medium | Don’t
catch me slipping. There’s always a way to make Black people’s
suffering seem like our own fault, no matter how targeted or deliberate
the attacks against us are. If you get got, it’s because you and your
people got caught slipping. There’s a reason headlines make it seem like
cops’ bullets fire themselves. Even their guns get the benefit of the
doubt; Black people shot full of holes don’t.
The
narrative that Black America is solely responsible for all the violence
it suffers is centuries-old and extremely resilient. This is where
Kanye West’s statements about slavery being a choice find their roots.
It’s more palatable to blame the victims than force the perpetrators to
take a posture of forgiveness, and this upside-down world is what Black
Americans have to negotiate without losing their minds. As he dances
through the frame, Glover goes from grimacing to grinning in split
seconds, from brutal violence to almost shucking and jiving. He
skillfully navigates the madness and chaos unfolding behind him. At the
end, he’s sweaty, wide-eyed, and running for his life.
This is
America, where Blackness is pathologized and capitalism warps ghastly
incentives even further. Black people in America have been selected
to be the lowest rung, the exploited class upon which the nation’s
wealth is built. It’s no accident that Black entertainment has become
one of the primary vehicles for masking this reality. There’s a reason
the gaudy exhibitions of “new Black money” are reliably programmed.
When
the choir raises their voices to sing, “Grandma told me, ‘Get your
money, Black man!’” I can’t tell if it’s a cry for reparations or a call
to dive headfirst into the rapacious, winner-take-all capitalism of
America’s streets and boardrooms. And while I’m not convinced that this
uncertainty isn’t deliberate (a slippery way of not alienating anyone),
that tension is at the heart of the truth Glover is telling. Survival
demands that Black people participate in an immoral, capitalist system
that brutalizes them, and justice demands the wealth built on the backs
of our stolen ancestors be returned to us. We try to achieve both and
end up accomplishing neither.
