Who Will Survive in America
Police were called on black people sitting at Starbucks. It was a national emergency. It became a moment for healing or learning or dialogue or some such bullshit. All I know is May 29th y’all have to get coffee from Dunkin Donuts or a local spot.
Police were called on black people playing golf because they went too slowly.
Police were called on a woman who wanted to know why the Waffle House was trying to charge her $0.50 for a $0.01 fork. (This is my business, BTW. I know this stuff. That’s a $6 — $10 box of 1,000 forks. Selling that joint for $0.50 is some robbery.)
Remember when the police threw 14-year-old girl on the ground in Texas? He was called because somebody thought the kids at the pool were being too loud.
I’ve had police called on me for sitting in my car in a neighborhood. I’ve had police called on me for telling someone they didn’t know how to drive in a Target parking lot. I’ve had police called on me for arguing about a sale sign on some LED light bulbs at Ace Hardware. I’ve had police called on me for…it doesn’t matter. Y’all call. They come.
I mean, you do know what the police do, right?
They have the news where you live, right?
Black people are out here getting killed by police for smoking weed or selling loosies or having their car break down or walking scarily down the street. Black people are out here getting killed by police and you keep calling them on us.
Stop calling the police on us! They’re not your RA. Police are not the HR department at your job. You can’t just call up the government agency with the power to take lives to make inconveniences go away.
These minor nuisances do not require police interaction. Unnecessary police interaction only serves to heighten the opportunity for physical altercations or worse.
Too much of white America sees black people as inherently dangerous. Us being in a space, even a public space, is problematic. The police protect and serve, so they’re summoned to protect white people from the danger, even when it’s imaginary.
That white people see black people as inherently dangerous finds itself damaging society at large. It’s why black people are punished differently than white people who commit similar crimes. It’s why applicants with black-sounding names are called back for interviews at a much lower rate than their white-named competitors. It’s why black students are suspended and expelled at rates much higher than their white peers for similar infractions. It’s why…you get it. It’s why I have to be cautious about where I park my car so that I don’t scare people. It’s why, when taking a walk yesterday, I had to announce my presence loudly on a trail to let white people know, in my whitest voice, that I was just going around them and not a threat.
Making white people comfortable to avoid unnecessary confrontation and especially police interaction is a key facet of black life. It’s something we’re taught from an early age to ensure our success and survival in this nation.
But Kanye said that’s all in our mind.
Kanye said that black people are too busy thinking about racism of the past instead of focusing on the opportunities of tomorrow.
Kanye said that even slavery was a choice.
The same Kanye who said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”
The same Kanye who said, “They made us hate ourself and love they wealth”
The same Kanye who said, “We get racially profiled, cuffed up and hosed down”
The same Kanye who said, “The system broken, the school closed, the prison’s open”
The same Kanye who said, “Hands up, we just doing what the cops taught us, hands up, hands up, then the cops shot us”
is now saying that racism is avoidable if black people simply ignore or power through it and that the struggles of our people is based on our own inability to make our way and not the systems of oppression that reign.
Kanye is brilliant. He has an astounding ear for sound. He’s an adequate rapper, but a genius in finding and blending unique voices and instruments into one. I always call him the Quentin Tarantino of music. QT hasn’t had an original idea in his life. But what he can do is take ideas from some of the tens of thousands of films he’s seen and combine them into something new. That’s what Kanye does sonically. He uses beats and samples and voices to make new works. It’s why he’s been so successful.
He’s taken what must seem like a logical step to him. If he’s successful and wealthy then others can too. He wasn’t rich as a kid. He’s black. He made. Others can too. If only they worked as hard as him they’d be successful and wealthy too!
I said the man was sonically brilliant. He’s clearly not logically brilliant.
Why is Kanye successful when not everyone is? Why is Tiger Woods successful when not everyone is? Why is Barack Obama successful when not everyone is? At a much, much, much smaller level, why am I successful when not everyone is?
Hard work? Sure! But lots of people work hard. Lots of people work harder than Ye or me or whoever.
Intelligence? Sure! But there are smarter people than all of us sitting in the pen right now.
Persistence? Sure! But there are persistent people right now struggling to make ends meet.
There’s only one magic ingredient that makes some people successful and others less so.
Luck.
Kanye got lucky.
He got the call when someone else didn’t. He got the 2nd chance when someone else didn’t. He was in the right place. It was the right time. The right person happened to hear it. That person talked to the right person. Someone invested money and time because they thought it made sense.
None of that is because Kanye’s better than someone else or harder working or smarter or more persistent. It’s just that a unique set of circumstances created the star he is today.
To suggest that other people who haven’t gotten the same breaks you have are to blame for their suffering isn’t just illogical. It’s fucking mean.
Conservatives believe that the system is set up for everyone to have an equal shot at success and that personal failure is to blame for struggles. Others, you know, people who read books and pay attention and just know shit, can tell that the system is set up for some to have greater odds at success than others. It doesn’t mean that someone like Kanye can’t beat the odds. But it also doesn’t mean that his success means the system is equal. It just means he made it past long odds.
The title of this piece, Who Will Survive in America, was a Kanye track. He used Gil Scott-Heron’s Comment #1 and added some beats. That was the whole song.
Y’all heard Comment #1?
“America was a bastard. The illegitimate daughter of the mother country whose legs were then spread around the world…Nurtured by slave holders and whitey racists…The present mocks us good black people with keen memories to set fire to the bastards who ask us in a whisper to melt and integrate…He is fighting for legalized smoke, or lower voting age…Where is my parallel to that?…I say you silly chipe motherfucker, your great grandfather tied a ball and chain to my balls and bounced me through a cotton field while I lived in an unflushable toilet bowl and you want me to help you overthrow that?”
That poem is angry, confrontational and dismissive. To hear that work and choose to sample it is a political act. I don’t understand how the same person who identified with that work would pivot to “all’s fair just work hard”.
But Kanye’s convinced that he found something new. But just like he makes music, he’s really sampling the work of those before him. His “free thinking” is a rehash of Conservative talking points. It’s not free and it’s not new. It’s just old shit with a new beat.
