“…Afro-Americans have never had any kind of a chance to recover from the traumatic wounds of slavery…”
Michele Wallace, The Culture War within the Culture Wars
“Mamma, did you ever love us?” Hannah Peace asks her mother, Eva Peace, in ‘Sula’, Toni Morrison’s second novel. When Eva whirls into an uproar in response to the question, Hannah attempts to clarify, “I was talkn’ ‘bout something else… Like. Playn’ with us. Did you ever, you know, play with us?”. Eva, however, is still furious; “Play? Wasn’t nobody playin’ in 1895… 1895 was a killer, girl. Things was bad. Niggers was dying like flies.”.
From this snippet of the novel, it would be extraordinarily easy to identify Eva as a callously utilitarian parent as our society claims increasing interest in children’s needs for parental affection. An inattentiveness to context may even encourage some to condemn Eva for her reaction to Hannah’s curiosity. However, only by examining Eva’s past can we acquire insight into her temperament. Abandoned by her wayward husband, Eva was left with very few resources and three children to raise single-handedly. After weeks of staving off starvation, Eva entrusts her children to a neighbor and leaves town in search of work. Eighteen months after her departure, Eva returns—missing a leg and possessing enough money to build a house of her own. While Eva’s neighbors relentlessly gossip about how Eva lost her leg and obtained presumed wealth, I am more concerned with what Eva’s lost leg symbolizes. Eva’s lost leg symbolically represents the sacrifices Black single mothers have made, and continue to make, to ensure that they’re able to provide their children with sustenance and shelter. As the word implies, all sacrifices, even those that make survival possible, come at a cost. In Eva’s case, being without two legs leaves her homestuck, living in a wagon on her home’s third floor until her granddaughter, Sula, enters adulthood. And, even before venturing off, Eva is unable to deal with her anger at Boyboy, her ex-husband, for deserting her, “…the demands of feeding her three children so acute she had to postpone her anger for two years until she had both the time and energy for it.”. While I believe that Black single mothers have experiences which most parallel Eva’s, I also believe that aspects of Eva’s experience are shared by Black people collectively, regardless of parenting status and gender. Due to the sheer viciousness of white supremacy, from enslavement to displacement to racial apartheid, Black people have survived for centuries in a society dependent upon our mental, emotional, and physical brokenness to sustain itself.
Interpreted through a certain lens, the realities mentioned above could potentially be used to justify racist eugenicists ideals and practices; viewed differently, these realities speak to the tragic resiliency of African-Americans, and the immeasurable sacrifices we’ve made to have our basic physical needs met.
Thankfully, those active in movements for social justice have acknowledged the benefits of therapy for Black people since 1968, when the Association for Black Psychologists was founded. As more Black people, like Richeal Faithful, a self-described “street shaman and folk healer” who works in Washington D.C out of the Freed Bodyworks wellness center, engage in practices of healing, alternatives to generational trauma will make themselves increasingly available. Our goal, however, must be a societal transformation which makes these spaces for healing accessible to everyone.
Events began on April 2, 2016 in Philadelphia, where more than a hundred activists began a ten-day, 140-mile march from to Washington D.C. By April 11, thousands had joined Democracy Spring and Democracy Awakening in our nation’s capitol to demand Congress take immediate action to end the corruption of big money in our politics and ensure free and fair elections in which every American has an equal voice.
According to John Zanga, from the DC Media Group, organizers planned an eight-day series of actions involving major groups which have expressed dissatisfaction with legislative agendas. They said they hoped the coming week of civil disobedience actions would be the beginning of a people’s grassroots movement to start wrestling control of the Congress from corporate moneyed interests.
Here are a few of my favorite stories covering the events of last week. I start with this video because I think it explains best the reasons the movement is necessary.
As this is site tries to cover local progressive issues, I’m posting a couple of articles from our local alternative media in their entirety below.
Black Lives Matter and Anacostia organizers lead 3rd march on Capitol by Democracy Spring Cross-Posted from DC Independent Media Center Written by Luke
On the 13th of April, Black Lives Matter and other Ward 8 organizers led Democracy Spring’s 3rd march on the US Capitol. The lead banner was from the Save Barry Farms organizers advising people to refuse to move, blocking displacement. When the march arrived at the Capitol, the third sit-in in as many days followed. As police arrested the folks in the sit-in, they also put police lines around the support people after moving them back behind the first police line. At one point they were told they too were subject to arrest,unknown if any arrests other than voluntary ones resulted from this. The final arrest total for the three days so far has now climbed to in excess of 700.
