AfrocenCHICK

of-praxis:

I am reading Assata Shakur’s autobiography and there is a scene where she describes how she went into the white section of a movie theatre when she was in the 5th grade or so. She went in because she wanted to buy a picture of Elvis and they were not selling it in the Black/colored section of the cinema; as soon as she walked in, she describes that it looked like a dream because it was clean, there was buttered popcorn and bright colored candy. Everyone stared and gawked at her as soon as she stepped in, asking her if she knew how to read or if she was lost. She insisted on buying a picture and the salesgirl sold it to her after consulting with the manager, who just wanted to get rid of her.

Now this is in the late 1950s, early 1960s. Tbqh this isn’t that long ago. It was only 50 or so years ago that this happened.

You might see me posting about how I cannot stand people hurting children or treating them like lesser beings, and how (as Heinlein suggested*) a society that hurts kids is doing something way wrong.

It was only 50 or so years ago that social attitudes in this country allowed us to vilify, burn, rape, imprison, and murder Black and brown children. That an innocent child who wanted a picture of a starry-eyed movie star was treated like shit when she went to get it. For any society to dehumanize and treat children as if they were anything less than something that should be protected at all costs should indicate how deeply white supremacists painted Blackness as evil. Nothing was sacred- hell, 40 years before Shakur was even born, they were feeding Black babies to gators down in FL as bait.

What strikes me as absolutely amazing is that it’s only been like 50 years and we try to imagine that these deep, entrenched, visceral attitudes either never existed or weren’t that bad— more importantly, we try to act like these attitudes do not exist and are not responsible for the waste and exploitation that Black and brown youth are still subject to. You cannot go from murdering Black boys who flirted with white women to OMG RACE FREE MULTICULTURAL AMERICA in fifty fucking years. It’s not gonna happen no matter how hard you try to convince yourself.

*The Heinlein quote is: All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly, which can — and must — be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a “perfect society” on any foundation other than “Women and children first!” is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly — and no doubt will keep on trying.

(Source: cosmopolitan-fascist)