Deconstructing Racism

Question 1

as we all know

Answer 1

about the police brutality and racism caught on our cameras we still haven’t received justice for the victims of this crime committed by police officers and other racist people.

Question 2

Along with

Answer 2

news companies coining the titles making black people seem like we were a threat when we are not but we have way on how to deconstruct racism one headline at a time by Baratunde Rafiq Thurston

Question 3

America insists on teaching me and reminding me what it means to…

Answer 3

be black in america.

Question 4

In december 2018, I’m with

Answer 4

my fiancé in the surburbs of Wisconsin.

Question 5

we are visiting her parents.

Answer 5

both of whom are white, which makes her white. That’s how it works, I don’t make the rules here

Question 6

She’s had some drinks

Answer 6

so i drive us in her parents’ car,

Question 7

and we get pulled over by the police.

Answer 7

I’m scared. i turn on the flashing lights to indicate compliance.

Question 8

i pull over…

Answer 8

slowly under the brightest streetlight i can find in case i need witnesses or dashcam footage.

Question 9

we got out

Answer 9

• my identification

- the car registration

Question 10

lay it out

Answer 10

in the open

• roll down the windows
• my hands are placed on the steering wheel

Question 11

all before the officer exits the

Answer 11

vehicle.

Question 12

this is how to stay

Answer 12

alive.

Question 13

As we wait, i think about these headlines

Answer 13

Police shoot another unarmed black person - and i don’t want to join them.

Question 14

the good news is…

Answer 14

our officer is friendly.

Question 15

she told us our tags were expired.

Answer 15

So to all the white parents out there, if your child is involved with a person whose skin tone is rated Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or darker you need to get that car inspected,

Question 16

update the paperwork every time we visit.

Answer 16

that’s just common courtesy

Question 17

I got

Answer 17

lucky.

Question 18

I got a law

Answer 18

enforcement professional

Question 19

i survived something that should not require

Answer 19

survival

Question 20

and I think about this series of stories

Answer 20

“Police shoot another unarmed black person”

Question 21

And that season when these stories

Answer 21

popped up everywhere.

Question 22

i would see a video of a police

Answer 22

officer gunning down someone who looked just like me.

Question 23

it was a

Answer 23

confusing time.

Question 24

those stories kept on

Answer 24

popping up.

Question 25

But in 2018

Answer 25

those stories got changed out for a different type of story, stories like

Question 26

, “White Woman Calls Cops On Black Woman Waiting For an Uber.”

Answer 26

that was brooklyn becky

Question 27

Then there was, “White Woman Calls Police On Eight-Year-Old Selling Water.”

Answer 27

that was PERMIT PATTY

Question 28

And i contend that these stories of living while black

Answer 28

are actually progress.

Question 29

we used to find out after the

Answer 29

extrajudicial police killings.

Question 30

now we’re getting a video of people

Answer 30

calling 911. we’re moving upstream

Question 31

closer to the problem

Answer 31

closer to the solution.

Question 32

so i started a collection of

Answer 32

as many of these stories as i could find, seeking understanding

Question 33

i realized the process of

Answer 33

diagramming sentences to understand these headlines.

Question 34

and i want to thank my Sidwell English teacher Erica Berry and all

Answer 34

english teachers. you have given us the tools to fight for our freedom.

Question 35

what i found was a process to break down the headline and understand the consistent layers in each one:

Answer 35

a subject takes an action against a target engaged in some activity

Question 36

so that “White woman calls police on eight-year-old black girl” is the same as

Answer 36

“white man calls police on black woman using neighborhood Pool”

Question 37

is the same as “Woman calls cops on black oregon lawmaker campaigning in her district”

Answer 37

They’re the same.

Question 38

diagramming the sentences allowed me to

Answer 38

diagram the white supremacy which allowed such sentences to be true, and i will pause to define my terms.

Question 39

when i say “white supremacy”

Answer 39

i’m not talking about Nazis or white power activists, and i’m not saying that all white people are racist.

Question 40

what i’m referring to is a

Answer 40

system of structural advantage that favors white people over others in

• social
• economic
• and political areas

Question 41

It’s what Bryan Stevenson at the Equal Justice Initiative calls the narrative of

Answer 41

racial difference, the story we told ourselves to justify slavery and Jim Crow and mass incarceration and beyond.

