OF JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP, BLACK MEN, AND BLACK WOMEN IN WHITE AMERICA

I see where the singer, John Cougar Mellencamp, has a song out protesting the injustice of the cases against the Jena 6 of Louisiana. And in the process, he has pissed off  the mayor of Jena, Louisiana who is angry about his song and video.

That is all well and good.

It would be nice that he could do the same for the Newark Seven, Dunbar Village, and Pfc. Lavena Johnson.

But, I’m not holding my breath on such a thing happening.

You see, black women are invisible in this country, even when we suffer at injustice and racism just as much as black men.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I want justice for the Jena 6 just as much as any person who believes in rightness and fairness that should be applied equally by the U.S. (in)justice system.

But, just because black men, such as these young men, are getting attention on a topic that needs to be discussed and confronted, somehow, I do not think that black women will be brought right along with whatever the end result of the Jena 6 case will be. Time after time, black women have been left out of the equation when something of any magnitude happens to black men and the black community. Yes, black men are filling up the prisons due to white-run America’s draconian racist perversion of laws that give harsher sentences to blacks, and lesser sentences to whites. But, no one discusses the plight of black women who too are filling up the prisons. Black women who are there due to petty, misdemeanor crimes, black women doing time for some criminal activity that involved them on a crime with their boyfriend/lover/husband, black women with very young children who could have been given probation, deferred adjudication, community service, or ordered to pay a fine instead of being sent to prison as punishment for doing non-violent crimes.

Yes, black women are invisible. Why else is the Jena 6 known of so much more than the above mentioned cases, if black women are not invisible? I have had commentors on my site state that they know of the Jena 6, but, have asked of the Newark Seven, Dunbar Village, Pfc. Lavena Johnson:  “Why have we not heard more of these women, or why have we not heard of these women at all?”

True, black men suffer from hells in America, especially at the hands of the criminal (in)justice system. But, then, so too do black women.

One would think that black women do not have any troubles in the United States. One would think that we have it made. One would think that wrongs cannot befall black women.

One would be desparately and deadly WRONG.

But, then, black women have never been accorded humanity, personhood, nor womanhood, in America.

We have always been everyone’s toilet to be used for the most grossest and abominable manifestations of female hatred.

That people such as Isiah Thomas, Snoopy Dog, Ludacris, R. Kelly, Don Imus, and many others, both past and present, have said in many ways that black women do not exist in the black race, in America, nor in this world, except to be beat down and beat upon as everyone’s Everlast bag is not some aberration. With a long hellish history of being mistreated in ways one should not even treat a dog, black women have suffered at the hands of every race of men in America, save the Chukchi.

But, give them time.

If enough of them lived in continental America and mentally ingested enough hatred and dismissive behaviour towards black women, they too would be shitting on black women as well.

And why not?

To live as a black woman in America is synonymous with being disregarded and disrespected as well as to be fearful of men in general, and most specifically of black and white men.

Nowhere in the entire United States is a black woman as safe as a white man or a white woman. Every state, county, city, urban street, city park, community swimming pool, harbors potential brutal danger to all black women. We black women continue to deal with the legacy of slavery and  its lies of the “Myth of the Bad Black Woman”, a lie created by white men to justify their brutal rapes, tortures and murders of tens of thousands of black women and girls. A lie bought into by many men of all races, ethnicities, and socio-economic classes. This existence of potential violence directed at black women continues to make black women “fair game” for both white and black male violence.

Black women in their daily lives knowingly have to take physical and mental precautions where ever they travel or live because they know that they as women are not valued or protected by a society that worships both whiteness and  maleness.

Black women have been demonized by white supremacy, white media, white society as maculinized versions of men, as not being women. Black women have been vilified by white male corporate media and black rappers to the world as “bitches”, “hos” ready to fuck at the drop of a hat, as wanton crack-baby makers, as sellers of their bodies, as hyper-sexual sluts. Since so many men of many races have willingly bought the lie of the hypersexed black female, then why make a fuss if any black woman is raped and brutalized by white or black men?

Yes, cases such as the young West Virginia woman’s case may get a few minutes of media display, but, soon it will be back to business as usual with the black woman relegated to being non-sympathetic, a monster, a creature of devalued worth, a forgotten non-entity, and soon she will become a thing of distant memory not to be remembered except by the many black women who continue to care for what happens to black women in America.

Since black women are nothing but less than an animal in the eyes of America, why should anyone care what happens to black women living precariously, of running the gauntlet of both race hatred and sexism?

Black women, unlike women of other races, suffer from sexualized gendered racism at the hands of all men. Since the end of post-slavery and segregation, black women have had to fight the hateful stereotypes of being ascribed masculine traits as toughness and aggressivness. Since the end of slavery/segregation, black women have been saddled with the lies that they are murderous, uncompassionate, assaultive, physically strong (“mules of the world”), lacking in human feelings, and capable of taking physical abuse, again, and again, and again.

