“We don’t see any American dream,” Malcolm X said in 1964. “We’ve experienced only the American nightmare.”
A nightmare is essentially a horror story of danger, but it is not wholly a horror story. Black people experience joy, love, peace, safety. But as in any horror story, those unforgettable moments of toil, terror, and trauma have made danger essential to the black experience in racist America. What one black American experiences, many black Americans experience. Black Americans are constantly stepping into the toil and terror and trauma of other black Americans. Black Americans are constantly stepping into the souls of the dead. Because they know: They could have been them; they are them. Because they know it is dangerous to be black in America, because racist Americans see blacks as dangerous.
The opinion piece mines have hit a rich vein of Outrage in the last couple days.
I mean he's basically regurgitating Malcolm X, there's not a lot new in there but there is certainly an audience right now and I don't blame him for using that to his advantage.
My issue is more with the fact that it's hard not to feel like it's a fair-weather thing.
I wouldn’t consider the person who wrote that article, a black male who oversees the Center for Antiracism, to be fair weather. The people responding and reacting to these articles? You’re probably right, but I hope you’re wrong :)