65 Years ago - Emmett Till and the heaviness of today

Emmett Till was 14 years old when he was lynched.

Today Is Heavy.

It’s Friday. I’ve had a very long week and should be very excited about some really amazing opportunities and work developments happening in my life.

Instead, I am sitting here, crying, in front of a very long to do list I should get through before the weekend, but I just can’t stop crying.

I feel heavy. I feel numb and angry and enraged and sad at the same time.

This week Jacob Blake got shot in the back 7 times in front of his babies.

This week a 17-year old white supremacist killed two people and shot a third and then walked by the police with his weapon, unharmed and not arrested until the next day.
And let me not get started on the reporting.

This week it has been over a year since the beautiful soul that is Elijah Mcclain was murdered by police and we still haven’t seen justice.

Today also marks a total of 168 days since my sister Breonna Taylor was murdered in her home. And still, not justice.

Today it has been 187 days since Ahmaud Arbery was chased, shot down and killed like an animal by white men who felt they were so superior to him that their actions were justified.

Today marks 95 days since a man who must surely be inhabited by the demon of white supremacy felt comfortable kneeling on a Black man’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds squeezing the life out of him. His name was George Floyd.

I could go on.

Today also marks 65 years exactly since a young boy called Emmett Till was brutally beaten and murdered by white supremacists.

As the story goes, Emmett, who was at home in the South Side of Chicago, was visiting his uncle in Mississippi for the summer. On Saturday the 27th August 1955 Emmett and his friends went to a local store. The reports about what went down in and outside of the store vary – what we do know is that the cashier, Carolyn Bryant, who testified at the trial of Emmett’s killers, lied back in 1955.
She admitted that herself decades later…

Anyway. Whatever happened following their encounter, in the early morning hours of August 28th, a Sunday, Bryant’s husband and a friend abducted Emmett, held him at gun point and proceeded to torture him.

We don’t know all the different ways in which they did that, but we do know that when this young king’s body was found it was mutilated. Emmett Till was lynched.

His murder and his mother’s decision to hold the funeral over an open casket was one of the main catalysts for the Civil Rights movement to gain the momentum needed that carried through over the next 10 or so years.

It was ONE OF the catalysts. There was work happening behind the scenes, in the communities long before that.

Here’s what’s interesting to me: 65 years ago it was Black trauma, a mutilated Black body that was needed, to get a large number of white people in the US to finally acknowledge what had been happening to Black people in America for centuries. It took a national coverage of the funeral and pictures of Emmett’s mutilated body in the newspaper to move people into action.

I propose, that trauma porn in relation to Black bodies started then.

Because here’s the thing. 65 years later, white people still need to see videos of Black people lynched to believe or even just consider we have a global racism problem.

White people still get off on the emotion, the feeling sorry for and conjuring up some type of empathy when seeing a Black body lynched, but it still isn’t enough to move most of them beyond a sending of prayers or even attending a protest.

Just like it wasn’t enough then.

Did it bring change? Did the Civil Rights Movement harness the momentum of outrage to spark something? Of course. But what DIDN’T happen is real change.

Racism has never been resolved. It has only ever evolved.

My question then, on this day that marks the lynching of our brother Emmett is this:

How many more mutilated, violated and murdered Black bodies do you need to see to start doing the work?

I’ve been saying this a lot, but I don’t feel like people still aren’t understanding the urgency of this:

Antiracism work is INTERNAL work.

You, the nice, white or non-black compassionate person who ‘isn’t racist at all’ have to start doing the work of confronting your bias.

You have to start by acknowledging the fact that NO ONE is immune to a centuries old narrative and no one includes you. No matter how good a person you are.

A narrative that has been woven into the fabric of society so neatly, that a big publication like The Times can report on the aforementioned white supremacist teenager who just killed two people in a way that makes him look like the victim and people buy it.

A narrative that has created a divide between humanity that allows for a person like Donald Trump to be the president of the United States supported by and cheered on by evangelical Christians.

A narrative that, when an unarmed Black Man gets shot in the back 7 times in front of his children, causes people to ask about his criminal record.
A narrative that doesn’t see a problem with that.
A narrative that wants to celebrate that ‘well at least he didn’t die’ instead of ARRESTING THE COP WHO FELT COMFORTABLE ENOUGH TO SHOOT THE MAN.

The narrative is old, it is strong and it is deep rooted.

Getting it out of minds, systems and institutions isn’t going to happen over-night, but that isn’t an excuse not to start the work.

My heart breaks at the possibility that 65 years from now, my children might still be seeing Black people shot, killed, mutilated and oppressed and society will have just found new ways to excuse it.

Because if we don’t address racism, white supremacy and bias at the root, in the minds and hearts of ‘good’ people it doesn’t matter how many laws we change.

So today, 65 years since our brother’s life was cut short by the evils of racism, I have one plea. One wish, one hope, one DEMAND:

DO THE WORK.

Read, journal, meditate, apologise, learn, hold yourself accountable, talk to your white friends and address your collective bias, find an accountability partner, challenge your workplace, journal, mediate and apologise again.

This is lifelong work and we need a critical mass of white people to start doing it.

We, Black people, are done. We are angry and we are tired.

Now in closing, before you come at me with any Dr. King quotes (which I probably know better than you and can probably tell you what essay or speech it’s from), tell me about ‘Black on Black crime’ (I beg you come at me with this BS) or even call me divisive I want you to consider that maybe a Black woman who is done with seeing people who look like her getting killed and is angry about it isn’t the problem.

That maybe, just maybe, the thing that’s divisive is the story you’re telling yourself about us, the story you’re believing when you walk past Black people on the streets.

That maybe, just maybe the systems of oppression that continue to benefit from the dominance of one race over the other is what’s divisive.

That maybe, your silence on the matter and your continued participation in the system, without even batting an eyelid is divisive.

That maybe using Christianity to silence us is divisive.

That maybe your ignorance and unwillingness to look reality in the eye is what’s divisive.

Consider that.

In the words of Letetra Widman, Jacob Blake’s sister: I don’t want pity. I want change.

Written in anger and frustration but as always with a glimmer of hope that someone might read this and change the trajectory of their own little worlds, so that one day we might see change everywhere.

Jess

PS: if you want to start the work and don’t know how, you can still sign up to my ‘An Introduction to Antiracism’ workshop starting on Monday,  7th September. There are a few spots left, when they’re gone they’re gone. And you’ll be pleased to know, that in a space with people who genuinely want to learn and do the work I’m a lot less angry.

Sign up HERE