January 3, 2019
News of the horrific execution of 7-year-old Black girl, Jazmine Barnes, by an unknown and, as yet uncaptured, white assailant, has finally broken through to the national news. As The Washington Post details, LaPorsha Washington was driving her four daughters to pick up coffee and juice when a white man in a red pickup truck pulled up next to her car and began firing at point blank range, killing Jazmine and shooting her mother in the arm. Although the murder occurred on December 30th and a hefty reward has been offered, the gunman remains at large, (Source: “A black 7-year-old’s slaying has Houston on edge. The family thinks it was racially motivated.” by Eli Rosenberg, The Washington Post, 1/2/19).
A mere twenty four hours after Jazmine’s brutal murder, across the country in St. Petersburg, Florida, a 40 year old white man attacked a young Black woman working in a McDonald’s restaurant, completely without provocation. Thanks to a bystander video, we have evidence of how the assault unfolded and can see that none of the young woman’s co-workers came to her aid until after it was clear that she could defend herself and was getting the better of her assailant, (Source: “A man attacked a McDonald’s employee. Video of her fighting back went viral,” by Amy Wang, The Washington Post, 1/2/19).
The awful truth is that murder and assault are the logical, yet chilling, escalation of a hostility to Black people so pronounced that it criminalizes their performance of the most mundane tasks. The cutesy nicknames we devise, like “BBQ Becky”, “Permit Patty,” and “Pool Patrol Paul” ,mask the very real danger we face from homegrown terrorists with anodyne exteriors.
This is where the danger lies; not from Latinx refugees at our borders seeking a better life; not from Muslim immigrants coming here to study at our universities or rejoin family members; but from people so invested in the property value of whiteness that they will kill to maintain it. In light of Jazmine’s murder, it is high time that those of us not directly in danger stop averting our eyes or timorously refusing to call out this genocidal behavior for what it is.
We must confront the fact that a feral determination to keep non-white people out of this country is what animates the current standoff that has ground our federal government to a halt. Those insisting on the wall refuse to acknowledge the contribution of immigrants to a vibrant economy and are heedless of the collateral damage to thousands of furloughed federal workers.
It is easy, but facile, to focus on the madman at the center of it all. It is true that Trump is an unhinged racist who says the quiet parts out loud, but his vision of a white nationalist autocracy is shared by every person in government who is not working actively to stop him. That is equally true of sycophantic Cabinet members like distaff Goebbels, Kirsten Nielsen, claiming, ““Mr. President, now more than ever we need the wall,” or “resistance” hero du jour, Senator Mitt Romney, who followed his Op-Ed deriding Trump’s tone and character with an admission that “I would vote for the Border Wall.”
As a new Democratic House majority takes power today and a field of Democratic presidential hopefuls emerges, only those who soberly acknowledge the threat that white supremacy poses to the lives of Americans, and the continued life of America as a democracy, deserve our support. This is not to minimize the existential threat of climate change, or the corrosive impact of unchecked greed, as challenges that must be faced, but even those crises have a racial dimension, and the refusal to acknowledge that doesn’t make it any less true. I, for one, will demand that clarity from anyone who seeks my vote. After all, my life, my daughter’s life and my mother’s life may depend on it.
#VOTELIKEBLACKWOMEN
#SAYHERNAMEJAZMINEBARNES