In my blog of March 7th, 2018 titled ‘‘Protecting our Children and Grandchildren: ‘Hope in Black Possibility’’, I outlined some of the thinking by identified leaders in the field, of the status of Black men in society and how this position of Black men was orchestrated. I also put forward the view echoed by Ta-Nehisi Coates, that ‘racism’, the privileging of White people at the expense of those who are non-White, warps our self-identity, consumes our energies in terms of adapting to it and seeking to confront it, and if we are unsuccessful in that, limits us which is the intention, and confines us to a state which ‘fits’ the racist perceptions, ‘confirms’ them, assures the creators and perpetrators of such ideologies, that they are ‘right’ in that we are inferior. Constitutionally unable to fend for ourselves: Needing to be conditioned and managed- supervised. In today’s blog, I would like to illustrate how the power to define us as Black men-if we allow it, do not confront it and transform it-shows itself in the day to day life of Black men.
Robyn Maynard (2017) in her excellent book, Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present, attempts to put a face on systems and institutions and how they impact on Black bodies. She takes us on a journey from slavery, segregation in Canada’s Jim Crow and from chattel to criminal. Maynard explores how such systems and institutions aided ‘the impoverishing of Black communities…The making of Black poverty and precarity did not occur by one simple process, but is the result of numerous State policies and agencies that have acted in concert on heterogeneous and diverse Black populations’ (p.82). Maynard shows the reader how the network of agencies that make up the criminal justice system in Canada have ‘contributed to unparalleled powers to surveil and control Black movement and curtail Black freedom. As fear of Blackness (heightens), increasingly articulated as fear of crime, state powers of criminalization continue to be consolidated and violent technologies of surveillance and punishment continue to have enormous powers over the lives of Black folks’ (p 114).
Maynard acknowledges that such attempts to confine Black people to ‘their rightful place’ have been contested by Black individuals and communities, and our allies, over generations with varied success. Maynard also addresses ‘Slavery’s Afterlife in the Child Welfare System’ and states that ‘child welfare agencies have played a significant role in the policing of Black life’ and then outlines how, in terms of Black children and youth entering into State care, how they are managed whilst in care and their emergence from care. Maynard concludes her book with a focus on the education system and its impact on Black youth.
Maynard successfully puts a face on systemic and institutional racism in the areas of focus in her book. She breathes life into a recognisable form the reader can grasp through vivid, creative and evidence-based research that reduces often incoherent and contradictory concepts of systemic and institutional racism that appear to have limited use in explaining my reality as a Black man in today’s society, into an immediately accessible mirror where I can see painfully, how I feel, am seen by others, and see myself. It is an uncomfortable reading but a necessary one. For me to humbly attempt to shine light on a possible path ahead for others, I must be able to see it myself?
This is why the New York Times best seller written by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015) in the form of a letter to his teenage son, titled, Between the World and Me, is required reading for all Black men and Black Youth. The father writes, ‘That the falsehood of race damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of Black women and men-bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered…’ What is it like to inhabit a Black body and find a way to live within it? The letter to his son attempts to answer the question posed. Fathers need to read the book to their sons or ask their youth to read it to them, and discuss it with them. If reading text is a difficulty, have a friend or relative put it on tape and listen to it together. Share it. History is alive. It breathes, has a touch, a smell, can influence, change things when recalled, can inspire, can teach, can allow us to transform our thinking and engage with others of a like mind.
Taking command of our lives may be a novel thought for some of us who may feel because of our circumstances in life, poverty, homelessness, exclusion, being imprisoned, having our intellectual and physical abilities questioned in some way, being persistently downgraded and reduced to ‘nihility’, or we may indeed have resources-money, status, influence, but in order to obtain them one had to perform in particular ways which bolstered stereotypes about Black men and reduced you, yourself, to a fraudulently empty vessel, having the outward appearance of a Black man, but no substance to warrant the claim to being one of worth as judged by our ancestors and our histories. This is not to claim a certain model of ideal Black manhood: a caricature. We come in all shapes and sizes and colours. We have complex and differing histories. We are beautifully and uniquely diverse in looks, thought, politics, talents, passions, ways of behaviour and the list is endless. We are constantly evolving as circumstances change around us and we respond to those, as we must to move beyond survival and lay claim to our rights as global citizens and to accept the obligations, responsibilities and privileges of such status.
What we have in common however is a thread of connectivity related to how Black people have been packaged by non Blacks for a purpose. We need to know and understand our histories in order to decide how individually and collectively we move forward from today. How do we change this and live that changed mode of thought and action? Can we and still survive? Whether we like it or not, whether we recognise it or not, that is part of our identity.
In next week’s blog, I continue our four-part journey exploring some further snippets of research and looking at some of our behaviour that aids and abets the perceptions of ideologies of hatred and racism directed towards us as Black men.