Words Like Democracy, Freedom and Justice...

I often struggle with the English language.It is a tongue that has been forked for so very long that there are times when I must question even the words that escape my own mouth. English as spoken in the United States is incapable of understanding Black vernacular as resistance, always attempting to bend our tongues to its will, It is a deceptive language that has been wielded as a weapon -- replacing words like massacre with riot -- genocide with disappearance. As author David Mura has pointed out the vocabulary in this country is rooted in an effort to "repress black experience and identity".

Therefore, I am sometimes at a loss for words, particularly now as I try to articulate the very obvious hypocrisy that I am witnessing from political leaders and the media, as protestors in the United States and now the world stand with Black communities that have long faced police violence and all manner of oppression. Protestors are being cautioned to be nonviolent, and the media (as if they have a say) give their approval for the "peaceful" protests while simultaneously covering only the cities where there has been property damage and violence while politicians ignore the destruction that their policies and silence have reaped upon Black communities in these cities.

The fact is most major cities in the United States have areas -- entire blocks and whole neighborhoods where chaos has reigned for decades. Yet, this seems to be a tolerable sort of anarchy. Around my way, corrupt cops and politicians, drugs and poverty, and now the Rona (COVID) have converged and formed a perfect storm of tumult. Here, people are sometimes preyed upon by others who according to James Baldwin, "...could not discover any principled reason for not becoming a criminal," as they have daily witnessed the hypocrisy of White people and leadership (sometimes the same but not always) whom Baldwin tells us, have no moral ground to stand upon. These are the same individuals attempting to lecture us all about civility and propriety right now. However, most of us, Black folks, are born understanding the emptiness of their language.

Words like "democracy", "freedom", "justice" and "peace" fall flat, never resonating for us the way they do for White people because words lie. They have dual meanings, they have no meanings, they defile, incriminate and spoil. When our youth run afoul of the law they are "criminals", not the children or teenagers that they truly are. In this country's language they become "offenders", a designation heard so often that it rings like an unearned nickname. Still, even the children know that there have been far greater crimes and offenses done to us than any of which they themselves could conceive. For, nothing can diminish one particular memory -- the recollection of the greatest of crimes -- the stealing of our bodies which is never really called theft. Now it appears that again, we must grapple with their attempts to harness even our spirits.