Broken Doors and Unbroken Barriers
If you're anything like me, you get regular updates from relevant news outlets to your phone every other hour. Usually it just keeps me in the loop, other than that it doesn't really take too much out of me.
However earlier this week I received an alert that was a little disturbing, award winning UK grime rapper popularly known as Stormzy had his Chelsea flat broken into; wait for it... by the police. Now I'm sure we've heard about it in one variation or another, but for the benefit of those that haven't.
The story goes like this, young black man doing well for himself moves to better neighbourhood with predominantly white neighbours, one of whom then calls the police on him because they thought he was a burglar.
It may be a modern world but don't be fooled, racism is still very much alive, and according to George Yancy so is the white gaze. That barrier hasn't been broken and it's structural logic threatens to consume us all. It erases the humanity of black people. Looking through the white gaze, very often white police officers specifically do not see black people. What they see instead is a figment of their imagination: an imagination that has been collectively constructed for centuries. In the place of black humanity, they see - The black monster.
I don't even know where to begin to express how many things are wrong with this incident, what gave them the indication that he was a burglar? How did they come to this conclusion? Because he's a tall black man, there automatically must be something wrong with the picture of him entering a Chelsea flat. Of course they thought he was a burglar, I can't imagine why a black man should be successful let alone be able to afford a home in an upscale neighbourhood. Far be it! He's got to be a criminal or a thug or a burglar!
To make matters worse, after the whole incident Stormzy went on channel 4's last leg and the way the panel trivialised the whole issue was disgraceful. He was asked if he thought there was a racial undertone, I can't imagine how much more toner they need to see this incident clearly for what it was.
"White collar crime" really? I'm all for a good joke, but not at the expense of the main issue. In my opinion the jokes were distasteful; and we're all expected to play along, to overlook it, pretend that it's not a big deal, toe the line, hesitate before we speak in order not to make certain people uncomfortable, but this isn't a comfortable subject, NOBODY should be comfortable about racism. I understand that we're trying to buy into the dream that we're in a progressive society and racism doesn't exist anymore, but that's a very tall tale if I've ever heard one.
If the tension in America between the black man and the police is anything to go by, you'll see that while not on the same scale, this seemingly minor incident isn't isolated, it has happened before. Henry Louis Gates Jr, David Oluwale. And it will probably happen again.
Or should we talk about the more distressing cases of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Mark Duggan and the several unknown faces that have been victims.
It really makes me sad that the colour of my skin is reason enough for me and several others to be judged unfairly and labelled in a box, but until we all collectively confront how our society distort representations of blackness I'm afraid this will keep on happening and there will be more than broken doors and bones.