The Lion Sleeps Tonight

It’s hard to believe that it’s now been 20 years since I used to watch The Lion King every day with my two and a half year old cousin.  We watched The Lion King like she was studying it for her Master’s thesis.  We would watch The Lion King three or four times a day.  “Watch it again, Miss Avity!  Avity!  Watch it again!”  We sang the songs together, we did the dances; suffice it to say that I was extremely knowledgeable about that movie.  Every time we watched it, every single solitary time, she would ask me some existential, philosophical, metaphysical question that a 2 year old should not have even been able to ask.  She asked questions that I couldn’t answer and that would have me stumped as to how to respond.  I would struggle to explain to this beautiful, inquisitive little girl about the concepts of life, death, and morality and how it all wove together in a movie about a damn lion.

Here I am today, two decades later, and I’m still very much struggling with the concepts of life and death and morality as it pertains to Simba’s cousin, Cecil.  (You didn’t see him in the movie?  He didn’t have a speaking role so it was easy to miss him. He was the one that had black on his mane.)    Anyway, Cecil the Lion was a “famous” lion who was hunted and killed as a part of a blood-sport safari package.  His killer, Walter Palmer, is a dentist from Minnesota who paid $50,000 for the thrill of killing Cecil.   I must, out of necessity, put the word famous in quotes because Cecil wasn’t really famous.  It wasn’t like he was a Barnum & Bailey star performer that millions of people had grown up loving; he wasn’t the lion that ate Siegfried.  Or was that Roy?  Anyway, he didn’t have his own reality show; he wasn’t on a t-shirt.  He wasn’t the latest toy craze he; didn’t have a stuffed animal fashioned after him that parents had to get their children because they were having meltdowns in Toyz R’ Us.  Cecil wasn’t even on social media.  He didn’t have a Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook page; there were no memes with Cecil’s image that had gone viral.  The nation is mourning a lion that . . . 99.9% of the people in this country had never heard of before his death, in a country that 95% of the people can’t find on a map if you paid them.  But, oh, poor Cecil.  Oh the horror, oh the tragedy.  Posthumously, Cecil has become the nation’s golden child.  Their outrage and fury have reached a fevered pitch over the death of poor Cecil that is unparalleled. 

Walter Palmer is a wanted man.  Everyone is out for his blood.  Every conceivable form of social media has got him in their crosshairs.  He’s had to shut down his dentistry, he’s in fear for his life; there is even talk of extraditing him back to Zimbabwe to have him prosecuted.  Celebrities are speaking out, people are crying.  Walter Palmer is the most hated man in America. 

I will tell you this, and of this I am 100% positive, if Walter Palmer had killed a Black man in cold-blooded murder, all caught on video, right here in these United States of America, he would be a national hero right now.  He would have a GoFundMe account where people would donate millions of dollars to him.  He would be the bastard love child of Fox News and the NRA.  White people would be OUTRAGED if there was talk of prosecuting him.  People would find ways to excuse his actions as long as his victim was a Black man.  People would be chanting his name, only this time, it would be to hoist him on their collective shoulders and cheer him on as not only innocent, but justified in his actions. 

White America cheers when a Black person is murdered in cold blood.  They celebrate it.  Every day in a national holiday when a Black person is killed in this country because it’s always their fault.   They shouldn’t have been so uppity.  They shouldn’t have been so menacing.  They shouldn’t have resisted.  They shouldn’t have been walking in a neighborhood they didn’t belong.  They shouldn’t have been playing in the park or buying a toy in Wal-mart.  Clearly, he shouldn’t have been running away or working on his own car in his own driveway.  She shouldn’t have been sleeping on the sofa or asking for help for her broken car.  They shouldn’t have been driving without a license or had a broken tail light because those are crimes punishable and justifiable by death.  They shouldn’t have been arrested 20 years ago.  In essence, they shouldn’t have been a NIGGER. 

