Black pain

"A riot is the language of the unheard." ― Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

By Deauwand Myers

I was going to write about Korea's response to COVID-19. But alas. In America, the nationwide riots precipitated by the gruesome murder of George Floyd, an excruciating nine minutes of suffocation by police and recorded on video, was preceded by the equally brutal citizen murder of a black jogger not long before it.

I'm never surprised by these videos. Shocked, surely, but predictable. Misery porn is all the rage, and the destruction and abject disregard of black bodies is older than America's founding.

And to be honest, white folks who are surprised by these matters should be ashamed. Did you miss the genocidal land theft of the Indigenous? Did you miss the Atlantic slave trade, where all manner of evil, imaginable and not, was deployed to make that enterprise as successful and profitable as it was?

Did you misread Jim Crow; the wholesale destruction of black towns; the wanton and casual brutality visited upon blacks: castrations; lynching; rapes; torture? Did you forget the horrid conditions of Chinese people building the railroads, or the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II? Or when black military veterans returning from WWII were hanged in their dress uniforms?

No. None of this is surprising. And the fact that some white folks are surprised is infuriating. The history of America is like every empire. Imperialism is a gateway sin: It requires many other sins to be successful: murder, cruelty, and malice.

The only good advent of this contemporary moment is technology. We can record injustices. You can see them, and you cannot deny the evil encapsulated in said recordings.

I suppose I'm embarrassed, too. Taiwanese and Korean and Japanese friends ask how I feel. They think America is primitive and violent. Are they wrong?

Since 21, people always say my eyes look tired. I used to be offended by that. Now. Now, I say the truth I have always known. I am tired. To be black is to be tired. Black people are always on the slab, our flesh peddled about and discarded as needed. Worse, a lot of black people are tired, and more tired than me.

The riots, the great burning, the deep pain and righteous indignation felt by other blacks and allies and people of color are justified. Black people are tired.

A lot of my white and Jewish friends have been really proactive in asking about my mental state during this dystopian epic we are in. First, your conscientiousness is appreciated.

Secondly, besides rooting out bigotry when you see it and advocating for policies and politicians that align with your beliefs, there's nothing you can do. White supremacy is that good crack cocaine. And most people smoke it.

White supremacy will end when the majority of white folks no longer find it useful. Sexism and misogyny will end when the majority of men no longer find it useful. Anti-Semitism will end when the majority of gentiles no longer need it. Homophobia will end when heterosexuals see sexual minorities as human, and so on.

And here's the other thing. We have to come to terms with the human condition. White supremacy, as I stated, is an addictive drug. It feels good. It's free; all it costs you is your life. And white supremacy is shared in many communities.

Black people and colorism, judging other black people by how light or dark they are; Asian people making fun of new Asian immigrants as "fresh off the boat;" people of color, in general, being anti-black, all the while enjoying black culture. Evil things feel good.

White supremacy, of which police brutality is one aspect, however deadly, has a psychological utility to it. We need to dismantle and replace it with something more benign.

But let's not be naive. White folks know exactly the evil deployed against black folks. They know how they prosper with their boots on the neck of black folks. And they like it.

All this goes to show that if you can vote, vote. If you can get other people to vote, do that as well. The only other option is blood. I'm not a proponent of violence, but after 400 years, that increasingly becomes likely because all other avenues have not produced fundamental change in the quality of life for black folks.

They are still being discriminated against for housing, employment, the acquisition of wealth, and basic dignities afforded their Caucasian counterparts.

It seems black folks can't eat ice-cream, sleep, or play video games in their own homes. They can't jog, barbecue, get coffee, or enter their own apartments. They can't walk in stores or out of stores having purchased TVs.

These and more they can't do without being harassed or murdered by white people or the police. This situation is untenable.

Deauwand Myers (deauwand@hotmail.com) holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea times.