Why Black People Are Mad (By A White Person)

By 2017, I will have resided in Atlanta, capitol and most populous city of Georgia, for fifteen years. Over 50% of our residents are black. It’s not a part of the country you’d live in if you dislike black people. And as a white person, I’ve been fortunate enough to interact with and observe black people on a daily basis, and compare it with how they are represented in the media and online.

I racked my white brain, the same kind of brain that built bridges and put men on the moon, to get a handle on the disparity I saw. I called upon my ancestry as an Italian immigrant to help me understand the terrible sins at the heart of it. I now know why anyone who identifies as black would be mad.

About 12% of America is black.

12% of the population gets 100% of the degradation.

Imagine a classroom of 100 students. 12 of those students are mocked and humiliated every day, just for being who they are.

I’m no white-guilt virtue-signaler, but if I’m being honest, it was almost the 1990s before black people were portrayed on television as something other than screaming buffoons. Every hour of every day, networks bombard the country with a marketed image of how black people should act. If rap is making bank, then all blacks are rappers. If a token “African-American movie” wins an Oscar or two, then all black women are graceful African queens. No other American tribe is overtly and condescendingly pandered to like that, and it goes from the street corner, to the news, to government. Maintaining any sort of dignity against that requires sheer will. Surely you’ve been betrayed by a person in your life, and your ability to trust was annihilated. Imagine if the betrayer was an authority you had no choice but to trust. What havoc would that wreak upon your subconscious? What would you teach your children?

I can gratefully say that no part of my family tree had fire hoses trained on them because they wanted to eat or learn. The bad experiences in my life were not based on my skin color. I’ve been assaulted by black people for being white, but that’s on them. Those individuals were racist. You can believe what you like about these incidents; this is America (for now). But I tell you as the “victim” (ecch); one person violently assaulted another, which is wrong. That’s it. That’s all you should care about.

No one but black people has as many contested appellations. I won’t use “African-American” unless it’s specifically requested; it implies all black people come from Africa. They do not, any more than all white people come from the Caucasus Mountains. They could be from Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, or a half-dozen other locales. I look Italian, and as a result, people inquire if I am, on rare occasions. I think if every person I met loudly presumed I was from Poland, it might affect my overall joie de vivre.

You can complain all you like about that word with the double-G, but you cannot dispute two facts.

1. Only gays and blacks have slurs that rest alongside “fuck” and “cunt” in the Pantheon of the Unspeakable. It’s also impossible to depower a word and censor it at the same time.
2. No other group has an epithet that incites violence as efficiently.

I do not advocate the banning of any word, but keep this in mind if you feel like you “should be able to say nigger“, whatever your reasons might be:

It’s not that you don’t care about offending black people, it’s that your mental definition of them doesn’t include girls and women. It only includes your black male conjuration of a “nigger”, whom you degrade because it’s a manifestation of what you don’t understand, based on your limited experience. Which is, definitively, racist.

Of course I’ve said that word. In anger, before I wised up. In jest, inappropriately. Aloud, while listening to rap music. It’s just a word, but it’s easier for me to say that; as I said, no one in my family was arrested because they wouldn’t give up their seat on a bus. My grandfather wasn’t made to drink from a separate water fountain. Nobody shot at my father because he “looked white”.

I’m never used as a wedge.

The mainstream media is hell-bent on wielding black America as a hive-minded cudgel. White-on-black crime gets headlines, rather than the reverse, because it whips colors up against each other, based on antique attitudes and improperly recorded history. Where I live, I am literally surrounded by black people 75% of the time. I see the footage that makes it onto the nightly news and it’s like watching a parody movie. Nonetheless, violent protesters and “looters” become the public image of black people for most of America, if not the world. It fits the required political narrative. I’d have an aneurysm if I was up against that kind of opposition.

A good example of Atlanta, the “City Too Busy To Hate”:

While waiting to enter the Trump rally, I was among hundreds of mostly-white people in a line that snaked around tin barricades. A young black man with a large black duffel bag ran through us, and there was a loud bang. He’d tried to jump a barricade and slipped. Everybody looked to see if he was okay, which he was. His bag was full of bright red Trump hats, which he was rushing to sell to attendees.

I’m no Trump supporter, but I’ve grown weary of correcting egregious misrepresentations of his crowd by divisive media. Fuck it, I ain’t his public relations manager.

I am a supporter of director Spike Lee, however, and let me tell you- Spike Lee is absolutely treated differently because he’s black. The media acts like he’s a badger they poke with a stick. This guy has been working his ass to the bone since the late 1980s. His repertoire is varied and innovative. What does the media ask him? “How do you feel as a black filmmaker?” Boom. Marginalized. You’re not a real filmmaker; you just do the best for your color. Holy fuck, can you see why the dude lashes out every few years? Can you see how his actions as a private person and not an artist are scrutinized? Robert Rodriguez’ movies are typically as Spanish as his surname, and nobody ever questions him like he’s the Pope of Mexicans.

