Anger and Fear After Black Monday

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A call has gone out, for those who wish to quietly show their feelings, to wear black today.  I don’t know that it will do any good, but for the first time ever I will be wearing all black to court.  I don’t think that my client will mind.

Black field

There’s a horrible message hidden in here somewhere

I won’t name my friend who wrote this here to save him abuse by miscreants, but he’s a Harvard Law School educated African American man — a “person of bulk,” like me, but tall — with whom I worked as an attorney in Manhattan and who has had some success as a writer since then.  Here was one thing he published on Facebook in the wake of the Ferguson verdict.

Here’s the difficulty: Basically, the safest thing for African-Americans is to be *afraid* of white people. *At least* as afraid as white people like Darren Wilson are of black people. Look at his testimony. He makes Brown sound like a meta-human. Wilson is 6 freaking 4, and says he felt like “a five year old wrestling the Hulk.” Are you freaking kidding me?

But, if you teach your kids to be “afraid” of white people, not only does it make every professional interaction they have more difficult, you also convince them to *fight back* against whites when they feel backed into a corner. Which is like the *last* thing they should do.

THERE IS LITERALLY NO WAY TO WIN. If you are so rationally afraid of white people, you might lash out against them. If you are not afraid of white people, you might confront them. EITHER OPTION could lead to your death… a death that will be JUSTIFIED in the eyes of the law.

Screw teenagers. I’m a 36 year old man with education falling out of my ass. And, *tomorrow* I could be put in a deathly situation by a white cop.

And America doesn’t give a s**t. She doesn’t give a s**t about my problems. She doesn’t give a s**t about protecting me. Fundamentally, she’s more concerned about somebody else. And I know this. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

It applies, in kind if not in intensity, to protesters as well.  Don’t protest, and we’ve retreated into our variety of a totalitarian slave society, where one dare not speak truth to power.

Do protest, and you can be killed — unless  you’re a white rancher in rural Nevada, or some other protected class.

Another friend came up with a great new operational definition of “white privilege”: if the Ferguson verdict primarily shocks and outrages you, rather than utterly terrifies you, you have the benefit of white privilege.

Our constitutional rights — including the right not to be summarily killed even after punching a cop who tried to roust you, if you get far enough away not to be a plausible threat, and even if you’re Black or Latino — seem like a cruel joke today, tasting of ashes.

About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)