Newtown and the Undercurrent of Race

One week after the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, let me extend my condolences to that community. 

My condolences are genuine, but consider this. I grew up in Chicago during the 1970s, the height of White flight. The inner cities (where Black people lived) were dangerous places, the schools were bad, and property values were tanking, so White people had to go where they had to to protect themselves from these problems. The South side of Chicago was considered one of the most dangerous places, although I lived in integrated Hyde Park (NOT a gated community as I heard it referred to once on CNN). The Lorraine Hansbury play and movie, A Raisin in the Sun, depicts the circumstances leading up to White flight well. Those Whites who never lived in inner cities considered themselves lucky not having to deal with those problems.

Ultimately, living patterns in the U.S. are designed to reflect both economic and racial segregation and the results are generally that Whites design things to be "safe" from the imagined threats Brown skinned people bring with them. This includes the threat of violence. 

So, piling on what Tim Wise argues, perhaps the danger isn't "those people with their inner city problems," but the ways in which White people are complicit in defining themselves. You can no longer isolate yourselves from yourselves. You cannot assume safety in perfect nuclear families. You cannot assume safety in lilly White communities with high property values and excellent schools. White, not inherently, but as a sociohistorical phenomenon, can be dangerous too.

Isolating yourselves will not provide you safety. You will no longer be able to assume that someone else's family (White or Brown) is none of your business. You need to learn to take a wayward child aside and talk to them as if they were your own. You need to visit people who look antisocial and figure out how to connect with them, no matter how awkward it feels. You will need to speak openly and publicly about the challenges you are having. You will need to speak openly and publicly about the challenges your wife is having, the challenges your children are having. You will have to embrace your siblings, your aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, even if they're nuts. Brown families were pathologized because they weren't nuclear, yet they got us through the worst of times. You will have to ask other people for favors, like your crazy aunt or the next door neighbor, including can Jimmy crash on your couch for a while because I don't know what to do with him. Because for you, these are the worst of times.

You think we (Brown people) don't know what's going on, but it's been apparent to us, like that spray of bullets that hit Sandy Hook Elementary. It was apparent long before that happened, like during lynchings, etc. Really. Our communities felt the brunt of violent White behavior and we didn't need automatic weapons to be clear about it. You seemed to have protected yourself from the worst of what you could do.

Gun control will be useful. Personally, I don't really understand why someone who isn't hunting or fighting a war needs a gun. I hear lots of talk about an improved mental health system. But I'm not optimistic if it's being used to make sure that White males are not that kind of White male that makes you look bad. The mental health system will not get us out of that mess if it's simply a device to weed out the good Whites from the bad. The only thing I know of to abate the actions of those who are awry is connection, it's harder for them to act out on these thoughts if they are really connected to people. Isolation is the key problem that Whites face and you can afford it no more. And that isolation can't be blamed on Brown skinned people. Go talk to each other. Now. Because the people you fear most are yourselves. The victims of Sandy Hook suggests all that needs to be said . . . 

Just sayin'.