In The Matter of Black Live: Womanist Prose

IN THE MATTER OF BLACK LIVES: WOMANIST PROSE

©Arica L. Coleman 2020. All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, at SistahGurl Books

P.O. Box 3289 Wilmington, Delaware 19804.

Follow @ www.aricalcolemanphd.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021901797

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-883435-04-2

Trade paperback ISBN 13: 978-1-883435-02-8

E-book ISBN: 978-1-883435-03-5

Jacket and interior design by Stephanie Vance-Patience

Published in the United States by

I Womanist Publishing, an imprint of SistahGurl Books

Unless otherwise indicated, all in-text citations of book references

are taken from the Kindle format.

To my husband Tracy, my children Julienne (Steve), and Manny,

and my grandson Stephen,

You are my first, my last, my everything

And

To My People throughout the African Diaspora

"Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks’ humanity, our contributions to this society, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.

—Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi,

BLM Founding Sistahs

Foreword

By Marita Golden

In the Matter of Black Lives: Womanist Prose by Arica L. Coleman is a brilliant, energetic, and energizing meditation on Black history, American History, and the past decade of tumultuous, inspiring, radical and marginal change in this country we call America. Coleman is a scholar and public intellectual dedicated to relentless inquiry and the shattering of mythology and the challenging of conventional wisdom. As I read these essays which range from a journey to the plantation where her enslaved ancestors were held in bondage, to moving memorials to sheroes (journalist Gwen Ifill and Ida B. Wells among them) and heroes (W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin among many) to incisive political analysis that makes the past feel absolutely present, I wondered where else could a reader encounter discourse on Beyoncé, the mass murderer Dylan Roof, a discussion of the legacy of Black-Native relations, Black Lives Matter, discover the abolitionist Cassius Clay, whose namesake became Muhammad Ali, and a bracing examination of media coverage of Michelle Obama?

This is a book that is necessary for anyone who cares about this country, its past and especially its future. As I read these essays and as they stayed with me for days after, I thought how appropriate this collection would be for young people to read. Why should readers of Time Magazine, The Crisis and The Washington Post have all the fun and be the only ones to experience the exhilaration of witnessing a questioning and questing mind at work? These essays are jam-packed with historical facts, critical thinking, and the kind of contextual analysis that too few young minds are exposed to.

Coleman examines the major cultural and political schisms and changes of the last decade in essays that perfectly capture the frenzied roller coaster of change and retrenchment, the promise and failure of our political system and the courage of those who keep on pushing against it and forward every day, while keeping their eyes on the prize of justice and equality in a society addicted to instant gratification. This book is a map of where we have been and a GPS system for where we need to go, to survive, and to finally discover the America that has yet to be America to me.

Arica L. Coleman is an old-fashioned Race Woman whose vision is grounded in the search for integrity and respect, honesty and truth in public discourse, historical accounts and in the ways we as citizens live with one another. As readers we can answer the question Can I get a witness? with a resounding yes and thank Arica L. Coleman for witnessing and challenging and speaking what has been silenced, hidden, erased. This is a woman on fire. Arica, thank you for this collection.

May 2019

Introduction:

Long Story Short

We are all worthy; we are all significant and we all matter

because we exist.

–India Arie

Ihad no idea that when I began publishing political commentary at History News Network (HNN) during the historic 2008 Clinton-Obama presidential primary, that these essays were the building material for my second book. At that time I was a tenure-track assistant professor at a major research university struggling to complete my first book That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans, and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia with the mantra publish or perish weighing on my shoulders. ¹

The 2008 presidential primary officially began on January 20, 2007, when Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination. My brain said Yes to this historic moment, but my heart said No to HRC. Bill Clinton had used Black people as political pawns and played us like a banjo by duping us into believing that he was pro-Black and had our backs. Yet, much of the legislation enacted under his administration such as the 1994 Crime Bill and the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 reified stereotypes of Black pathology and caused untold devastation to Black families and communities. Frankly, I was not feeling HRC who as First Lady vocally supported many of her husband’s policies even characterizing Black youth as super predators based on a theory by political scientist John Dilulio of unbridled youth criminals terrorizing the streets, a theory which had been rejected by numerous academics. Dilulio would later recant his assertions but the damage had already been done. Consequently, numerous Black youths received life sentences based on Dilulio’s devastatingly erroneous theory. Notwithstanding, like everyone else, I knew that HRC had the nomination in the bag. My plan was to skip the political circus, pull the lever for HRC, if only to fulfil my voting obligation in the November general election, and keep it moving.²

