Gregory Freeman: A Crime And An Assumption: Why This Black Man Is Angry. PD 5/12/1995

Headline: A CRIME AND AN ASSUMPTION: WHY THIS BLACK MAN IS ANGRY
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Fri. May 12, 1995
Section: WAR PAGE, Page: 19C, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

AS I WATCHED the news unfold about the Washington University student who was abducted and killed, I found myself making a familiar plea:
Oh God, don't let the suspects be black.
As time went on, I found that God had chosen not to answer my prayer; the suspects are, indeed, black.
I don't know the suspects. They don't work with me. I know that they're not my neighbors nor are they my relatives.

But I also know that every time a black person is involved in a murder, an entire race is indicted.
     I don't exaggerate. More than my white colleagues, I suspect, I regularly receive hate mail from people who blame me for the atrocities that have been committed by others of my race.
     An example of that are these words, from an anonymous postcard:
     "Why don't you do something about your people killing everybody? Blacks are the scourge of this country."

I doubt that my white colleagues get letters telling them that they ought to do something about people like Susan Smith killing innocent children. Unfortunately, though, our society has a tendency to blame an entire group for the actions of even a small minority.
Indeed, black males who murder are a small minority. Most African-Americans are like everyone else - hard-working people who would like to live their lives in peace. And I know many who repeat the all-too-frequent refrain when reading the news:
Oh God, don't let the suspects be black.

Why should I even care about their color?
     Probably because society regularly reminds me of mine, and I know that a few more non-blacks will look upon me suspiciously or even with animosity because of something I had nothing to do with. No matter what I do, no matter how I try to live a decent life, I'm regularly reminded of my color.
     When I'm followed around in a department store when someone of a different color isn't, I'm reminded that I'm "different."
     When I'm looked upon suspiciously when I go into certain neighborhoods, I'm reminded that I'm "different."
     When a white woman clutches her purse as I go by as if I were going to try to snatch it, I'm reminded that I'm "different."
It really doesn't matter what I wear, what I do or how I live my life.

Just recently, Earl Graves Jr., a businessman and senior vice president for Black Enterprise magazine, was accosted on a train by New York police officers while reading the paper and sipping orange juice. They relieved him of his briefcase and frisked him from top to bottom, looking for a weapon. Why? They told him they were looking for a black man with short hair who, they had been told, had been carrying a gun. A description like that, of course, would fit more than a million people in New York.
When this sort of thing happens to someone like Graves, what is any other black person to think?

None of this is to say that I want to be considered a victim. I'm not a victim, and don't want to be treated that way.
     What I do want, though, is for people to know that I grieve as much as anyone else for the Washington University student who was killed and that my heart goes out to the young woman who survived. As much as anyone, I want to see justice done to the low-lifes who did it.
     I want people to know that I care just as much about the crime that's going on as anyone else. To me, it doesn't matter whether the crimes are being committed by blacks or whites, or against blacks or whites. What does matter is that the crime is going on at all. I am appalled at those who pass themselves off as human beings while committing such vicious and brutal crimes. (To be a human being means to have some humanity, and scum that commit these kinds of crimes, drive-by shootings and the like, clearly have none.)
     I also want people to know that while I realize that there are various factors that must be taken into consideration when trying to analyze today's violent times, I don't think criminals can be excused for violence because of their upbringing. It's not right, of course, but I can understand someone stealing food because he can't feed his family. I've got no compassion for someone who kills people - for whatever reason. I don't want to hear about racism or poverty or anything else. I don't buy it.

But I also want people to realize that there are a good number of African-Americans out here - a majority of us, in fact - who are incensed by both the racism that lets some people assume that most of us are criminals, and by the crime that's taunting all of us.
Today I am an angry black man.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

back