And finally, we have to include the coverage provided the DC Media Group, who is always good about interviewing event organizers and highlighting campaign goals and ways to stay involved.
Washington, DC – Over 400 Democracy Spring protesters were arrested Monday at the U.S. Capitol on the first day of eight days of planned protests. It was a record number of arrests in one day for a protest there, according to U.S. Capitol police. At one point, police had to stop processing arrests because the jail was full.
Cenk Uygur, host of the TV show Young Turks was among the last few people that police removed from the Capitol steps. He said it was his first arrest and he expected there to be many more. “The next time we come here I don’t think they’re going to have enough buses to arrest us all,” he said. It took nearly four hours and 15 bus loads for police to remove all the protesters involved in Monday’s sit-in.
Democracy Spring kicked off on April 2 with a 10-day march from Philadelphia to Washington, DC. About 135 took part in the 140-mile walk. David Schwank, a walk participant, said that he was inspired to join the protests for many reasons. “We have so many problems in our country, from environmental devastation to [un]fair wages and it all relates back to campaign finance reform,” he said. Schwank was also among those arrested Monday.
Why isn’t there enough affordable housing in the District of Columbia? It’s not that complicated. If you’re a landlord or a property developer, there isn’t much incentive to rent to someone who can afford only $500 per month versus someone who can afford $1,000 or $2,000 per month. If you’re looking for an answer to the District’s affordable housing crisis, don’t look to commercial real estate.
What about government? Does the city have an obligation to make sure that those in need have housing? As a Human Rights City, the District is morally but not legally obligated to insure that everyone has housing. Based on the city’s ever diminishing number of public housing units, one can assume this is not an obligation that the city takes too seriously. Yes, Mayor Bowser has dedicated $100 million to affordable housing programs, but most of this money will bolster housing for those whose income is near the median.
Which brings us to organizations like Pan African Community Action (PACA) and the National Black United Front. These organizations work toward full community access to the resources needed to realize a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of individuals and families, including: food, clothing, housing, medical care, and necessary social services.
For the Pan African Community Action political education, action and advocacy are an important part of their programming. There latest action was to host a Community Town Hall Meeting with the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent. The group is a body of independent experts dedicated to improving the human rights situation of the Black Diaspora. They came to the District to learn how African-Americans are treated in the United States. Participants were asked to testify about gentrification, police brutality, labor, environmental racism and gender oppressions. The video below is a montage of testimonials regarding the many unarmed Blacks who’ve been killed by the police, most of whom don’t get national attention.
Although PACA calls for community control over the police, they believe that no real headway will be made with regard to injustice and inequity for African-descended people (or anyone else for that matter) until there is community control over the land, water, and jobs. To that end, PACA will be hosting the …
Community Popular Education Forum: COMMUNITY CONTROL OF RESOURCES
Thursday, February 11
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Petworth Library
4200 Kansas Ave NW
This past summer, much media attention was given to what has been called a “surge” of violent crime in DC. Resident reactions to the violent crime have been particularly severe on Capitol Hill, a neighborhood straddling the Northeast and Southeast quadrants of the city. Increasingly alarmed by feelings of insecurity and danger, Capitol Hill residents took to the ‘New Hill East (a name given to the area by developers to appeal to potential real estate buyers) listserv to discuss best practices for addressing public safety as well as the needs for Capitol Hill’s entire community. However, before we are able to adequately address complex social issues we must, as best as we can, take into account the various historical, social, psychological, and economic factors influencing them. Otherwise, potential insights and solutions will go unobserved and circumstances contributing to the current predicament may even be reproduced. Sadly, most Capitol Hill residents are looking a swift and cursory cure for their anxieties.
One of the most outspoken Hill residents on the listserv, Richard Lukas, who claims to have lived on the Hill for fifteen years, dubbed the spike in crime a ‘reign of terror’ in an email sent out to the listserv on Oct. 15th, claiming that “a very active segment of marauding at-risk youths who find satisfaction from terrorizing people on a daily basis” are responsible for the inflated crime rate.
