Blog Post #1

Woke: Was the Protest on the Bridge a Sign of Real Change to Come?, The Memphis Flyer about the bridge protest in July chronicled the events of that night like many of the other stories written about the night of the protest. However, the Memphis Flyer article is unique because it includes the perspectives of Memphis representatives into the story. For this reflection, I want to focus on the statement from Memphis Police Department Director Michael Rallings,

Rallings's statement focused on violence in black communities. He says, "We've seen enough death; I'm sick of death...I don't think God put me in that situation for this to end in violence. So, I invited those young people and said, 'let's have a forum, let's lay out a plan'. We can all talk about each other and yell at each other. We can ball our fist and threaten to do bodily harm. We all know how to do that. We all learn how to do that as a child, as a baby. But I'm not a baby. I'm not going to throw a temper tantrum. I'm going to try to speak peace and calm to the city and to the situation." (Flyer Staff 2016).

Rallings's comments don't show a greater understanding of the issues that spurred the bridge protest because he framed his response using the phenomenon, black on black crime. Black on black crime is simply a crime that a black person commit against another black person. However, the employment of this term means much more than stating the race of the perpetrator and victim of a particular crime. People use black on black crime reasoning to justify why black people cannot and should not receive the equality and equity that they deserve as citizens of the U.S. By invoking the names of black gangs, “Vice Lord, or a Crip, or a Gangster Disciple”, who are the hallmark of black on black crime and implying that the black youth are inclined to violence, Rallings, induced the imagery of black on black crime.

Rallings endorsing the black on black crime ideology as a way of understanding the black communities is extremely problematic. This ideology centralizes violence as sole problem of the black community. Additionally, it doesn’t allow people to understand that the violence seen in black communities is first proportional to white on white, Latinx on Latinx, Asian on Asian or any other racial/ethnic crime, and second that this violence is a secondary reaction to other inequalities black communities face. As the Police Department Director of a majority black city, I would hope that Rallings’s understands the implications of the black on black crime rhetoric. Do you think that Director Rallings meant to invoke black on black crime imagery or do you think that he misspoke?