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Black Americans’ Threat from Whites Wearing Badges

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Lee A. Daniels

By Lee A. Daniels
NNPA Columnist

 

Is Raymond Wilford, a 26-year-old Black Seattle resident, not dead or seriously injured only because the White mall security officer who maced and then arrested him didn’t have a gun?

I’ll come to the deeply suspicious police killings of Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri; of Eric Garner, in New York City; and of Ezell Ford, in Los Angeles momentarily. But it’s first worth considering what happened to Raymond Wilford on Saturday, August 9 as he walked to meet a friend at Seattle’s Westlake Mall.

His story reinforces what those three deadly incidents have dramatically illustrated: the potential threat from White men wearing badges of some sort of “authority” Black Americans – especially Black American males – face every day.

According to news reports, which include a video of the incident posted online, as Wilford approached the area of the mall where a peaceful pro-Palestinian rally was underway, he was suddenly accosted by a White man who was shirtless, and, witnesses later said, had been harassing the demonstrators with racist slurs. Much of the brief confrontation between Wilford and the man was captured in pictures and a video taken by a photographer who had been covering the demonstration.

Wilford, taken aback, raised his fists as if prepared to defend himself against the man whom he said was saying “a bunch of racial stuff” to him and had also raised his hands as if to fight. But neither man threw any punches.

That’s when the White mall security guard appeared and, according to Wilford and several witnesses, completely ignored the shirtless White man who was yelling and actually walking toward him, raised the can of pepper spray to Wilford’s face and sprayed him. In the video, witnesses can be heard yelling to the security cop, “You maced the wrong guy!”

The video also shows the security guard grabbing Wilford, now disabled by the pepper spray, by the arm and pulling him into the mall, the both of them followed by witnesses shouting that Wilford had done nothing wrong. A Seattle police officer, who had arrived late to the confrontation, told the witnesses not to interfere. Meanwhile, the White shirtless man, who has not been identified, just walked away.

Wilford told the Seattle Times that in the mall, he was given baby shampoo to wash his face, then after 25 minutes released at the order of a Seattle police officer. Wilford, a father of two who moved to Seattle a from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, said the security guard apologized to him before he was released, but that he’s considering filing a complaint.

For Raymond Wilford the White man with a badge of “authority” he encountered was armed – with a racist imagination, but, fortunately, also only with a can of pepper spray. So, the security guard’s completely mis-perceiving a potentially serious situation did not have serious consequences.

That assessment isn’t meant to diminish the personal anger and humiliation of these kind of encounters we know Blacks and other people of color constantly endure from “Whites with badges” in department and other kinds of stores, airports, schools and college campuses, and so on. It is to underscore the validity of a series of questions:

For example, if that Seattle mall security guard had had a gun, would Raymond Wilford’s name now be on the long list of unarmed Black men, women and children killed by “Whites with badges” in questionable circumstances? Broadening the focus of our questioning, does the desire to “control” Black people – or the fear of black people – that drove the security guard to such rash and wrong action also infect some number of police officers in localities all across America? Is that, at bottom, why Michael Brown, and Eric Garner, and Ezell Ford were killed?

After all, neither Michael Brown nor Ezell Ford was engaged in any wrongdoing when stopped by the police; and neither of them had any history of being a “troublemaker.” Neither did Eric Garner, whom police officials said was known to sell loose cigarettes on the streets of his neighborhood – a minor violation of the state penal code.

So, how is it that in all three of these instances, this one Black teenager and these two Black men ended up being killed by White police officers?

I suspect we already know the answer to that question in both these three specific circumstances and in the longer trail of innocent Black people being killed by White police officers. I think I see both those elements of White racism – fear and the desire to control – on tragic display in the video of Raymond Wilford’s unjustified arrest, which he survived, and in the video of Eric Garner’s unjustified arrest, which he did not.

  

Lee A. Daniels is a longtime journalist based in New York City. His essay, “Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Great Provocateur,” appears in Africa’s Peacemakers: Nobel Peace Laureates of African Descent (2014), published by Zed Books. His new collection of columns, Race Forward: Facing America’s Racial Divide in 2014, is available at www.amazon.com.