Continuing to speak of the crime spike as a ‘reign of terror’, in an article Lukas wrote for HillNow, Lukas identifies public housing complexes, like Potomac Gardens, as “hotspots” of criminal activity—even suggesting “sentinel stations” be placed near, or within, public housing complexes. The harsh, frenzied nature of Lukas’ sentiments are not to be taken lightly—especially while presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to receive support from US citizens despite his blatant racism and xenophobia. What’s concerning is how national and local policies will be influenced by sentiments voiced by people like Trump and Lukas.
However, what worries me most is Lukas’ lopsided understanding of how gentrification, poverty, and crime work in tandem. On his HillNow post, and in the New Hill East listserv, Lukas writes:
I do think that things will get better due to the slow churn of progressive policy reforms being made in our education system and social services, but also due to the increased density through city development. (Even though people like me could never afford that $500,000 one-bedroom condo!)
Here, Lukas doesn’t seem to comprehend that increased city development, also known as gentrification, may be contributing to the recent spike in crime and that, eventually, “people like [him]” may not eventually be able to afford living in the city itself. Presently, the rift between the city’s wealthy and the city’s poor is already staggering. As gentrification advances, and costs of living subsequently increase, this rift will widen—creating conditions in which low-income people will find living in the city even more financially taxing.
As the cost of living increases, and economic resources continue to be distributed inequitably, understanding the relationship between crime and poverty is vital to develop an intelligent and compassionate perspective on the events that took place during the summer. Rather than pinning people who are poor as inherently violent and/or willing to engage in criminal behavior, it is important to understand that poverty often causes people to engage in criminal and/or violent behavior to make ends meet.
Poverty’s effects on the psyche often goes ignored as well, an experience brilliantly encapsulated by the writer James Baldwin when he said, “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”. As stated by the researchers at Poverties.org, “It’s only when people witness the starkest wealth differences that they can start complaining about injustice.”. In an area that has recently undergone tremendous development, such as DC, the city’s disenfranchised residents have been extremely vocal about their frustrations. And, as the DC’s gentrification becomes increasingly visible, the residents’ frustrations will increase as well. Contributing to the inherent tensions across lines of class inflamed by gentrification, in DC, race, and histories of white supremacy in the United States, add another layer of complexity to the issue. For Black people in the United States, gentrification must be situated within a history of displacement by white people, beginning with the Middle Passage. For example, until the 1950’s, there existed a multitude of Black-owned homes and businesses in Southwest DC. However, these residents were forced to relocate to other parts of the city by the order of the DC government.
Throughout history it has not been uncommon for Black people to be murdered, tricked, or terrorized off of land they’ve settled on. Therefore, gentrification, and the resultant increased costs of living which prices people out of gentrifying areas, is a point of contention for Black people across the country. In regards to DC specifically, Black people’s identification with the city itself must also be considered when attempting to understand why DC’s Black residents react to gentrification with intense scorn. After the rebellions of 1968, sparked by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., DC’s middle-class, white and Black, fled the city, leaving the city to a predominantly Black low-income population. While systemic racism and poverty created hardships in the lives of post-rebellion DC residents, cultural forms, such as go-go, were produced as well—making spaces for community to be built based on shared culture, a cultural identity heavily attached to location of birth. Therefore, a unique form of resentment simmers in the hearts of DC’s long-time Black residents as ‘Chocolate City’ becomes less and less ‘chocolate’.
Sadly, those remaining long-time residents are in danger of recent DC transplants mistaking them for criminals—which was addressed by New Hill East listserv participant Linda who sent,
A post to the man walking a white hound on C St SE between 17th and 18th between 6:30 and 6:45 PM tonight: I was only asking you which side of the sidewalk your dog preferred to pass on – not demanding your money/phone/wallet… We can’t be a community if you fear/think that every person of color who passes you on the sidewalk is about to mug you. I cannot imagine what this man was thinking in how he treated me, but his treatment of me made me feel unwelcome and unsafe in my own fricking neighborhood… As long as you approach this crime issue with an “us” against “them” mentality – with the “them” being every Black person on foot, on bike, or in car, you’ll never feel safe and you’ll never truly be a neighborhood.
