I am not sure whether you all have seen the discussions on Black Twitter, but it seems that Stephon Clark, the Sacramento man shot eight times in the back or side by Sacramento police while standing in his grandmother’s backyard, allegedly maintained a Twitter page where he Tweeted all manners of vile and disgusting comments about black women. Check out some of the comments, under the handle @zoewoods, as follows:
So, it seems that Clark, in his fondness for non-black women, used his social media platform to denigrate black women while making light of the fact that he only wanted mixed race children because he was “already black enough.” Like many others, I can conclude after reading that Clark was one ignorant man and was in desperate need of deep psychological counseling to loosen the chains of mental slavery that informs such ill-informed thoughts and opinions.
While Clark’s comments were beyond deplorable, I would be lying if I said that in my almost 46 years of living, I have not heard comments like these–and ones far worse. I have–many times. I have known brothers who proudly suggest that they want mixed race kids because they are “prettier,” or more handsome–an ignorant postulate if ever there was one. I have heard sisters suggest that they wanted mixed race kids so that they could have “pretty” green or blue eyes.
Not every black man and woman is “woke,” thus the colorism issues that continue to this day that pit the unenlightened among us into DEEP feelings about “light” vs “dark” skin, or “good” vs “bad” hair, with “good” supposedly being less kinky and more European, and “bad” being far more coarse. These issues were the direct result of wicked white slave masters placing greater value on the offspring of the rapes of enslaved black women, rapes often committed by themselves, their kinsmen or their overseers. Further, these issues have been rampant in the 150 some odd years since slavery ended, and it is quite possible that 150 years from now, these arguments may still rage in some quarters across Black America.
But as I read the comments ascribed to Clark, with some brothers and sisters having read his past Tweets and in disgust, abandoning the fight for justice in his case, while I understand the feeling to want to say “to Hell with him” while calling him a sellout, I caution and remind my readers that the issue is not about Clark, per se. Meaning, the victims of police excessive use of force need not be paragons of virtue or arbiters of racial enlightenment; Clark should be alive today to Tweet whatever vile and ignorant thoughts that he wishes. Simply stated, Clark should not have been shot eight times in the back by a group of reckless and cowardly cops, as evidenced by the autopsy report that was released yesterday and shown below.
The issue is that we have a MAJOR problem in this country where law enforcement officers are killing unarmed blacks in the name of “officer safety,” and that issue is so critically important. If we do not raise awareness about each of these killings, including Clark’s, they may become so normalized that few will feel compelled to address the times in which those who have no criminal backgrounds or litany of vile and ignorant Tweets, like the late Philando Castille, Tamir Rice, and Sandra Bland, were killed by some cowardly cop. Or, should you or I become the next person(s) killed by reckless cops claiming to be scared, should our faults, thoughts or opinions, no matter how vile, be used to justify our deaths? I say, NO!!!
Lest we forget…
