Smashing White Supremacy, Building for Black Freedom
October 9, 2017
We have come over a way that with tears have been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered;
Out of a gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
The words of the black national anthem, written by James Weldon Johnson in 1900, filled the circle and the souls of the hundreds who gathered Oct. 1 in front of the StubHub Center sports complex in Carson, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb. As green Philadelphia Eagles jerseys and fewer blue Los Angeles Chargers jerseys made their way past red Colin Kaepernick shirts, some people brushed our shoulders with a force that indicated intentionality. Others sneered. And still others screamed with angry faces, “All lives!”
My eyes lingered on the brown-skinned brother anxiously intertwining his fingers with hers, diverting his eyes, as he guided his white partner around the crowd of mostly black people. As we closed the third verse of the song, I hurried up the walkway, flyer in hand, smiling warmly as I reached out. He cast his eyes downward until he could no longer ignore my voice, and he finally responded, “I’m just trying to enjoy the game.”
We were not blocking intersections. We didn’t come to “shut it down.” We were there to exercise self-determination by singing the black national anthem, to refocus the message, to remind folks why Kaepernick took a knee, to lift up the names of those whose bodies have been stolen by police violence and to push for accountability. We encouraged people to sign an online petition for Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey to prosecute the police who kill community residents. This was operation “hearts and minds,” an effort to win folks over to our side, but we underestimated the football-fan-to-jerk ratio.
In following after the brother, I was hoping to gain a reprieve from what vacillated between snide remarks and out-and-out threats of bodily harm. But he wouldn’t even take the black and yellow flyer from me. Instead, he tightened his grasp on his companion’s hand, tilted his hips forward and quickened his way toward the stadium, as I called behind him, “What about your people? They’re killing your people. It only takes 30 seconds to sign the petition, brother.”
Just 10 short months ago, kneeling in protest to the white national anthem, unapologetic blackness, raised fists, unruly afros, defiantly colored braids and hope that danced in the eyes of shiny brown children were becoming the norm. Players knelt in solidarity with Kaepernick’s sideline protests, stepping into what it means to be a “field Negro,” in the Malcolm X sense of the term.
Actor Lupita Nyongo was seen not only for her immense talent, but also for all of her dark beauty, affirming the value of other black-skinned girls.
