Bloody, But Unbowed

Emory Douglas/2016 (by permission)

It's taken me a while to catch my breath. That one-two punch last November was a doozy and though I've been meeting my responsibilities (which are many), my psyche went down for the count and has been lying on the canvas in the ring ever since, trying to figure out if I can make it to the locker room on these jelly legs or do I need to jump in a cab and head straight for the border. There's something to be said for living to fight another day.

I've been lying still with my eyes closed, as it were, reminding myself that this is not new news. White Supremacy. the patriarchy, capitalism, and a cold-blooded commitment to power held by a handful of old White men combined with an almost stunning lack of consciousness in the mass public over the past 250 years has delivered us to the present like an express train to hell. And for the last fifty years of that period, I've been watching it all unfold like a Grade B movie. Yet -- no matter how you've trained -- a well-placed upper cut that catches you off-guard can rock your world, even if you're the better fighter.

Still, as I often tell my students, it's not what happens. It's what happens after that. Watcha gonna do?

Dixon D. White: Donald Trump and Jim Crow 2.0

I realize this video isn't on the criminal "justice" system per se, but I just thought I needed to post it because, when push comes to shove, the analysis "Dixon D. White" uses to explain what we see going on in the U.S. right now is precisely why the prison-industrial complex and its minions, the boys in blue, are running our nation off a cliff even as we speak. I've been saying the exact same thing for ten years on this blog. So I'm glad to see these ideas pick up speed.

A friend of mine asked me a few weeks ago if I was aware of "Dixon D. White" and, when I said no, wrote down his name on a post-it note for me to take with me. But this is the end of the semester and I don't have time to go to the bathroom, let alone anything else I'm not being paid to do, so the note was just hanging out on my desk at home, waiting for my attention.

Then, earlier this afternoon, one of my Facebook friends put this on my feed and here we are.

There are a handful of others ranting on race at a fever pitch like this guy and me. Jane Elliott, for one. And Tim Wise, for another. And, as I've said many times over the years, there have always been White folks who threw down against White Supremacy, even if it killed them, as it did John Brown and three of his sons. But comparatively speaking, the voices in the wilderness have been damn few. I would suggest, as I present "Dixon D. White" today, that it has never been more important to listen to them than it is right now.
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NOTE: I do want to reiterate that "Dixon D. White" is a character played by an actor. I am not necessarily a supporter of this man as a person or as a professional. But what the character says is spot on and needs to be faced and dealt with. Period.