The murderers of Eric Garner didn't get indicted. The coroner ruled his death a homicide and no one was held accountable for his death. The police department turned their backs on the Mayor for asking for further accountability after the incident. People posted pictures of themselves wearing t-shirts saying, "I Can Breathe," they posted videos of themselves being choked like it was funny. LEGIONS of white people posted online, justifying the murder of Eric Garner for resisting arrest, saying he shouldn't have been selling cigarettes, saying he was fat and it was his fault. Yeah, but poor Cecil the Lion though.

Walter Palmer’s life is in ruin.  He was forced to issue a lie, I mean an apology saying that he didn’t realize that he had killed a protected animal and how very sorry he was.  Conversely, Darren Wilson said he would kill Mike Brown again if he had to do it all over.  He wasn't even the tiniest bit apologetic.  He retired from the Ferguson Police Department amidst rumors that he had in excess of a million dollars donated to his defense fund.  A fund, incidentally, that he never had to use because he was never even indicted.  His flimsy story, contradicted by every eye-witness, even by the autopsy report, was never questioned by John W. Public.  (I’ll give you two guesses what the W stands for.)  The public swallowed it hook, lie, and sinker.  White people went so far as to photoshop pictures of Darren Wilson making him look bloody and bruised when in actuality, all he had was a case of rosacea.  White America said that Mike Brown DESERVED to die because he stole some cigars.  No, this isn’t 1815 when Black men were killed for minor offenses all the time, when whites would kill niggers for any tiny infraction.  I want you to listen very closely to what white people are trying to say.  White people are boldly proclaiming, loud and clear, that they want to go back to the good old days when they could murder Blacks for offending their lily-white sensibilities.   Being Black in America is a crime.  Being poor in America is a crime.  Being under-educated and unemployed in this country is a crime punishable by death. 

George Zimmerman has shown the world time and time again that he’s volatile and unstable, that he’s actually a thug.  But the overwhelming number of white people believe that he was justified in killing Trayvon Martin because he was in fear for his life, intimidated by the big, Black man who clearly was not where he was supposed to be.  Lions are predators.  They are one of the most vicious animals on the planet.  They kill for food, they kill for territory, they kill for control.  Where are the tweets about how Cecil deserved to die, how he was a threat, where is the defense of Walter Palmer for killing a threat to society? 

Black lives don’t matter.  Racism is not in the past, don’t let it go.  Racism is alive, well, racism is flourishing and thriving with the help of Fox News, the anonymity of the internet, and the unabated ego of white people.  The evidence is there, as plain as day, that white people loathe Black people, they value animal life more than Black human lives.  Kid yourself if you want, delude yourself into believing that the presence of a Black President or interracial relationships symbolize the end of racism, that the playing field is level in some way but I promise you that there are white people in relationships with Black partners and people who voted for Obama who have justified and excused the murder of Black lives in this country because the victims weren’t educated enough, weren’t assimilated enough, weren’t “white” enough.  And I can promise you, that some of the loudest and most virulent and repulsive racist voices, those espousing the most heinous and prejudiced beliefs are the very same people OBSESSED with Black sexuality in secret. 

I went to an exhibition on lynching once.  It showed pictures of white people gathered around corpses of burning, dismembered Black bodies, smiling and happy like it was a day at the fair.  White people used to send out invitations to lynchings, they sent out postcards with pictures of Black people hanged like charcoal piñatas.  White people would put the severed genitalia of Black men on display in jars of the people they murdered.   If that isn’t the height of racism, if that isn’t the epitome of arrogance, I really don’t know what is.  Racism is deeply-ingrained in American culture and nothing has changed.   We are still hated, vilified, and stalked like prey, like wild game on a safari.  Am I supposed to believe that the same people who dress up like Trayvon Martin for Halloween and who troll Black websites to call Black people niggers are not the same people who would take selfies of themselves in front of the mutilated bodies of Black people today?   

I would like to conclude by saying that hunting for sport is nothing less than barbaric and should be outlawed in every corner of the planet.  Anyone who finds pleasure, entertainment, or enjoyment from killing is a sociopath and needs to be kept away from society for the collective safety of the entire animal kingdom, human beings included.  If there is one thing I’ve learned from this event, one existential question about life, death, and morality that I can now answer with certainty and authority, is that Black lives don’t mean a god damn thing in this country other than expendable entertainment for the racist, white masses. 

