Today, when I thanked President Obama for signing an act to cap the amount students have to payback on student loans to 10%, I received this hateful Twitter response from screen name @joeboogersbiggz that called for "death to our nation's leader and all politicians...to have their blood run through the streets..." Thankfully it was deleted by Twitter, but "what's seen can't be unseen."
 | Joe Booger Biggs (@JoeBoogerBiggz) |
@awakenlibrarian Continue to kill Obama supporters and Obama voters! Kill all the politicians now! Spill their blood in the streets now! | |
And, now I worry...for our leader and country, for my sons (who are mixed race) and I get an unsettling feeling. Who knew some of our citizens would turn a simple "thank you for your help" into an atrociously ugly moment? This Aquarius of violence and hatred is seeping out at a rate that stifles my revolutionary thoughts of improving the daily injustices done unto anybody. Though I don't like a lot of what our elected leaders are doing, never once did I think to murder them...to return to a barbaric mode of thinking that toppled kingdoms and wiped out civilizations. And though I'm a rebel, with just cause, my philosophy is somewhere in between Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, John Locke and Gandhi. I have to believe reason and enlightenment will change the thoughts of radicals and simmer the unjust passions of the ignorant, who use racial slurs, slain the innocent and call for the blood of our leaders.
This is the preface I will use for my latest find by Cord Jefferson, who poignantly penned my exact frustrations regarding racism. You see, I've always been the token "black" friend, the girl who's twice as intelligent if not more than her Caucasian sisters but still can't land a "dream job" by word-of-mouth like my paler peers, or a woman, who dates a guy based on the manner in which he treats me and not just because "he's Black." (or White, Asian, Indian, British, French, etc. because there's good and bad of every race. So put whatever label you want in the blank!)
WE, AS INTELLECTS, ARE EXHAUSTED DISCUSSING THE INJUSTICES OF RACISM...OR SEXISM...OR ANY "-ISM" THAT FITS THE UNJUST TREATMENT OF ANY PERSON, ESPECIALLY REPEATED DISCUSSIONS WITHOUT SIGNIFICANT CHANGE!
To use Jefferson's words from his latest article on "The Racism Beat":
I’m ready for people in positions of power at magazines and newspapers and movie studios to recalibrate their understanding of what it means to talk about race in the first place. If America would like to express that it truly values and appreciates the voices of its minorities, it will listen to all their stories, not just the ones reacting to its shortcomings and brutality.
If this doesn’t eventually happen, I wonder how many more writers of color will come to the conclusion, as my colleague did, that this life we’ve made for ourselves is unsustainable. How many essays can go up before fatigue becomes anger becomes insanity? How many op-ed columns before you can feel the gruesomeness of trying to defend another dead black kid slowly hollowing you out? How many different ways can you find to say that you’re a human being?
If you’re black and your beat is to offer your thoughts and opinions on the degradation of black Americans, you’ll never want for steady work. A steady mind is not guaranteed.
Cord Jefferson, I thank you for your thoughts and inspiring this blog post. I hope to get the word of "exhausted racism" out there with you! Be well everyone!
