Trayvon Martin Blackface Costumes Are As American As Cherry Pie & Lynchings

The photos circulating of white folks dressed as Trayvon Martin for Halloween complete w/ blackface, bloodied hoodie and a bullet hole is just as offensive as the Harriet Tubman sex tape video that a number of folks tried to defend talking about its ‘just comedy‘ and ‘free speech‘…

Folks should clearly understand, we as Black folks, are not the only ones who will do shocking, distasteful things and defend it as humor and free speech..Apparently all sorts of white folks are doing the same except they are hitting on a basic building block of this country which is Black death and Black misery is funny and entertaining..

This is a country where many would routinely hold lynching parties complete with little kids cheesing for the cameras as ‘strange fruit‘ would dangle from the trees. We’ve all seen the post cards… (For those who don’t know, they actually made post cards of these gruesome hangings)

For those who wanna act like such activities were in the distant past, all you have to do is look at what took place in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.. There is a documentary that was played during the International Katrina Tribunals a year after,  that showed white residents living in the Algiers sections of New Orleans, bragging and laughing about how they had been ‘pheasant hunting‘. Some of the folks pictured were firemen… These residents were determined not to have any Black folks come through their neighborhood which was situated on high ground and they formed hunting parties and went out shooting Black folks..

This was not 1920s during the Red summers where race riots (massacres) jumped off and Black folks were being attacked and slaughtered wholesale.. and Blackface/ Vaudeville shows already 50 years old were at their height and would last another 30 or 40 years.. making it the biggest form of entertainment in this country ever.

This was not the 1930 and 40s when Billie Holiday was singing Strange Fruit.

This was not the 1950s when Emmet Till was killed…or the 1960s when Freedom Riders and Black Panthers were being shot, Malcolm and Martin were killed or when racist police in LA were patrolling with the goal of keeping Blacks contained in the Watts section. They would routinely go into Watts and hem up Black folks in a practice they dubbed ‘duck hunting‘.

The pheasant hunting (code word for shooting Blacks took place in 2005.. This took place in 2005 in a city that was damn near 80% Black in the middle of a disaster of epic proportions. It shocked everyone who saw this during the tribunal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r1X_G7cWak

I mention all this because throughout the decades, there has never really been a commitment to change our collective ways… Lynching parties of the past have given way to celebrations of Black death and misery in rap songs, World Star Hip Hop videos and marathon showings of Cop/Prison shows that draw huge ratings for the Discovery Channel, History Channel and MSNBC to name a few..

Black life isn’t seen as life in the minds of many. Black life is not seen as something sacred to be protected and upheld, even amongst ourselves. It’s seen as something that’s disposable and useful for making a profit.. We saw this when Russell Simmons and Dreamworks got together and made a Harriet Tubman sex tape anticipating that it would be the appropriate jump off to a new video company. The Black comedians featured in the film, not only graciously thanked Russell, but they aggressively promoted and defended the piece..

We just saw pictures circulating around the internet of a young sister for a Halloween costume, put a noose around her neck, hold a bucket of cotton while her white friends held the noose…They all found it to be funny.

What I’m describing is not limited to a few ‘idiots’..We had famous TV stars like Julie Hough put on Black face.. We had a sitting NY Assemblyman named Dov Hikind not only wear wear Blackface to a party this year but he actually defended it.. You can read about HERE

Last year we had the head of social media for the Israeli Army wearing mud on his face talking about he was going  ‘Obama style‘. He got upset when folks called him out on it claiming he wasn’t a racist.. You can read about that HERE

We have all sorts of costume and ‘ghetto‘ theme parties taken place over the country and not just on Halloween where white folks wear Blackface or don Klan Attire, or pretend to be people of another ethnicity. One college that stood out earlier this year was Auburn, University in Alabama..You can read about that HERE while you peep the picture below from one of their theme parties.

By pointing out the complicity or the laughter of a few Black folks in some of these incidents, I’m not suggesting that they somehow gave white folks permission to go HAM on us. This has been going on for more than a century. The history and legacy of Blackface  Minstrel shows was it was the nations most popular institution that was rooted in white folks dressing up as enslaved Blacks, making fun of them.. and it evolved from there and remained popular as evident by this routine shown below done in the 1950s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_swtbIi2F0

Maybe one can simply say its all a big joke and keep it moving, but obviously it isn’t, not when we see post after post of white folks dressed up like Trayvon and folks seriously upset about it. The question is what should we be doing?

You can’t fight everyone, you can’t shame everyone and you can’t control folks from trying to get notoriety in a world that rewards it and its obtainable via the internet and social media…

As simplistic as this may sound, I said it before and I’ll say it again.. our first step is Don’t lose sight of your humanity.. Continuously reaffirm your humanity and try not to dehumanize others..Fellas we can start with the way we engage the women around us.. Are they bitches and hos or mothers, daughters and wives?

Second, lets not allow our death and misery to be other people’s entertainment.. I think this is what comedian Dave Chapelle was getting at when he left that 50 million dollar deal he was offered at Comedy Central.. And while Chapelle was trying to address the ill-timed laughter, we should keep in mind, not all entertainment is comedy..It is also those reality prison shows.. It is the local news that wants to lead off each night with a story of Black criminality while completely ignoring Black excellence.

It’s not enough to simply turn off the TV.. Many of us have the TVs off. Our challenge is millions of folks watch and then engage you based upon stereotypes and BS depictions that a handful of people are controlling..Those depictions may influence a cop, or loan officer at a bank or the person sitting before when you go to a job interview .. The bottom line is a variety of strategies need to be developed on dealing with this..

Third, know that we are in a culture war, an ideological war and spiritual war and what some are resorting to is designed to crush your spirit and dampen your morale..There is a fear of a Blackening and Browning planet and so many are go full tilt in trying marginalize us..

Find ways to protect your heart, Find ways to heal from your own grief and trauma and learn to see these attacks for what they are and react accordingly.. Sometimes you can shut shyt down, other times, you have to brush it off and see the weakness behind the attacks and deal with it another time and way..

Protect our kids from all this madness and make sure they know they are beautiful, great and special.. Reaffirm life and uplift the children that are around you so that generations coming behind us are of strong minds and equipped to rebuff any nonsense that comes their way..