Edit: I just want to say I really appreciate the support from this community. I know that that’s the point of posting here, but still, I’m always deeply moved by anyone who reaches out. I didn’t know this would take off — I simply vented before going to my friends to get wasted and play video games. I appreciate everyone who responded but if I don’t get back to you for sometime forgive me as I’m a little overwhelmed.
These past few days have been emotionally intense, especially as a black male. There have been countless times where I fawned around police out of fear — excessive smiling/eye contact, an eagerness to respond or be helpful so much so that I even waived my rights — but my anger toward them and authority figures has deeper roots in my home, and the intergenerational trauma that many African Americans carry with them because of American chattel slavery.
My father was and still is a bully. He’s left me alone since I’ve gotten bigger and learned to stand up to him but I’ve never felt safe around him, or my
mother, who is also prone to violence because of what she has to deal with from him. Admittedly I have a harder time standing up to her — I can threaten my father physically but my mother will use her femininity to make a victim of herself, so I often just become passive around her.
This is generational. My parents grew up around whites and know how to be presentable — wear nice clothes so they can’t smell the poor, speak “proper” english (there was a strict no slang rule at home), don’t wear baggy clothing, look people in the eye hold doors etc etc — so as to resist being seen as a stereotype. I didn’t become aware of how deeply ingrained this was in me until high school when a white friend made a sexual pass at me and I tensed up because all I could think of was reading Othello and the words “lascivious Moor” rang through my head. I immediately remembered a friend laughing about how one of our white friends definitely wasn’t a virgin because she had a black boyfriend and everyone except for me seemed to automatically understand what that meant.
The fawning around whites could be attributed to what WEB Du Bois called double consciousness in which racial or ethnic minorities become aware of their otherness in the presence of a majority and shapeshift so to speak in order to gain acceptance and climb up the social ladder. This becomes unhealthy when it’s rooted in feelings of shame and cultural inferiority, making it different from the simple act of speaking a different dialect in a particular neighborhood. This was a survival mechanism for many African-Americans.
These last five years I’ve been uncovering my people-pleasing and it’s been really difficult. I’m certain my ancestors were house-slaves and I’m almost always angry. Always. And what makes me really fucking angry is learning that George Floyd didn’t resist arrest and was still murdered. And his death was only reported because it was caught.
All the bending over backwards,the shapeshifting, the denial of my African-ness is and always will be pointless in a police state with virtual immunity. And living at home is no different. The fear of violence if I don’t wash my dishes properly or lock the door to my mother’s arbitrary satisfaction mirrors the fear of violence if I absentmindedly walk into a grocery store with my hands in my pockets.
And right now I’m exhausted. I’ve cried a well of tears. I fear the part of me that enjoys seeing the police face indiscriminate retaliatory violence. I’ve picked fights with bullies on behalf of my friends and enjoyed intimidating them. Landing blows, posturing myself as threatening, yelling — there’s a sense of pleasure I derive from it that I fear. I’ve had dreams of being able to kill murderous police officers with my bare hands. Ive had dreams of fighting my parents.
But I choose to remain polite and respectful. Around my parents and around the police. Because even if I defend myself or respond with an OUNCE of the violence directed at me, no matter how just or fair or righteous, I know it will be a death sentence.
