Race matters -- and that won't change

By Richard B. Muhammad -Editor- | Last updated: Jul 16, 2013 - 12:47:46 AM

(FinalCall.com) - Race matters. Race matters so much it can get you killed or help you get away with killing someone.

Race matters. After a Black president, Black sports heroes, Black billionaires and Black mayors, race still matters and largely determines and impacts your quality of life. Blacks are poorer, die sooner, get sicker and are targeted more often than Whites, whether it’s police officers, security guards or vigilante neighborhood watchmen.

Race matters. It doesn’t matter if you are 17-years-old, minding your own business and simply trying to get home from a 7-11 after buying Skittles and a drink. It doesn’t matter if you are unarmed, it doesn’t matter if you are blocks from your father’s home, it doesn’t matter that you are minding your own business. It doesn’t matter that a man with a gun is told to stand down and ignores a 911 operator’s instructions not to follow you. It doesn’t matter that you are stalked and end up dead. All that matters is that you are seen as the enemy in America and as such you can be targeted and taken out at any time.

Race matters. Hoping, praying and marching alone won’t change the immutable fact that Black life has little value in this country. It won’t change the fact that if Trayvon Martin, the Black teenager, had shot and killed unarmed George Zimmerman, there would not have been any questions and no debate. Trayvon would have been locked up and quickly branded a cold-blooded murderer. It won’t change the fact that there can never be justice under the law when the system itself is unjust—Blacks are stopped more, arrested more, charged more and sentenced to tougher charges than Whites for the same crimes.

Race matters. Though it may be a harsh reality to face after over 400 years in this country, centuries in servitude slavery, decades in neo-slavery, more time in “free” slavery, serving in her wars, learning to speak, act and dress “right,” in efforts to conform to the norms of White society. Though it may be painful to admit, we remain outsiders, unwanted, unloved, disrespected and still hated after all this time.

Race matters. So the same questions and stereotypes used to justify the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012 in Florida were used to justify the killing of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 in Mississippi. The language is almost identical; the killers were acting in defense of themselves, their families and their communities. These children are part of a Black menace that must be kept under control at all costs and any effort to maintain that control is not just necessary, it is laudable.

Race matters. So the legal analysts can describe how the prosecution in the Zimmerman case didn’t meet its burden of proof, but they can’t explain why the criminal justice system nearly always seems to work against us.

Race matters. Denial won’t change it. Assimilation won’t change it. Wishful thinking won’t change it. Intermarriage won’t change it. Your job won’t change it. Your smile won’t change it. Your handshake nor your credit score will not change it because you are Black and you live in America.

(Final Call editor-in-chief Richard B. Muhammad can be reached at editor@ finalcall.com. You can also follow him on Facebook and @RMfinalcall on Twitter.)

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