But what a difference a year made. Obama won the Iowa Caucus, HRC did not seal the deal in February’s Super Tuesday primary sweep as was predicted, and by late March Slate Magazine created The Hillary Death Watch Widget which featured her cartoon image on a sinking ship. HRC’s inevitable win had turned into an inevitable defeat as Obama’s reach for the nomination was unstoppable.³

By this time, I was on primary election overdrive reading and listening to every political commentary and following every election poll as the Clinton-Obama contest thrusted gender, race, and class politics center stage like no other time in American history. While there was no shortage of excellent analysis (and some bad ones too), I believed a historical context of this historic moment from a womanist perspective was necessary as a corrective to the numerous blind spots evident in mainstream commentary. I dived head long into the political fray and soon my commentaries became classroom material on college campuses across the nation. Connecting the historical and contemporary dots to demonstrate to my readers that the past is prologue, or to borrow from HNN’s slogan Because the past is the present and the future too, was beyond thrilling.

By the summer of 2009, however, on the advice of a mentor who stated that senior university colleagues viewed the work as unscholarly, I abandoned writing historio-political commentary. Incidentally, I published and perished in spring 2013. Your work sucks: Tenure Denied, was the institution’s response to my body of award-winning work. It took a while, in fact several years to regain my confidence; to quiet the nagging voice in my head screaming You’re damaged goods, which I awoke to every morning because I no longer had a job to go to. But I kept writing and kept hoping that I would find my way back to myself. An invitation to contribute to Time Magazine’s The 25 Moments That Changed America in 2016 (I missed 2015 because I deleted the email thinking it was a subscription offer. What?) was the boost I needed to finally let go of the academy. Being an independent scholar suits me fine. And as they say the rest is history. Well herstory in my case.

It is now the year 2020 and what a rollercoaster ride it has been so far. There is a saying, When White America catches a cold, Black America catches pneumonia. At this moment Black America finds itself in survival mode as it struggles against a double pandemic: 1) the novel virus COVID-19, a worldwide pandemic which has had a disproportionate effect on Black communities due to disparities in the U.S. healthcare system; and 2) the legacy of structural racism (not so novel) resulting in the state sanctioned violence and murder of Blacks at the hands of police and white vigilantes for the crime of breathing while Black. As historian Peter Wallenstein opines, "Look up, in a dictionary, the definition of ‘pandemic.’ And ponder whether racism is not well characterized as such. It affects everyone. It kills many." Kareen Abdul- Jabbar expressed the same sentiment in a Los Angles Times op-ed regarding the fall out in the Black community after the murder of George Floyd.

COVID-19 has been slamming the consequences of all that [systemic racism] home as we die at a significantly higher rate than whites, are the first to lose our jobs, and watch helplessly as Republicans try to keep us from voting. Just as the slimy underbelly of institutional racism is being exposed, it feels like hunting season is open on blacks. If there was any doubt, President Trump’s recent tweets confirm the national zeitgeist as he calls protesters thugs and looters fair game to be shot. ⁴

