One of the things I hate most about Black discrimination is the fact that I am expected to go above and beyond to prove my humanity while saying nothing about the stress such an expectation puts on me. I spent two decades in entry-level work and making below $40,000, despite having and earning educational achievements while working multiple jobs. People were astounded that I lived off $30/month of groceries for two years to pay off student loans, a car, and some debt–only to have a white woman crash into my car while the police accused me of poor driving. (Yes, that is a true thing that happened.) These are not the only parts of my life that have required more strain than a normal person, but they remind me of the dehumanization that people expect me to endure to “triumph” into normalcy.
Recently, a Black professor at Cambridge was found dead after a three-year smear campaign that he plagiarized all his credentials. I should also include that he was a torchbearer for the 2012 Olympics as part of his qualifications, including that he overcame severe educational difficulties to get where he was. This is the same scenario stalking Claudine Gay when she was the president of Harvard University, when people were just “allowed” to attack her because…reasons. Unfortunately, Jason Arday did not survive to find another job or overcome the public abuse sanctioned by Vice Chancellor Prentice herself. Well, I guess his “resilience” could not overcome the visceral hatred that people had been expecting Black people to endure for existence.
This level of dehumanization is ridiculous. People need to start asking themselves why they feel that it is necessary for Black people to work twice as hard to get half as much while being nobly silent about all of it. What kind of evil commands people to sustain abuse while never accusing, and never holding their abusers accountable? No one wants to work excessively hard so that everyone leaves us alone, but way too many people keep pointing to anomalies as facts. If people want to be better, maybe they need to stop dehumanizing Black people to become superhumans before letting us live our lives.
Chasing A Dying Empire 