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Activism

COMMENTARY: My Sunday School Lesson with President Jimmy Carter

When I saw him, Carter was spry, quick-witted, and kind. The former president wore a bolo string tie anchored by an eight-stone turquoise clasp that dangled below the neck, as he began the lesson on the subject of grief and the death of his 28-year-old grandson. Drawing from scripture (on this particular day, a passage on the persecution of the Thessalonians), Carter said such moments were simply tests of one’s faith, endurance, and hope.

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Photo courtesy of The White House.
Photo courtesy of The White House.

By Emil Guillermo

President Jimmy Carter, at age 100, didn’t make it to the new year, nor the next presidential inaugural.

I’ve always been a big Carter fan, so the news of his passing brought me back to a happy place.

Plains, Georgia, 2016.

I was visiting family not far from the land of presidential peanut farmers. I found myself the only full-blooded Filipino in the room at Maranatha Baptist Church, the spiritual home base for the esteemed No. 39.

President Carter looked fine that Sunday in Plains. But especially fine for his job on that day– to give the Sunday school lesson on what coincidentally was the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

Carter’s health made headlines in 2015 when he disclosed having both brain and liver cancer. It was thought he had just two or three weeks to live.

Everyone’s always underestimating Carter. After treatments, Carter’s forecast turned out not to be true.

When I saw him, Carter was spry, quick-witted, and kind. The former president wore a bolo string tie anchored by an eight-stone turquoise clasp that dangled below the neck, as he began the lesson on the subject of grief and the death of his 28-year-old grandson. Drawing from scripture (on this particular day, a passage on the persecution of the Thessalonians), Carter said such moments were simply tests of one’s faith, endurance, and hope.

“We lack inspiration, we lack the idealism to set our goals high. We’ve been satisfied with mediocrity. And I include myself,” Carter said. People want an average life, instead of aspiring to be, “outstanding, or superb or brilliant or exceptional.”

“I’m afraid that our country and its effect on people of other nations has suffered from the aftermath of 9/11,” Carter said. He “didn’t want to brag,” but said his goal for the country was always to be “superb and be a country that promoted peace and human rights…While I was in office, we never dropped a bomb, lost a missile, or fired a bullet.”

“Since 9/11,” Carter said, “we’ve pretty much abandoned our commitment to human rights as we reacted to terrorism.” He lamented that Afghanistan had become the longest war in American history, a direct outcome of 9/11, as well as the invasion of Iraq, which Carter called “unnecessary.”

Carter, whose administration took us out of an energy crisis, also pointed out how the U.S. is still suffering from a financial crisis that has exposed a deep inequality that has divided us as a people.

“We’ve become distrustful of people who are different from us,” Carter said. “We used to be a proud heterogeneous nation…and now we are fearful…and we’ve become poorer as a country.”

Carter won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002; a fact that belies how many conservatives view his efforts to find a peace in the Middle East as “anti-Semitic.”

Jimmy Carter’s worldview requires open minds to come together. Too often. these days, that seems nearly impossible.

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator He was the first Filipino American to host a national news show in 1989 at NPR’s “All Things Considered.” See Emil Amok’s Takeout on www.patreon.com/emilamok Subscribe to him on YouTube.com/@emilamok1

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Activism

In 1974, Then-Gov. Jimmy Carter Visited the Home of Oakland Black Black Political Activist Virtual Murrell While Running for President

civil rights icon Georgia State Representative Julian Bond said that Carter, along with governors Reuben Askew of Florida, Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, and Terry Sanford of North Carolina, were all a part of what was being dubbed the “New South” and so supported civil rights and voting rights for African Americans.

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Virtual Murrell chats with Jimmy Carter two years before Carter was elected president in 1976. Courtesy photo.
Virtual Murrell chats with Jimmy Carter two years before Carter was elected president in 1976. Courtesy photo.

By Virtual T. Murrell
Special to The Post

On his way to seeking the presidency, then-Gov. Jimmy Carter visited the Bay Area in his capacity as campaign chairman of the Democratic National Committee in March of 1974.

A friend of mine, Bill Lynch, a Democrat from San Francisco, had been asked to host Carter, who was then relatively unknown. Seeking my advice on the matter, I immediately called my friend, civil rights icon Georgia State Representative Julian Bond, for his opinion.

Bond said that Carter, along with governors Reuben Askew of Florida, Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, and Terry Sanford of North Carolina, were all a part of what was being dubbed the “New South” and so supported civil rights and voting rights for African Americans.