Dear Mr. White Police Officer,

I’m really going to need you to stop murdering unarmed Black men in the streets.  Come on, let’s be honest with each other, between you and I, you know this is getting out of control, right?  I get it, I really do.  You don’t see Black people as humans.  You hate us for our music, our slang, and the way we wear our clothes.  I understand, I really do.  You think we are inherently criminal, loud, lazy and that we are the reason that everything is wrong with this country of yours.  I would say country of ours, both yours and mine considering I was born here, my parents, grandparents, great grandparents and my great-great grandparents were born here as well.   They were slaves but technically that made them citizens, or 3/5ths of one at least.   My lineage in this country is long and I have just as much right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as you do.  But, let’s be honest it’s not my country at all.  It’s your world, you run it, and you have decided that people who look like me are underserving of sharing the air that you breathe. 

You might not think so but I understand you very well.  You watch Fox News every night, you obsess over hating Obama, you hate Mexicans for taking American jobs and speaking that damn Spic language, you hate Muslims because they are all terrorist towel heads, you dislike Asians, well, just because they are aren’t white.  But it’s those niggers you hate the most, isn’t it?  You hate us because you believe we are inherently criminal, inherently stupid, inherently deserving of being slaughtered like pigs, don’t you?  You despise us because our hair is wooly and disgusting to you.  Our lips and noses are repulsive to you, hideous.  And if we’re being honest with each other, and we can be, you hate Black men for having bigger dicks because it’s not fair that your little penis is so small but you know in your heart that you are supposed to be superior.  In all fairness, we can’t do anything about the proportions of our features, we are not responsible for that, we have no control over our genetics.  Even though so many of us covet your stringy, limp hair, your thin lips, and your pale, pasty skin, altering our aesthetics to conform to your narrow standards of beauty, you don’t really hate EVERYTHING about Black people, do you?  Shhhhh, I know your secret.  I know that at home, in private, you secretly lust after that big, hard, strong, thick, BLACK cock.  You want your wife to be fucked by it, you want to sexually submissive to it.  You want to worship it like it’s your God and you lust after it to the point of obsession.  When you put on that uniform, however, when you put on that badge and that gun and you’re around your good ole boys, you can’t let anyone know your secrets so you tell those nigger jokes, you tase us for not wearing a seat belt or waiting for our children, you use illegal choke holds to restrain us , choking the life out of us, and you shoot us over and over and over again to prove to yourself and the world that you really are superior, that we are nothing more than scum that needs to be disposed of like trash. 

But, if we are being completely fair, just between you and I, it’s really your fault that Blacks are in the socio-economic position we are in and the criminal behaviors that result from being denied equality for so long.  Well, maybe not you personally but white people as a whole.  It was the overwhelming and offensively arrogant ego of white people who decided that strong, beautiful, resilient bodies of Africans were unworthy of freedom; it was whites who decided that people of African descent had to labor like beasts, with no education, no income, no right to their heritage, culture, or history, to build a country for which they got no credit.   You know that you and your friends do more drugs and alcohol than Black people could ever dream of doing.  You know that you are more sexually deviant than Black people ever could hope to be.  Deep down inside you know that it’s not Blacks who are inherently inferior at all, don’t you?  Black people aren’t inherently criminal or lazy or stupid.  We really aren’t.  If we are less advantaged than whites, it’s because you wanted us to be.  You stop us from getting jobs that could provide for our families, you don’t want us to be educated so that we could be equal to you, you put us in prison for things you turn a blind eye to when your neighbor does it.  You want us to be relegated to a life of despair and poverty with no hope and now you are killing us because we are victims of a system that archetypal “you” put in place centuries ago.  As much as you don’t want to admit it, as much as you are in denial that there are long-term, tangible, and compound consequences to the legacy that is slavery, you are murdering us for something that is not of our own doing, not our fault at all.  That’s . . . not very fair. 