The poison of anti-Black racism, like the novel virus, suffocates Black Americans both literally and figuratively so much so that our collective cry We Can’t Breathe has ignited protest across the nation and the world. Even ultra-rightwing Fox News commentator Sean Hannity experienced a moment of sanity during his radio and televised opinion broadcasts when he criticized white police officer Derek Chauvin who settled his knee on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man who allegedly purchased cigarettes from a convenience store in Minneapolis, Minnesota with a counterfeit $20 bill. Seventeen-year-old Darnella Frazier captured the 8 minutes and 46 seconds of the Memorial Day cold-blooded murder which immediately went viral on social media. The tape, to me, is devastating, Hannity stated. I watch it, I get angrier every time. In July of 2016 a video titled 23 Ways You Could Be Killed If You Are Black In America featured celebrities from numerous genres highlighting how normal everyday activities such as a routine traffic stop, jaywalking, selling CDs or loose cigarettes on the street, seeking help after a car accident, walking towards police, walking away from police, or wearing a hoodie can result in a death sentence. Added to this list are the current high profile cases of Rashad Brooks (Atlanta, Georgia) who fell asleep at a Wendy’s Drive Thru, Breonna Taylor (Louisville, Kentucky), for being at home during the execution of a suspicious no knock warrant (pun intended), Elijah McClain (Aurora, Colorado) for wearing a face mask outdoors in mid-August to stay warm as a result of his anemia, Ahmaud Arbery (Glynn County, Georgia) for jogging, and Jacob Blake Jr. (Kenosha, Wisconsin) for attempting to deescalate a fight between two women. Blake was shot in the back multiple times (and paralyzed) by an officer as he was getting into his car where three of his children were waiting to go to a birthday party.

In addition, the rise of indiscriminate calls by whites to the police for mundane things such as selling water in front of your own house while Black, BBQing while Black, sitting in Starbucks while Black, building a patio on the back of your own house while Black, and bird watching while Black has raised awareness of not only police overreach, but how the privilege of whiteness is weaponized against Black bodies. As Amy Cooper threatened birdwatcher Christian Cooper (no relation) in Central Park, I am going to call the police, she stated, and tell them that an African American man is threatening my life. It is within the context of this current movement for Black lives that I have compiled this collection of 40 short essays published from 2008-2020 (except for the first essay which was published in 2002) on a wide range of current issues faced by Black America from a historical and womanist perspective.

In the Matter of Black Lives: Womanist Prose unabashedly and unapologetically takes the humanity of Black people for granted. In these essays, presented in the order in which they were originally published (with added postscripts where updated information is available), I examine the ways in which structural racism underscores issues of gender, education, colonialism/neocolonialism, the environment, gun control, human rights, mental health, patriotism, protest, and religion to demonstrate that the struggle for Black liberation continues in this very hour. Abdul-Jabbar continued making the case for Black lives stating:

I don’t want to see stores looted or even buildings burn. But African Americans have been living in a burning building for many years, choking on the smoke as the flames burn closer and closer. Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands. But we have to stay vigilant, because it’s always still in the air.⁵

Indeed. Although Dr. King believed that riots were counterproductive, he nevertheless believed, A riot is the language of the unheard.

The long and short of womanism is this: it is not nor is it related to feminism despite the often quoted or rather misquoted definition of the term coined by Alice Walker in the early 1980s who asserted, Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender. Yet, while there are some commonalities between the two, womanism should not be conflated with feminism which continues to privilege the historical and cultural experiences of middle and upper class white women or with Black feminism, a Black expression of feminism which focuses on eradicating misogynoir within the Black community and beyond.⁶

First, as Walker states and I concur, An advantage of using ‘womanist’ is that, because it is from my own culture, I needn’t preface it with the word ‘Black’ (an awkward necessity and a problem I have with the word ‘feminist’) since Blackness is implicit in the term. Second, unlike feminism, on which theories and activism focus to eradicate sexism and patriarchy, womanism is a worldview which takes a holistic approach to societal ills. As Layli Maparyan asserts in The Womanist Reader, Womanism does not emphasize or privilege gender or sexism but "rather, it elevates all sites and forms of oppression, whether they are based on social-address categories like gender, race, or class, to a level of equal concern and action (emphasis mine)." Having grown-up within the throes of matriarchy on my paternal and maternal sides, and my life experiences as an adult, particularly within the academy, have left me wary of assumptions that women exercise power in more equitable ways than their male counterparts.⁷

Maparyan identifies five overarching themes of the womanist idea: anti-oppression, vernacular (anti-elitist), nonideological, communitarian (collective wellbeing), and spirituality. The latter cannot be overstated. Historically, spirituality has been part and parcel to the liberation struggles of Black peoples, what scholar Ana Louise Keating calls spiritualized politics. Or as South Asian Feminist Lata Mani aptly states, the personal is social, and spiritual. Indeed. womanism does not seek a seat at the table but rather like the historic Jesus, who entered into the halls of power and overturned the tables and seats of those who exploited the masses, our mission is to overturn and drive out all structures of oppression leaving no stone unturned. The womanist idea assumes that everything and nothing is sacred. All ideologies are equally interrogated and deconstructed.⁸

I am so grateful to my mentor and sister-friend Marita Golden who came up with the idea for the book and wrote this gracious foreword.