Black women the world over are being destroyed from the savage hatred that this country and the world has built up against black women.

The images built  of black women in many people’s minds are that black women are “tough”, “ready to fight”, “angry”, “bitter”, “un-feminine”. Women to be feared, and pitied, as not being all woman.

Not human.

Black and white men have had a hand in projecting these lies upon the world.

White slavers, white media moghuls, black rappers, white men who refuse to hire qualified black women for employment, black men in the black community who are sought out as as if they are the experts on black women, and the entire black community—black men who tell lies on black women’s humanity and integrity—have had a hand in the creation of black women as having less of a right to be treated with respect and humanity.

Black men in the black community are accorded more validation for their suffering than black women are given.

All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men.

But, some of Us are still Brave.

The distorted lens through which people view black women gives rise to the devaluation of all black women. No matter how intelligent, thrifty, frugal, law-abiding, chaste, virginal, celibate, a black woman is, she is always less than in many people’s eyes.

America’s racist, hypocritical (in)justice prison system reeks of institutionalized, systemic racism and the upholding of white supremacy. America needs to stop the lies it tells itself and become serious about the reality of life in this country—a reality that projects hateful distorted racist—and sexist—images of what it is to be a black person in America, and what it means to be a white person in America. Racism exacerbates the pain, the hurt, the reality of oppression that colors this country’s criminal (in)justice system’s double standard treatment of black people, male and female.

Black Americans are not innocent until proven guilty. The media (not to mention, white America’s very long history of racial brutality against black Americans) displays this callous disregard towards black people when someone in a predominently black neighborhood is shot to death. Doesn’t matter the gender, economic station or AGE of the deceased, the following can be counted on to be stated by the news reporter:

“Drugs must have been involved”.
“It was possibly gang-related”.

The media describes impoverished black inner-city communities as:

“War zones”, “crack plagued”, “violence scarred”. The message is loud and clear:  blacks, especially poor blacks, are a menace to society that must be contained, brought down, and destroyed at all costs.

Such statements poison the minds of viewers who have bought into the belief that ALL black people are criminals who deserve what they get. Such statements paint a picture of ALL black people as lawless criminals. Such statements lie and distort what actually happened to cause that black person’s loss of life.

Color of the skin ALWAYS has something to do with it.  Race still matters in the good ‘ol USA.

Black people suffer from racial profiling more than any other racial group in this country.

Black women and black men face constant surveillance going into stores, banks, driving (especially through predominantly white neighborhoods).

No matter what their age or economic background.

Black people are relegated to a degraded status in this country because of America’s deprecation of blackness.

Black people are guilty until proven innocent in this country that hates blackness but worships whiteness.

America does an excellent job of teaching ALL of America that all citizens of this country are NOT treated equal.

The criminal (in)justice system does an even better job of teaching everyone that all are not equal.

Blacks are given longer prison sentences for crimes (drugs) that whites are given little to very short prison sentences for.
White Americans are not taught to think and look around them and see the ravages of white supremacy, especially in the U.S. (in)justice system, and since this racist disparity  does not affect them in large numbers, many could care less. Whites are not taught to look at and pay attention to the world around them, and acknowledge that there is still disparity of all kinds that still exist in this hypocrisy of a country. They are not taught by their white parents, their predominantly white schools, their white ministers in churches, the truths of America’s differential mistreatment of her black citizens.

Teaching children/students about the ravages of white privilege on black people’s lives would hopefully open up those young people’s minds to the following devastating effects of white privilege/white supremacy:

-economic disparity
-residential disparity (de facto segregation still exists)
-social disparity
-medical disparity
-educational disparity
-environmental disparity

White privilege is protected from the above. White privilege does not have to live with the above.

But, black reality faces all of the above forms of disparity more because for many black people, this is daily life. This is the real world that black people contend with.

But, of course white people know that black people still face hell daily in this country.

A college professor a few years back asked a classroom of white students what amount of money would it take to pay them if they woke up black the next day. The students answered: millions of dollars (one student wanted $50,000,000). That’s how much money the students wanted for all the PRIVILEGES of whiteness they would lose if they turned black overnight.

White people see what happens to black people in this country; they are very aware of the crushing cruelty that white supremacy does to black life in America.

They just do not have the balls or the tits to own up to what they see, hear, and comprehend.

White people have shown their callous disregard of black Americans in many ways, and still do. If white people cared so much for black Americans the MAJORITY of white people would be up in arms with the racist prison system that locks up black citizens with excessive prison sentences. They would be up in arms with the de facto segregation that exists in residential neighborhoods; they would be screaming and beating their chests over the unconscionably high infant mortality rate among black Americans.

If white people were so gung ho on seeing white supremacy dismantled and destroyed, they would be pushing black Americans out of the way, and taking over and creating a new and true Civil Rights Movement.

No, the majority of white Americans do not care. And their silence and apathy speaks volumes.