So, Mr. white police officer, I’m going to beg you to not massacre us like animals in the streets so you can hide your conflicted and tormented beliefs.  I’m going to beg you not to leave our bodies laying in the streets for hours.  I’m pleading with the part of you that is just and fair and right to not fill our beautiful brown bodies with lead so that you might not ever have to reconcile your very racist beliefs and your conflicted sexual desires.  We do not deserve to be murdered for circumstances that we did not create, for the inner demons you are unwilling to fight. 

Sincerely,

The mother of a movement to educate and enlighten,  Scottie Lowe. 

You Might be a Racist if . . .

If you have an outfit made from 180 count percale white cotton sheets . . . you might be a racist.  If you’ve ever attended an event where a cross was burned and people chanted, “Death to all niggers,” . . . you might be a racist.  Right.  Everyone gets that; that’s the ugly face of racism everyone loves to hate.  In reality, racism is far more subtle and FAR more pervasive than that.  Racism is a sickness so deep, so omnipresent, and so completely enmeshed in the very fabric of American consciousness, it’s dismissed, ignored, and negated because anyone other than a devout, card-carrying, unapologetic Aryan Nation/Nazi/Skinhead/Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon is given the benefit of the doubt that they aren’t racist. 

People of color have been so oppressed, Black people in particular are so downtrodden by the burden of racism, so conditioned to swallow and choke on the incessant, daily racism that conditions our thinking from birth, that we don’t know how to speak out against racism other than to say, “Post racial my ass,” when we encounter something that is an insult to our vey being. That’s the extent of our outrage; that’s all we’ve allowed ourselves to do.  We are afraid to challenge racists, to get in their faces and silence them.  We lament and whine about racism amongst ourselves but we have been so conditioned to swallow our anger that we don’t know how to confront racism when we encounter it.  Black people have been raised to never, ever, ever, ever challenge white people’s belief systems lest we suffer the wrath of lily-white, blond-haired, blue-eyed God Almighty himself.  Racism has metastasized and grown unchecked for centuries and the perpetrators feel entitled to say and do whatever they want, with impunity; the system remains in place and people of color are not the beneficiaries. 

I’m the nigger that white people hate.  I’m the nigger that will not stay silent in the face of racism.

“I’m not racist.”  That phrase flows off the tongues of white people as easily as they say, “God Bless America.”  They are conditioned to say it.  Every white person knows deep down that racists are supposed to be bad, evil people so they deny any hint that they might actually harbor any racist sentiments with their knee-jerk response of, “I wasn’t raised racist,” and they are absolved all guilt, or so they believe. But because there has never been a healthy conversation about race in this country, because racism is bred into white people’s subconscious minds, they have no clue what it encompasses or even how to recognize their own racism.  Whites still control the conversations about race.  That’s the equivalent of child molesters dictating the conversation and setting the rules about what constitutes healthy sexuality. 

Let me break it down for you. 

·         If you watch Fox News because you think it’s the only news outlet that tells the truth . . . you might be a racist.

·         If you make a habit of going on African-American oriented websites to tell Blacks how racist they are . . . you might be a racist.

·         If you are tormented and tortured by the kidnapping of little blond white girls in the news but have never once given consideration or empathy to the plight of Black children . . . you might be a racist. 

·         If you vehemently oppose Affirmative Action because you think that “reverse racism” is keeping whites from their fair share of the pie . . . you might be a racist.

·         If you have made it your life’s mission to defend the honor of George Zimmerman because you believe that Black, unarmed teenagers are a threat to the safety of America . . . you are a racist.

·         If you think Herman Cain and Clarence Thomas should be role models for all Blacks because you think the only Blacks who have valid opinions are the ones that tow the conservative party line . . . there’s no might about it.

·         If you obsessively watch interracial porn because you think it’s especially hot to see white women having sex with Black men because that makes them especially nasty . . . that’s pretty racist. 

·         If you’ve ever said, “Let it go, slavery was in the past,” or “My ancestors didn’t own any slaves,” or “Jews suffered the Holocaust and they’ve managed to overcome that,” . . . you’re clueless and racist.

·         If you are convinced that Obama was born in Kenya and there was a conspiracy to have his birth announcement placed in a Hawaiian newspaper so that he could one day become President and take away the rights of whites, not only are you a racist, you’re fucking crazy. 

