Tag Archives: racial identity

African-American Men, Black Males, Black Men, RACE

What the Murder of Tyre Nichols Says About How Some In Black America View Their “Brothers and Sisters” and Why

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Although I have familial ties to Memphis, Tennessee, on my mother’s side, the moment I heard about the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols, I knew that such facts mattered little in analyzing this senseless tragedy. Ironically, my new home, Houston, trumps my connection to Memphis; let me explain. When pondering this tragedy and what it means specifically to Black America, Houston’s Geto Boys offers the most clarity.

The song I allude to is The World Is A Ghetto. The stanza below is lead rapper Scarface painting a dire picture representative of Black life worldwide.

Let’s take a journey to the other side
Where many people learn to live with their handicaps, while the others die
Where muthafuckas had no money spots
And if they did then they ass went insane
When all the money stops
I’m from the ghetto so I’m used to that
Look on your muthafuckin map and find Texas, and see where Houston at
It’s on the borderline of hard times
And it’s seldom that you hear niggas prayin’ and givin’ God time
That’s why your ask my mom pray for me
Because I know that even I gots to die, and he got a day for me
And every morning I wake up I’m kinda glad to be alive
’Cause thousands of my homeboys died
And very few died of old age
In most cases the incident covered up the whole page
From Amsterdam to Amarillo
It ain’t no secret

The world is a ghetto.

Scarface (1996)

Scarface’s lyrics about the perils of Black life, “From Amsterdam to Amarillo,” are a dreadful reminder to Black Men regarding the tenuous nature of the next moment. Unfortunately for Tyre Nichols’ family and friends, they will be reminded of this sobering reality daily.

When I heard that a Black man had been beaten to death by Memphis law enforcement officers, I cringed for several reasons.

  • I could only imagine the violence necessary to beat a man to death. Even Rodney King survived his beating at the hands of Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Theodore Briseno, and Timothy Wind.
  • I feared that this was the latest generations Rodney King incident.

As I considered this moment, the words of Malcolm X emerged from my mental Rolodex. According to Brother Malcolm, during the Civil Rights Movement, America was sitting atop a racial powder keg bound to explode with the slightest spark.

Yet somehow, this moment is different from other occurrences of police violence toward Blacks. Black male police officers delivered the mob-style beating of Tyre Nichols. As a result of this unprecedented occurrence, I have a few questions on my mind.

  • What does this event mean for Black men and Black America?
  • What does Tyre Nichols’s taped beating death at the hands of Black men say about how we view and behave toward each other?

I am sure we can agree on the following. The catalyst for the fatal beating of Mr. Nichols had little to do with the traffic stop. The many socialization issues that provided a smooth path for Black police officers to muster up the adrenaline-fueled rage they expressed via physical violence on Tyre Nichols began long before this night. It started before they became law enforcement officers. The path to the Black-on-Black brutality that we witness and hear daily is rooted in a complex socialization process that every American experiences; it takes root in many.

Although rarely discussed, it is challenging to be reared in America and develop an unbridled love for Black people. Experience has taught me that the following is valid for most Black people. We love the relatively few Black people we know personally, yet harbor levels of a rarely verbalized pessimistic view of others. Let’s be clear: this socialization process produces such significant bias among Blacks that it is not a stretch to term it a form of mental illness.

One merely needs to take a step back and consider the nicety manner that Blacks treat each other. This extreme hatred is expressed via our unwillingness to acknowledge our kind as they pass. The general skepticism Black men receive from Black women when approached for dating purposes. The vicious verbal and physical brutality that Black men, women, and children pour onto each other without provocation, being Black and present, seems sufficient provocation. The beating delivered by Memphis Police Department Officers Desmond Mills, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin, Tadarrius Bean, and Demetrius Haley against Tyre Nichols is a by-product of many things, none of them good.

As the nation mourns what we have become, the onus is on Black America to go beyond understandable sorrow and tears and begin serious action to reverse a socialization process that results in us hating each other, if not ourselves. I will not portend to know the path forward; however, I can tell you with unshakable certainty that what we have been doing lately is not working for any of us.

Increase the love y’all!!!!!!!

James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D.

©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2023

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RACE

The Unforeseen Political and Economic Ramifications of Blacks Swirling their Racial Identity

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Truthfully, I can’t pinpoint where my belief that self-conception is crucial to politico-economic allegiance began. It could be that politicized parents raised me. Maybe it was reading Marcus “Mosiah” Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois’ calls for Black folk to turn inward and take care of their own, or perhaps it was my grandfathers’ examples as “race men.” My belief that self-conception is a significant factor in politico-economic allegiance will never change.

The above statement is why I find US Census data indicating increasing diversity in how they self-identify so concerning. Census reports report that those reporting themselves as only “Black or African American” have declined over the past two decades from the 2000 US Census. In 2000, 93% of people self-identified as Black. Nearly two decades later (2019), that number dropped to 87% of people reporting as Black or African American, non-Hispanic. In the 2019 Census, 3.7 million (8%) reported as Black and another race, usually White, while 5% self-identified as Black Hispanic.

In a world where there is strength in numbers, the decision of some Black folks to swirl their racial identity is troubling as it signifies a shift in self-conception, the most significant factor in where one’s politico-economic loyalties rest. Now let’s be clear about this matter; I do not deny that the DNA of other races courses through the veins of Blacks; one needs to look no further than the various hues and colors that adorn our beautiful people for verification. Of course, this process began with the rape of stolen African women forcibly deposited in the Caribbean, Brazil, North American continent, and all points in-between by a host of European exploiters.

This already diverse supply of stolen Africans produced a unique cultural identity that facilitated their loose agreement that they were neither African nor European; they were Black. A term that surpasses being a mere descriptor and has transitioned into a political statement.

In time, SNCC organizer Willie “Mukasa” Ricks would mesmerize young Black activists by debuting a Black Power slogan in Greenwood, Mississippi, during the continuation of James Meredith’s March Against Fear. Radicalized segments of our community have always rallied around Blackness. Please do not think that I am unaware of the propensity of some twentieth-century Blacks to exoticize their Blackness by claiming a distant Cherokee grandmother whose DNA contribution explains why they have “good hair.” Yet, even they understood that they were Black, and that’s where their politico-economic allegiance laid. Even the most exoticized Blacks with hazel or blue eyes, fair skin, and flowing locs understood that they remained inextricably linked with other Blacks.

This new millennium effort to self-identify as something other than Black seems much different from prior attempts by Blacks to differentiate themselves. While so many groups appear to be doubling down on their political identity, there is a segment of Black folks that are desperately running from identifying with their kind and thereby forfeiting potential political and economic gains that only come through racial solidarity.

In a land where numbers matter regarding political power and the development of economic might, this secession movement threatens to weaken Black America in unprecedented ways. One can only wonder where this illogical migration away from Blackness by persons that will always be seen as Black by those they desperately seek to join will end.

James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D.

©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2021