Recently we have all been hearing
about the controversy surrounding the Michael Brown case in the news.
African-Americans have been rallying around the murder of this young man and
using it as a platform to divulge frustrations that have been festering within
the souls of black people for some time now. One issue that arises is that of
police brutality. Was this young man, on the verge of beginning a new chapter
of his life, killed only because of the color of his skin and the stereotypes
that society has attached to it? The possibility of this question being
answered in the affirmative is a huge reason for why the black people are so
mad.
The event is too reminiscent of
that time where the murder of African-American men, or rather,
African-Americans in general, was carried out without the slightest fear of
punishment. The murder of African-Americans was seen almost as a sport, a
popular pastime, exercised by white southerners that was socially and, at
times, legally sanctioned. Often times these murders were carried out by police
officers, people who were sworn to protect the public, but, instead, in the
black community, were the most eminent menaces. This reminiscent quality of the
Micheal Brown case is a part of the reason why black people are so mad. However,
the rage runs even deeper than this.
The Grammy winning artist, Lauryn Hill, relates the extensive depth of
this rage and its origins in a song that she wrote in reaction to Michael
Brown. The song is entitled, “Black Rage” and is, ironically, set to the tune
of The Sound of Music’s “My favorite
things.
Some of the lyrics are as follows:
Black rage is founded on two-thirds a person
Rapings and
beatings and suffering that worsens
Black
human packages tied up in strings...
Black rage
is founded on draining and draining
Threatening
your freedom to stop your complaining…
Then call
you mad for complaining,complaining...
Black rage
is founded on blocking the truth
Murder and
crime, compromise and distortion
Sacrifice,
sacrifice Who makes this fortune?...
Black rage
is founded on these kinds of things...
Victims of
violence both pysche and body
Life out
of context is living unGodly
…
Black rage
is founded on denial of self
Black human
packages tied in subsistence
Having to
justify very existence
Try if you
must but you can't have my soul
Black rage
is made by unGodly control
In these
lyrics, Hill alludes to slavery, an institution that drained the life out of
black bodies and forever imprinted upon their psyche a feeling of inferiority.
She speaks of black activism, or protest, which she alludes to as complaining
and the threats used to stop it. She speaks finally of the unGodly control of
rascist whites that ultimately is the foundation of black rage. The song is a
panorama of the pains African Americans have had to endure throughout history
and provides an extensive answer to the question “Why
the black people are so mad?”
The black
people are so mad because in Michael Brown’s case they see the ghosts of a past
where African-Americans were not treated like human beings, where they were
denied equal protection under the law, and even unjustly murdered by the law.
They see a terrible foreboding in his death, one that threatens a reversion to
the past. In other words, they see history threatening to repeat itself. This,
understandably, enrages black people because isn’t this supposed to be
“post-racial” America?
If you would like to listen to
the song (I would suggest it) here is the link:
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