A big thank you to my long-time sister-friend Stephanie Vance Patience (Stefani Vance) for the cover art and interior book design. Yours are indeed gifted hands.

I am also grateful to editors Rick Shenkman of History News Network (who started this whole mess, LOL); Dick and Sharon Price of LA Progressive and Hollywood Progressive; Brian Ross and the Made By History editorial team at the Washington Post; Jabari Asim, former editor of The Crisis Magazine, Keisha Blain, former editor-in-chief for The North Star Newsletter, and last but certainly not least Lily Rothman at Time Magazine. Thank you all for providing spaces to express progressive views.

Table of contents

Foreword

Introduction:

Long Story Short

Table of contents

Slavery up close & Personal

Hillary Clinton and the Possessive Investment in Whiteness

Does Barack Obama Have Testicular Fortitude?

Thoughts oN a Black First Lady in Waiting

We Were Eight Years in a Beer Summit: An American Tragedy

Suicide For Whites Only?

Melissa Harris Perry Burning

What’s in a Name: Meet the Original Cassius Clay

Remembering the Charleston Nine

The Pulse Night Club Massacre Was Not An Act of God

The W. E. B. Du Bois Argument for Not Voting in a Phony Election

Slavery on America’s College Campuses Went Beyond Buying and Selling

Alliances Between America’s Black and Jewish Activists Have Long Been Troubled

Forget the Star-Spangled Banner: We Have Our Own National Anthem

Whether The Second Amendment Applies To All Citizens Is Not A New Question

An Old Phenomenon: The Victim as Criminal

The Tragic History Behind Michael Jordan’s Statement on Police Shootings

A Personal Tribute to Gwen Ifill

How the Story of Black History Month Parallels the Fight for a Black History Museum

When American Soldiers Become American Vigilantes

James Baldwin Documentary I Am Not Your Negro Is the Product of a Specific Moment in History

Exactly One Year Before His Death Dr. King Denounced The Vietnam War

Pollution Hurts Some People More Than Others. That’s Been True for Centuries

Dear Black People: An Open Letter to Black America

How the Court Answered A Forgotten Question On Slavery’s Legacy

Your Deepest Fear

Blaming Bad Dudes Masks the Role of Women in the History of White Nationalism

From the ‘Pocahontas Exception’ to a ‘Historical Wrong’: The Hidden Cost of Formal Recognition for American Indian Tribes

There’s a True Story Behind Black Panther’s Strong Women. Here’s Why That Matters

Bill Cosby Played Respectability Politics. It Blew Up In His Face

Bias Training at Starbucks Is a Reminder That the History of Racism Is About Who Belongs Where

Here’s Why Roseanne’s Tweet Was a Racist Slur, Not a Botched Joke

The Complicated History Behind Beyoncé’s Discovery About the Love Between Her Slave–Owning and Enslaved Ancestors

The Doctor and the Saint: What Martin Luther King Overlooked About Gandhi

September 11, 2001: Where Was I?

Elizabeth Warren’s DNA Test and the Difficult History of Looking for Answers in Blood

Green Book Gets Don Shirley All Wrong!

The House Hearing On Slavery Reparations Is Part of A Long History: Here Is What To Know On The Early Advocates of This Idea

The Rosebud Charity Club: A History of Black Women’s Charity Work In Baltimore

A Plan to Take the George Floyd Case to the U.N. Highlights A Decades-Old Tension Between Civil Rights and Human Rights

CODA

Endnotes

Selected Bibliography

Contributors

1

Slavery up close & Personal

Ancestry Magazine, July/August 2002

Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, many of my family members joined the thousands of African Americans who migrated from the rural south to northern cities in search of a better life. By the close