Prince, one of the greatest musicians of all time, almost literally had to fuck women in front of people to prove he was straight, and he still gets called queer. If you were black, liked purple, and could play guitar, you had a career in 90s music; just ask PM Dawn, Terence Trent D’Arby, and Lenny Kravitz (half-black, but forsakes white). All this thanks to a desperate desire to capitalize on Prince, whom Warner Brothers was trying to annihilate at the time, resulting in his creative near-implosion. Corporations have been running this game on black people for a hundred years. No one else got this treatment as far as I could tell. If one black guy won’t sign the contract, another one will; eventually, they’ll find one that has to. How would that make you feel?

A holdover from when America was mostly white was our protocol for reporting strangers. Children were told to remember the hair and eye color of threatening persons, to describe for parents or kindly policemen. WELP, one thing you CAN say about black people; they have the same hair and eye color, for the most part. You have to adjust your descriptions to the shape of the eyes, the nose, the mouth, and note distinguishing marks and shade. It’s not “institutionalized racism”, it’s just the way things were previously. The incoming immigrants had eyes that were green, blue, or brown. Sometimes even hazel.

This is why black people bring up slavery, oppression, and horrors that happened before they were born. They’re feeling what everyone feels when they discover a link to a past injustice, which is easier to do in the Information Age. However, black people don’t get release; they get told to keep it to themselves. Then when they try to meet, they are treated like anti-social conspirators. Why do you think so many black people go to church? Where else is safe? Is it even safe there?

Then you go to the movies, and an actor the same color as you is the fool. If not, it’s an untouchable paragon, a mystical being that never shits. Or a martyr, to appear in a crossfade over the shoulder of a weeping mother holding a perfect report card. That’s why black people can be noisy in movie theaters. How can you be quiet and respectful at those kinds of portrayals? Why was Vivica Fox a stripper in Independence Day? For a throwaway line when the white First Lady is dying? Otherwise, she literally could have been anything else. Even Will Smith has to say “It just be rainin’ black people” in Men In Black. Is he not believable if he speaks better than a pimp-bot?

I mentioned I’m half-Italian. Italy was America’s enemy when my grandparents were young. I love The Sopranos, but I also have to bite my lip; Italian actors are literally only used as mobsters in entertainment. It’s nearly an obligation. The Sopranos is all bad guys, so it’s apparently justification for the characters to be negative stereotypes. Imagine by comparison that every single black TV show was Oz, and every movie was New Jack City. You think a black president was a big deal? I’ll be long dead and cremated before anyone with an Italian name sits in the Oval Office. It’s mobsters or cartoon plumbers.

No one ever refers to me as a “white cartoonist”, but if I were black, you can bet it would be duly noted. Aaron McGruder, creator of The Boondocks, used to muse on it in the many interviews he was granted. That’s why McGruder’s style never improved; he’s been marginalized as a novelty since he could first hold a pen. Who offers encouragement in that situation? (You kids these days are lucky; you’ve got Keith Knight and Kyle Baker.) The typical reaction to a child that can draw is awe, not assistance. It’s an uphill battle to develop skills to the point where you can compete with champions, which many worthwhile things in life require. Could you fight that battle while the rest of the world is judging you by color?

Maybe. The best people have, and do. But let me tell you something that all people share in common:

No one likes to work hard for something, and think someone else is getting it easier.

This is the root of almost every conflict between people. This is why mothers harp about childbirth. This is why landowners get furious when someone “different-looking” moves in. This is why Americans freak out when they see foreigners “pouring” into their borders. It’s the reason why “healthcare” is almost entirely unworkable. If you have to pay for insurance or face a fine, why the fuck should some dying asshole see a doctor for free?

Here again: everything is based on your perception, and there are urges within some people to exploit that. You have no idea if someone is receiving free treatment because they would die otherwise. You don’t know if someone needs food stamps because they are literally starving. You are judging people based on a societal imprint from generations ago. Twenty years ago a single mother on TV was a major phenomenon; now it’s a loving father. Commercials have morphed into teleplays of modern lifestyles spotlighted by corporations for maximum profits. And every actor is carefully selected by race, rather than the content of their character, lest consumers get offended.

Witness alarm system ads. An intruder breaks into the home of a suburban family, threatening their peace. The intruder must be white. The family can be black or white. The intruder must not be black.

The point isn’t that burglars are somehow misrepresented. It isn’t whether robbers tend on average to be one color or another. It isn’t that the commercial had to be changed secretly from a black intruder and a white family, to avoid giving the “wrong idea”.

The point is that a respectable corporation deliberately divided Americans by color, for money, by crafting an imaginary scenario.

That’s what corporations do to manipulate people who don’t think for themselves. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s right in your face, 24 hours a day, in the form of a screen you pay for. It dictates your opinions on people more than actual contact, and it lasts longer than you will. It even used to have ads for malt liquor and cigarettes, which could be marketed directly to specific regions.

So if you wonder why black people tend to smoke menthols, consider the fact that menthols are what the tobacco company targeted their community with, getting them addicted to ensure brand loyalty. Same goes for malt liquor, and fast food. I’m betting it stings to be regularly reminded of products used to subjugate your people, that are in common usage and parlance to this day. McDonalds even used to appeal to “black people” with the slogan “No Tipping Necessary!”

Advertising is always dangerous because it leaves a time capsule of what people will believe about the past. What’s worse, the faces are often familiar, particularly when you’re under-represented in media otherwise. White folks got Norman Rockwell; black folks got “Dinnertimin'”.

That’s probably why they’re pissed off.