By Rome Jorge
Why your black co-worker seems especially bitter today…
Why your black co-worker seems especially sad today…
Why your black co-worker seems especially quiet today…
Asking this is a statement posted on the front page of the website of Wieden+Kennedy, independently owned American advertising agency best known for brands such as Nike, Facebook, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, and Old Spice, to name a few.
Its hashtag links to the Instagram account of Black Lives Matter, the national organization movement created in 2012 after unarmed 17-year old African-American Trayvon Martin’s shooting death and the acquittal of his alleged murderer, an armed a neighborhood watch volunteer. Poignantly, the front page of the company website links to no other, not even to the W+K website’s other pages.
The W+K statement continues:
We are hurt because it feels like watching our own selves get gunned down.
We are telling ourselves, “do not let this make you live in fear. do not let this make you hate.”
But we’re scared for our lives, our family’s lives, our friend’s lives.
We’re mad that the protests aren’t working. Why the video recordings aren’t working.
We’re conflicted, in a place between crippling empathy contempt at a world that seems not to care enough.
We are disgusted at police but telling ourselves, “you can’t hate all police.”
We are wondering the point of a moment of silence.
We are wondering if we ourselves will make it back home today.
The post comes right after shooting death perpetrated by a police officer in Minnesota on July 6, 2016 of Philando Castile, a 32-year-old African-American cafeteria worker with a legal permit to carry a concealed firearm inside his own automobile and in the presence of his own daughter and fiancé Diamond Reynolds who had the presence of mind to live stream the video of the incident.
That incident mirrors the shooting death perpetrated by police officers in Baton Rouge just the day before of 37-year-old African-American CD seller Alton Sterling, also caught on video by a witness
The fear, disgust, and anger expressed by the the W+K statement are more than just feelings. The numbers justify them.
In 2015, US police killed nine times more African-American men between the ages of 15 and 34 than other Americans, comprising more than 15% of all deaths despite making up only 2% of the total US population. In 2015, US police killed a total of 1,134 African-Americans, 25% of which were unarmed. This is according to The Guardian’s “The Counted”— a study that derives its tally from reports submitted by readers and validated by the publication. Previous surveys by the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been exposed as inaccurate as they relied on voluntary submissions by a fraction of United States’ local law enforcement departments.
Each of these numbers is a person. A few of those that gained media attention include: Tamir Rice, age 12, shot and killed by Cleveland police for brandishing a toy gun. Eric Garner, age 43, choked to death by New York police for selling loose cigarettes despite pleading, “I can’t breathe.” And Freddie Gray, age 25, died of a spinal cord injury in Baltimore police custody.
The alarming pattern of African-American deaths has stirred Barack Obama, first African-American President, to declare “This is not just a black issue, not just a Hispanic issue. This is an American issue that we all should care about.” Mark Dayton, caucasian governor of Minnesota, referring to the Castile case, observed, “Would this have happened if the driver were white, if the passengers were white? I don’t think it would have.” Even Newt Gingrich, former house speaker and caucasian Republican Party conservative, confessed, “It took me a long time, and a number of people talking to me through the years, to get a sense of this: If you are a normal, white American, the truth is you don’t understand being black in America, and you instinctively underestimate the level of discrimination and the level of additional risk.”
In the same vein, the W+K statement challenges readers to walk a mile in an African-American’s shoes. The ongoing African-American experience is most eloquently revealed by bi-racial writer, programmer, and military veteran John Metta, who reveals his difficulty with discussing race relations with caucasian members of his own family in a congregational reflection delivered to an all-caucasian audience at the Bethel Congregational United Church of Christ entitled “I, Racist” that was posted African-American online magazine Those People and republished by The Huffington Post.
“Living every single day with institutionalized racism and then having to argue its very existence, is tiring, and saddening, and angering. Yet if we express any emotion while talking about it, we’re tone policed, told we’re being angry. In fact, a key element in any racial argument in America is the Angry Black person, and racial discussions shut down when that person speaks. The Angry Black person invalidates any arguments about racism because they are ‘just being overly sensitive,” or ‘too emotional,’ or playing the race card. Or even worse, we’re told that we are being racist (Does any intelligent person actually believe a systematically oppressed demographic has the ability to oppress those in power?)” he confides, adding, “Here’s the thing that all the angry Black people know, and no calmly debating White people want to admit: The entire discussion of race in America centers around the protection of White feelings,” and, “The reality of thousands of innocent people raped, shot, imprisoned, and systematically disenfranchised are less important than the suggestion that a single White person might be complicit in a racist system.”
Echoing W+K’s statement, “We are hurt because it feels like watching our own selves get gunned down,” Metta notes that, because the white majority of US society generalizes the behavior of any individual African-American as that of the entire community, “Black people think in terms of we because we live in a society where the social and political structures interact with us as Black people. White people do not think in terms of we. White people have the privilege to interact with the social and political structures of our society as individuals.”
He confesses, “Racism is so deeply embedded in this country not because of the racist right-wing radicals who practice it openly, it exists because of the silence and hurt feelings of liberal America. That’s what I want to say, but really, I can’t. I can’t say that because I’ve spent my life not talking about race to White people. In a big way, it’s my fault. Racism exists because I, as a Black person, don’t challenge you to look at it. Racism exists because I, not you, am silent. But I’m caught in the perfect Catch 22, because when I start pointing out racism, I become the Angry Black Person, and the discussion shuts down again.”
Metta, Gingrich, Dayton, Obama, Reynolds, and now Wieden+Kennedy are part of the discussion. The statement concludes, “Just an FYI, not for sympathy. Just acknowledging this because it should be acknowledged.”