As a result of stereotypes about Black people proliferated by the media, many white people live under the impression that Black people are dangerous—prone to committing random acts of crime and violence. This fear of Black people has been shown to have severe, even lethal, consequences for Black people who are perceived as threats. Also, a heightened police presence has also been linked to gentrification and, due to years of brutalization by police forces, Black residents in gentrifying neighborhoods are distrustful of more recent, often white, residents who are prone to calling the police. The call for more police appears more than once in the New Hill East listserv, even by those who aren’t as hysterical as Lukas, and others who react in a similar fashion. Jennifer, who believes the response to the crime wave requires a “two-pronged approach” and is willing to address systemic inequality also wrote, “…a short term police presence again, like we had a month or so back, seems in order given the ridiculous spike this week.” Ultimately, both Lukas and Linda are both tragically confused about how to address crime in DC. In Lukas’ case, the gentrification he claims will improve quality of life in the city may end up displacing him along with the “marauding at-risk youth” he is so concerned about. And, in regard to Jennifer, calling the police into the community she’s attempting to support will only further the divisions between herself and her neighbors. To address crime in a just, equitable fashion, one must push for policies that bring job creation, living wages, high-quality education, and affordable housing into the city. Only when the masses have access to a high quality of life will criminal activity become an irregularity.
The men mentioned above are a prime example of the process and effects of cognitive dissonance for two reasons; 1) these men are unwilling to accept their attractions to other men, which results in; 2) these men’s most exercised coping mechanism for dealing with their attractions toward other men is to express resentment toward men they believe to be gay.
Sadly, the realities of cognitive dissonance play a larger part in the maintenance of systems of oppression than the previous example encapsulates.
Some who deny the effects of this nation’s history on present day society may simply be lacking in information and critical thinking skills. Too often, however, many individuals remain attached to these beliefs, even when presented with data and logically solid arguments.
The cognitive dissonance here reveals itself in the way people in positions of power can speak about oppression and injustice, even criticize people they share identities with, while lacking the willingness to be critical of themselves.
Often times, the urge to maintain beliefs grounded in faulty logic and fantasy compels the individual who has been challenged to shut down and/or lash out.
Currently, I work at a non-profit that claims racial justice and restorative justice as two of its core pillars of work. At a work meeting this past summer, I got into a heated argument with a cisgendered, heterosexual white male colleague on the day same-sex marriage was legalized by the federal government. This colleague decided to bring up same-sex marriage as a pre-meeting topic of conversation, so I decided to openly share my perspective. While I was attempting to explain to him that same-sex marriage doesn’t do much for me as a Black, genderqueer person, and most other people in LGBQ and Trans communities, he continued to aggressively and condescendingly insist that my perspective was invalid. Halfway into the conversation, he began cutting me off when I pointed out that the mainstream gay movement is extremely exclusionary of people of color/trans people. Eventually, I left the table out of sheer frustration. Upon returning to the table, I decided to share with this colleague that his cutting me off was particularly triggering due to his whiteness and maleness, speaking to the ways in which white men often speak over people of color/women/femme people/other marginalized groups of people. He responded by saying this was “my sh*t”. His response revealed his refusal to accept that our identities had a role in our conflict. In a facilitated conversation with this same colleague, I told him, “I can show you data, statistics, theories…” to prove my point. The potential of being introduced to information that would challenge his worldview nearly caused his eyes to pop out of their sockets.
My colleague’s cognitive dissonance was so ingrained that the mere thought of exposure to information that conflicted with his distorted sense of himself resulted in a visceral physical reaction.
Cognitive dissonance also manifests in the ways in which groups of people are represented in mass media; when referring to Black people who have engaged in criminal behavior, mass media often uses the label ‘thug’ while casually sharing details of allegedly dysfunctional personal lives; when referring to white people who have engaged in criminal behavior, particularly mass killings, mass media painstakingly details the level of psychological distress the offender was in before committing the crimes. And most consumers passively accept these hypocritical portrayals of news media subjects, ignoring the racist impact of these practices. Cognitive dissonance is an aspect of the human condition with roots in every aspect of our lives. However, cognitive dissonance running rampant in the political sphere has disastrous, even lethal, consequences for people around the globe. Overcoming cognitive dissonance requires having the courage to critically interrogate societal, interpersonal, and internal contradictions which may not be immediately apparent to someone initially beginning the work of justice. And once we’ve begun dispelling the myths and fantasies which uphold systems of domination, the possibilities for just, equitable transformation are endless.
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Why isn’t there enough affordable housing in the District of Columbia? It’s not that complicated. If you’re a landlord or a property developer, there isn’t much incentive to rent to someone who can afford only $500 per month versus someone who can afford $1,000 or $2,000 per month. If you’re looking for an answer to the District’s affordable housing crisis, don’t look to commercial real estate.