Based on Julian’s comments, I agreed to host the governor. We picked him up at the San Francisco Airport. With his toothy smile, I could tell almost right away that he was like no other politician I had ever met. On his arrival, there was a message telling him to go to the VIP room, where he met then-Secretary of State Jerry Brown.

After leaving the airport, we went to a reception in his honor at the home of Paul “Red” Fay, who had served as the acting secretary of the Navy under President John Kennedy. (Carter, it turned out, had been himself a 1946 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a submariner in the 1950s.)

The following afternoon, the Niagara Movement Democratic Club hosted a reception for Carter, which was a major success. Carter indicated that he would be considering running for president and hoped for our support if he did so.

As the event was winding down, I witnessed the most amazing moment: Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, was in the kitchen with my former wife, Irene, wearing an apron and busting suds! You would have to have been there to see it: The first and last time a white woman cleaned up my kitchen.

A few months later, President Richard Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal. He was succeeded by his vice president, Gerald Ford.

On the heels of that scandal, Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976 represented integrity and honesty at a point in America’s history when he was just what the nation needed to lead as president of the United States.

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Activism

Life After Domestic Violence: What My Work With Black Women Survivors Has Taught Me

Survivors sometimes lack awareness about the dynamics of healthy relationships, particularly when one has not been modeled for them at home. Media often minimizes domestic abuse, pushing the imagery of loyalty and love for one’s partner above everything — even harm.

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Paméla Michelle Tate, Ph.D.
Paméla Michelle Tate, Ph.D.

By Paméla Michelle Tate, Ph.D., California Black Media Partners

It was the Monday morning after her husband had a “situation” involving their child, resulting in food flying in the kitchen and a broken plate.

Before that incident, tensions had been escalating, and after years of unhappiness, she finally garnered enough courage to go to the courthouse to file for a divorce.

She was sent to an on-site workshop, and the process seemed to be going well until the facilitator asked, “Have you experienced domestic abuse?” She quickly replied, “No, my husband has never hit me.”

The facilitator continued the questionnaire and asked, “Has your husband been emotionally abusive, sexually abusive, financially abusive, technologically abusive, or spiritually abusive?”

She thought about how he would thwart her plans to spend time with family and friends, the arguments, and the many years she held her tongue. She reflected on her lack of access to “their money,” him snooping in her purse, checking her social media, computer, and emails, and the angry blowups where physical threats were made against both her and their children.

At that moment, she realized she had been in a long-suffering domestic abuse relationship.

After reading this, you might not consider the relationship described above as abusive — or you might read her account and wonder, “How didn’t she know that she was in an abusive relationship?”

Survivors sometimes lack awareness about the dynamics of healthy relationships, particularly when one has not been modeled for them at home. Media often minimizes domestic abuse, pushing the imagery of loyalty and love for one’s partner above everything — even harm.

After working with survivors at Black Women Revolt Against Domestic Violence in San Francisco, California, I have learned a great deal from a variety of survivors. Here are some insights:

Abuse thrives in isolation.
Societal tolerance of abusive behavior is prevalent in the media, workplaces, and even churches, although there are societal rules about the dos and don’ts in relationships.

Survivors are groomed into isolation.
Survivors are emotionally abused and manipulated almost from the beginning of their relationships through love-bombing. They are encouraged or coerced into their own little “love nest,” isolating them from family and friends.

People who harm can be charismatic and fun.
Those outside the relationship often struggle to believe the abuser would harm their partner until they witness or experience the abusive behavior firsthand.

Survivors fear judgment.
Survivors fear being judged by family, friends, peers, and coworkers and are afraid to speak out.

Survivors often still love their partners.
This is not Stockholm Syndrome; it’s love. Survivors remember the good times and don’t want to see their partner jailed; they simply want the abuse to stop.

The financial toll of abuse is devastating.
According to the Allstate Foundation’s study, 74% of survivors cite lack of money as the main reason for staying in abusive relationships. Financial abuse often prevents survivors from renting a place to stay. Compounding this issue is the lack of availability of domestic abuse shelters.

The main thing I have learned from this work is that survivors are resilient and the true experts of their own stories and their paths to healing. So, when you encounter a survivor, please take a moment to acknowledge their journey to healing and applaud their strength and progress.

About the Author

Paméla Michelle Tate, Ph.D., is executive director of Black Women Revolt Against Domestic Violence in San Francisco.

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