White people are the ones who have not only set the Civil Rights Movement back 5,000 years; they have allowed this government to tear to pieces EVERYONE’S rights. White people’s fear and hatred of black Americans has given this country the Patriot Act; attacks upon freedom of speech (Garcetti vs. Ceballo); attacks upon school desegregation (Parents vs. Seattle and Kentucky).

 Yes, white men and women are locked up in prison as well.

But, unlike black women and men who suffer from unjust racist, fascist prison sentences,  when all is said and done, no matter how poor, no matter how rich, no matter how famous, or un-famous a white person is in this country, they still have that special thing that no black person has ever had………………WHITE SKIN PRIVILEGE.

America was built on the backs of non-white people’s blood and bodies, especially Black Americans, and whites benefitted THEN and whites still benefit NOW from that legacy of atrocities.

The media and its distortion of black with images of menacing threatening criminal hordes distort the true picture of crime in America. Blacks are more likely to suffer from felonious crime from each other than whites are likely to suffer from crime from blacks. White people as a group, suffer from less crime from black citizens. Black people as a group, suffer from excessive crime from whites [hate crimes] and blacks [black-on-black crime], more than any other racial/ethnic group in America. To be white in America is to be protected from the ravages of racism and an (in)justice prison plantation system. To be black, is to suffer loss of life because the sanctity of black life does not exist in white-run America. The media has created a “carnival mirror” that distorts and lies and fabricates imagined dangers from the black barbarians at the gates of white civilization.

Black people have also received much negative internalization from the fascist lies of the media. Blacks have also become very aware of the negative lies created in the media throughout the centuries of blacks as subhuman creatures who pose a threat to white civilization. Blacks have also internalized the message that black life is cheaper than white life, hence the escalating black-on-black violence. Blacks also see  clearly the racist practices of law enforcement that continues to show black life as having less value than white life, where the police are nothing but an occupied force in all inner-city black neighborhoods. Police occupation forces who are lauded and given carte blanche to destroy black life at any and all costs. Police occupation forces who are given the red light to arrest, beat down, and kill with impunity, any and all, black women, men and children  all across this county in black community after black community. Evidence shows that far more serious sanctions for blacks are given when a black kills a white, and the chances of receiving the death penalty are much greater. If the black person convicted of murder is part of a group that commits a murder (white men, and one lone black man), then you can be rest assured, that the black inmate will be put to death  first before the white inmates are put to death.

The rape of a white woman brings an average sentence of 10 years, whereas the sentence for the rape of a black woman is typically 2 years.

The (in)justice disparity issues are income, gender and race. Therefore, if you are a poor black woman, your issues will be relegated to oblivion if you are not a white male, white female, or a black male.

Crime in black neighborhoods has been allowed to fester to where it destroys the black community from within.

Black perceptions that black life is devalued has had devastating consequences for the entire black community. This has caused blacks to distrust law enforcement, and to inevitably to commit greater violence against each other. This black-on-black violence has led to high black death rates, and at an alrming pace, an escalation of pain and suffering for the black community.

The images of black crime that is threatening the white community, the images of the media, the legacy of slavery and segregation, has aided and abetted the genocide (black-on-black crime, as well as white America’s past and present history of ethnic cleansing genocide against all of black America) and chemical warfare (drugs) with horrific consequences that is destroying the black community.

The devaluation of black women in the eyes of America, and in the black community, has led to a callous disregard for black female life.

Which is why there are many Dunbar Villages across the United States. Which is why the Newark Seven are unheard of by much of America, but, the Jena 6 is more well-known.

Black male life in America is cheap and devalued.

Black female life is even moreso devalued.

Which brings me back to John Cougar Mellencamp.

It is great that he is championing the cause of the Jena 6.

I love his music, and I am glad that he is partaking in fighting against America’s lies to itself that all receive justice equally in America. All do not recieve justice equally and fairly in America.

It would be nice if black women’s issues of (in)justice could be given just as much credence as is being given the Jena 6.

It would be most welcomed if the Newark Seven women could receive help from the same talents, ability and passions of the Mellencamps, the Jackson Brownes, the Al Sharptons, the Jesse Jacksons, NOW organization, National Council of Negro Women and many others who are so passionate in bringing attention to the plight of black men who suffer from the miscarriages of America’s (in)justice sustem.

Black women like the Newark Seven would give anything to have a Live Aid, Band Aid, Farm Aid….Gatorade, Kool-Aid, Flavor Aid….event for us when we suffer from the wrongs and cruelties of the U. S. (in)justice system.

We long to hear the voices that cry out for our right to justice as well.

But, we black women cannot wait for others to speak up for us.

We have always had to do that for ourselves.

After all these centuries, decades, and generations of looking out for others, we have turned around and seen that in the end we can only count on each other , as black women to speak up for ourselves.

So has it always has been.

So, will it always be.

LINKS:

http://www.mellencamp.com/index.php?page=homepage

http://www.mellencamp.com/jena.html