Black People : The Problem With Keke Palmer’s “Compassion” For Michael Brown And Other Black Victims of Modern Day

shaka64

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Her tweets reflect a common theme (what Pharrell called “new Black”) where the experience of “old” Blackness is flattened into one of “arbitrary” rage without history or context, into “random” bitterness without the reality of oppression in our lives as a factor, and most dangerously so, one of the politics of respectability, the lie that individual emotion and positive affirmations can dismantle structural oppression and one that does not allow the space for nuanced emotions beyond benevolence and “peace” in response to the genocidal violence of anti-Blackness.

:bowdown:

The "new Black" deals with individualism, rather than group/race dynamics. Individuals fighting racism with sappy emotion rather than coming together as a race to fight/"dismantle structural oppression." So we get "man with sign" who then cries "Can't we all get along?" when direct action, i.e., rioting over the murder of HIS son ensues. And the white folk applaud HIM.

When Keke tweets "I feel bad for those that choose to believe they’re doomed. You’re doomed because you believe so." it stands in stark contrast to Michael Brown’s mother Lesley McSpadden who stated this: "You know how hard it was for me to get him to stay in school and graduate? You know how many Black men graduate? Not many. Because you bring them down to this type of level (she lowered her hands in the video) and they feel like they don’t got nothin’ to live for anyway.”

This so reminds me of Raptor's thread:

http://destee.com/index.php?threads...bscure-a-collective-matter.80974/#post-886414

[/quote]
Keke Palmer’s affirmation that simply believing something different eradicates the fact that Black men are extrajudicially killed on a 28 hour clock is victim blaming. Even if her intent is something else. The impact is what it is.
Young black men are being murdered because they "don't believe" they have hope..... like her, which is the reason no cop has killed her. In short, it's their own dayum fault for holding wrong-headed beliefs about the LACK OF promise of their lives. Their fault, NOT the murderers.... who wouldn't have killed them if they were "right-thinking." :confused:

her tweets are not completely caused by youth and lack of information/connection. It’s about a calculated ignorance that some Black people have to engage in to protect their careers and sadly other Black celebrities genuinely believe.
Whomp! There it is!

Since so many celebrities engage in “positive affirmation” talk... via individualism... instead of acknowledging structural oppression and its impact on millions of non-famous Black lives, it’s clearly not solely about naivety and age. It’s about internalized racism, exceptionalism, and victim blaming, whether Keke Palmer does it at age 20 or Morgan Freeman does it at age 77.
Individualism takes a racial issue and makes it all about that one person, in Keke's case, Michael Brown. Mike was murdered, to her white-approved way of thinking, because his way of thinking was messed up. He didn't have 'hope,' she postulates, 'and that's wrong.' Had nothing to do with the fact that he's black, she concludes. Except that, maybe, all young black men who are murdered by police are murdered because their "thinking" is wrong? And taken to its/Keke's logical conclusion.... that black skin on young men is "wrong?"

Consider the fact that Janelle Monae is 28 and she acknowledges the reality of racism. Consider the fact that Cicely Tyson is 80 and she acknowledges the reality of racism. This also happens. It’s possible to do so and still have a career.
The reality of racism. The reality of being targeted for extermination because of the color of your skin, i.e., your race.

If you read the article, you'll see that I didn't C&P a lot of the black entertainers referenced. I C&Ped "both" black entertainers who acknowledge race and racism as part and parcel of black lives and oppression. This is pretty much an accurate reflection of the black community at large. Even this MB. Which posts are most "popular?" Those that refuse to deal with group dynamics, i.e., race and racism as starkly as they deal with black individuals. Those, that like Keke's tweets, either make 'excuses' for white behavior or simply blame the victim, the BLACK victim ('it's YOUR fault young black men are being exterminated because you're a Christian!').

When Keke tweets “If you want to end racism, you start by not generalizing/grouping people with the thought that they all believe the same things” she creates false equalization between the violence against Black bodies because of generalizations, stereotypes, archetypes.... and controlling images of Black people with Whites’ discomfort with benefitting from anti-Blackness, White supremacy and White privilege, whether they feel that they are “racist” or not.

Which is why atheist posters denounce black Christians but go silent when asked it they hate whites, i.e., it is acceptable to white people.

She sets this up as if there is a structural repercussion for generalizing Whites. Racism is not “insults” back and forth that “goes both ways.” It remains structural. And Whiteness is where that power is concentrated.
Racism: Using the POWER of one's race to oppress one of another race. Saying "I don't like white people" oppresses no one. Calling a white person a kracker oppresses no one. Shooting ONLY young, unarmed black men in the back multiple times is racism.

Which is why for ALL their protests to the contrary, the religion-denouncers fear "repercussions" for saying they hate white people. White people have the POWER... and they know and fear it.

When Black parents generalize the police, they want to protect their children. When the police (and even non-White cops have to uphold White supremacy and anti-Blackness as the police functions as the violent local arm of the State) generalize Black people, we die.
Tell the truth and shame the devil! :great:[/quote]
 

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