·         If you have ever argued that whites have a right to use the N word because Black people use it . . . let’s not pull any punches, you’re racist. 

·         If the only Black men you respect have the initials MJ (or, realistically, fill in the blank with any Black entertainer, celebrity, or sports figure) . . . I hate to break it to you . . . but you’re infected with the racism bug.

·         If you have ever lamented that you want things to go back to the good old days, you know, when white men had all the power . . . you are very, very racist. 

·         If you have ever accused a Black person of “playing the race card” for simply discussing racism, and then had the audacity to tell them what constitutes racism . . . yeah, you’re racist.

·         If you’re still pissed at OJ . . . let’s call a proverbial spade a spade why don’t we.

·         If you think slavery was a blessing for Blacks to save them from heathen Africa . . . come on now!  Seriously?

·         If you feel like you have to insinuate the phrase, “Color doesn’t matter,” or, “Can’t we all just get along,” into any conversation about race to prove that you aren’t racist . . . oh, wait, that’s hitting a little too close to home.  All white people say that . . . you know you aren’t racist but I hate to break it to you . . .

·         If you’ve ever come to the defense of a white person and said, “No, no, no, they aren’t racist because I know them personally and they’re a nice person,”  . . . that’s an example of everyday racism that you’ve never thought about before that you are guilty of. 

·         If you get anxious and defensive every time a POC talks about being proud of their identity . . . I hate to break it to you but you need to look at yourself in the mirror in a new light.

·         If the only quote you know from Dr. Martin Luther King is, “I have a dream,” and you have used it in a conversation to prove to a Black person you aren’t racist . . . it’s not looking too good for you. 

·         If you insist you aren’t racist because you have dated, are attracted to, or have sex with Black people because you think your sexual attraction negates the millions of messages you’ve been given that place whites above all others . . . you don’t really understand what racism is.

·         If you tell racist jokes and then get offended if someone calls you on it . . . what are the chances you aren’t racist?

·         If you have ever rationalized that there needs to be a White History Month or White Entertainment Television because whites deserve equality . . . you know good and god damn well that you are racist.

·         If you can quote every line of the movie Friday or can rap every word in every Kanye West song because you consider yourself to be so multi-cultural but you’ve never once explored any Black scholars or authors who are actually about lifting Black people up . . . you’d do well to take a look at your own white privilege. 

·         If you think light skinned Blacks are more civilized . . . you’ve been socialized to be racist.

·         If you think you’re giving a Black person a compliment when you say, “You’re not like other Black people, you’re so articulate,” . . .  what do you think you’re really saying?  You’re saying that Black people are inherently stupid. 

·         If you have one Black friend you call “your nigga” who is your go-to person to reinforce to you that you aren’t racist . . . are you getting the picture yet?

·         If you believe that Blacks are genetically predisposed to violence, ignorance, and poverty . . . the sad fact of the matter is, you are a racist, plain and simple. 

·         If you’ve witnessed any one of these acts and not spoken up, if you’ve not been outraged or offended, I would suggest you run, don’t walk to YouTube and watch every Tim Wise video you can find because, sadly, you might be racist.

I could go on and on sadly.   There are so many instances of racism; I’ve only touched on a few.  Racism is so deeply entrenched into this society that I haven’t even mentioned the racism that persists around people of other races and religions.  I could write pages and pages about white people’s racism towards Latinos and Muslims and Asians and anyone different than themselves.  (I wouldn’t dare speak for anyone else because that would be racist to assume that I understand their angst better than they do)  Do you want to know what’s NOT racist, however?  People of color exposing, talking about, and being offended by the racist practices of white people does not constitute racism.  The inmates can no longer run the asylum.  If we are ever going to heal from this epidemic that is killing us all, white people have to let go of this concept that they know more about racism than anyone else and they have a right to tell people of color what’s offensive and what isn’t. 

Copyright 2013 Scottie Lowe All Rights Reserved

Scottie Lowe is the owner of a website called AfroerotiK.  She has made it her mission to show people of African descent in a positive, healthy erotic light.  She is also the author of Minority Affairs, a book that tackles interracial erotica from a decidedly different perspective.