Question 42

So when I saw this pattern repeat, I got angry

Answer 42

but I also got inspired to create a game, a game of words that would allow me to transform this traumatic exposure into more of a healing experience. I’m going to talk you through the game.

Question 43

The first level is a training level, and I need your participation.

Answer 43

Our objective: to determine if this is real or fake? Did this happen or not?

Question 44

Here is this example:

Answer 44

“Catholic University Law Liberian Calls Police On Student For ‘Being Argumentative.” Clap your hands if you think this is real. Clap your hands if you think this is fake.

Question 45

The reals have it, unfortunately, and a point of

Answer 45

information, being argumentative in a law library is the exact right place to do that. This student should be promoted to professor. The training level complete, so we move on to the real levels.

Question 46

Level one

Answer 46

our objective is simple: reverse the roles.

Question 47

That means “Woman Calls Cops on Black Oregon Lawmaker”

Answer 47

becomes “Black Oregon Lawmaker Calls Cops On Woman.” That means “White Man Calls Police On Black Women Using Neighborhood Pool” becomes “Black Woman Calls Police on White Man Using Neighborhood Pool.” How do you like them reverse racist apples?

Question 48

That’s it, level one complete, and so we level up to level two, where our objective

Answer 48

is to increase the believability of the reversal.

Question 49

Let’s face it, a black woman calling the police on a white man using a pool isn’t absurd enough, but what if that white man was trying to touch her hair without asking,

Answer 49

or maybe he was making oat milk while riding a unicycle, or maybe he’s just talking over everyone in a meeting. We’ve all been there, right? Seriously, we’ve all been there.

Question 50

So that’s it, level two complete. But it comes with a warning:

Answer 50

: simply reversing the flow of injustice is not justice. That is vengeance, that is not our mission, that’s a different game so we level up to level three, where the objective is to change the action, also known as “calling the police is not your only option OMG, what is wrong with you people.

Question 51

And I need to pause the game to remind us of the structure.

Answer 51

A subject takes an action against a target engaged in some activity.

Question 52

“White Woman Calls Police on Black Real Estate Investor Inspecting His Property.”

Answer 52

“California Safeway Calls Cops On Black Woman Donating Food To The Homeless.” “Gold Club Twice Calls Cops On Black Women For Playing Too Slow.”

Question 53

In all these cases,

Answer 53

the subject is usually white, the target is usually black, and the activities are anything, from sitting in a Starbucks to using the wrong type of barbecue to napping to walking “agitated” on the way to work, which I just call “walking to work.”

Question 54

All of these activities

Answer 54

add up to living.

Question 55

Our existence is being interpreted as crime.

Answer 55

Now, this is the obligatory moment in the presentation where I have to say, not everything is about race.

Question 56

Crime is a thing,

Answer 56

should be reported, but ask yourself, do we need armed men to show up and resolve this situation because when they show up for me, it’s different.

Question 57

We know that police officers use force

Answer 57

more with black people than the white people, and we are learning the role of 911 calls in this.

Question 58

Thanks to preliminary research from the Center for Policing Equity,

Answer 58

we’re learning that in some cities, most of the interactions between cops and citizens is due to 911 calls, not officer-initiated stops, and most of the violence, the use of force by police on citizens, is in response to those calls. Further, when those officers responding to calls use force, that increases in areas where the percentage of the white population has also increased, aka gentrification, aka unicycles and oat milk, aka when BBQ Becky feels threatened, she becomes a threat to me in my own neighborhood, which forces me and people like me to police ourselves. We quiet ourselves, we walk on eggshells, we maybe pull over to the side of the road under the brightest light we can find so that our murder might be caught cleanly on camera, and we do this because we live in a system which white people can too easily call on deadly force to ensure their comfort.

Question 59

I am here because I was loved and invested in and protected and lucky, because I went to the right schools,

Answer 59

and yet, I walk around in fear, because I know that someone seeing me as a threat can become a threat to my life, and I am tired. I am tired of carrying this invisible burden of other people’s fears, and many of us are, and we shouldn’t have to, because we can change the action, which changes the story, which changes the system that allows these stories to happen. Systems are just collective stories we all buy into. When we change them, we write a better reality for us all to be a part of. I am asking us to use our power to choose. I am asking us to level up.