put a finer point on that. I couldn’t tell you exactly why it’s happening; but my effort with this is to direct you to a few thinkers that have said all this far better than I ever could. I hope that one day there can be forgiveness. For my part, I apologize. I will try to do better in the future, and give back.
Also: if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you watch the music video embedded here for Killer Mike's "Reagan." It's amazing.
