Thahabu

Countless events of police brutality and social uprising have been throwing my anxiety through roof. The current political and racial climate in this country is exposing the true faces of my so-called friends. I’ll be grateful for it in the long run, but it’s still disheartening to learn that the people who I thought cared about me think they can dictate how I and others react to oppression.

Back in August, two girls from the Seattle chapter of Black Lives Matter disturbed a Bernie Sanders rally to demand that he be more explicit about his plans for addressing the civil rights of black people in the U.S.. While one girl broke out in tears yelling, “My life matters,” she was met with people shouting, “Fuck you’” and “How dare you call me a racist?” from the mostly white, supposedly liberal crowd.

I stand with those young ladies, regardless how they handled themselves, and I made a Facebook status about it for everyone to see. One of these friends commented on the status saying she disagreed. She even had the nerve to reference my “The Right to Be a Black Girl” essay as an example of how black people should express anger: “She’s angry, and rightfully so, but I don’t think she’s channeling it correctly. She just sounds angry, not necessarily smart about what she’s doing. Like, you’re angry, but that article you wrote about misogynoir was educated and eloquent. I’m not getting that from her.”

First off, the fact that she even referenced my essay—that totally rejects policing the way black girls express themselves, especially when it comes to anger or sadness—tells me that the point of the piece totally missed her. Saying Black people need to be “eloquent” and “educated” when fighting for our rights is racist and, frankly, stupid.

I told her she had no right to tell black people how to “channel” their anger when they’re grieving the deaths and brutalization of their people. Just because I sounded “eloquent” in my essay doesn’t mean I always sound that way, particularly when I’m talking about state-sanctioned violence.

She also said the protesters were tarnishing the the public’s perspective of the Black Lives Matter movement, as if liberation movements don’t have different sectors. Just as the civil rights movement included more militant groups like the Black Panthers and the non-violent teachings of Martin Luther King, there are going to be different groups using different strategies to achieve the same goal: freedom.

Her ideas suggest there is an “appropriate” way to demand human rights, that there is a “proper” way to ask someone to stop killing you.

I don’t have to sound educated when I’m distraught about tragedy, and neither did those girls. All I got from those comments is, if I ever ever became unapologetically irate about the denial of humanity to black people, she wouldn’t stand with me, simply because it doesn’t fit her idea of how people should fight for their lives. That was heartbreaking.

I’ve been avoiding her ever since. ♦