Michael Brown vigil showed respect
Those who have experienced racism deserved to lead, writes Matt Stella.
On Nov. 24 a grand jury in Ferguson, Mo., decided that it would not indict police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of Michael Brown. Emotions that had built up for the past three months spilled into the streets of cities across America. While media attention has focused on images of burning cars and buildings in Ferguson, there as also been a strong response on social media to the wider conversation of the institutionalized racism that African-Americans face in the justice system.
The hashtag #blacklivesmatter calls attention to the disproportionate use of police violence against AfricanAmericans in the wake of the deaths of Trayvon Martin (who was shot by a neighbourhood watch volunteer), Michael Brown, and Tamir E. Rice, a 12-year-old who was fatally shot by a patrol officer at a park in Cleveland. The #blacklivesmatter demonstrations and vigils have taken place across the United States and Canada. On Tuesday, hundreds of people gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa to hold a vigil for victims of racial violence.
Rather than focus on the number of people who attended or the peaceful proceedings (that somehow required a large police presence) the headline in the Citizen read “White supporters stay in background during low-key Ottawa vigil for Michael Brown.” Many people online have taken this as an opportunity to scoff at the organizers for asking white supporters not to be at the centre of the vigil, claiming that they are hypocritically fostering the very racism that they are supposedly trying to combat.
What the headline, and the subsequent criticisms of the organizers, miss are the context and history behind organizing around issues of race and racism.
It all too often happens at protests and demonstrations in black communities that white people, though meaning well, assert themselves at the front of the events. In situations where tensions are high, it is often white people, wanting to demonstrate their radicalism, who provoke police violence that disproportionately falls on the backs (and skulls) of black people.
Perhaps we here in Canada are not accustomed to organizing around specific issues involving people of colour. A lot of people claim that “this is a human issue” and ask why white people are being segregated or demonized. It takes a special kind of privilege to throw around words like “segregation” without actually ever experiencing real institutionalized segregation. This was not segregation; it was a request for basic politeness. It would be nice if it were tacitly understood that an event about the death of Michael Brown called #blacklivesmatter should be led by the people most affected by institutionalized racism; then it wouldn’t have needed to be explained by the organizers. But this is not the reality, and this is why it needed to be said.
In tragic situations, such as the Michael Brown case, we are often left wondering what we can do to help. How can I, as a lone person in Canada, do anything to combat a systemic problem like institutionalized police racism? Sometimes the desire to help or make a difference can blind people to privileges that they hold. While I might want to stand at the front of a march and shout at police, I need to recognize that it is not my place to do so.
Sometimes all we can do to help is show up, stand at the back and listen.
Fortunately, once the vigil got underway everybody congregated in a very orderly manner, there were no directions given, no orders of “white people to the back.” Instead there was a solemn and honest discussion of issues of race and police discrimination, a moment of silence, and a chance for people who don’t often get to voice their feelings publicly to do so.