How To Instill Fear And Terror In Racist White People
White racists are infuriating, and they are everywhere. Their subtle and not-so-subtle violations of our human rights can trigger our personal and ancestral trauma which may lead us to think about murdering them. For us that is a temporary thing. For them the murderous thoughts about Blackfolk continue nonstop, regardless of whether they are around us, because their identity is founded upon hating us. If they stop thinking about murdering us, their hatred is unsatisfied, and this to them feels like losing a hand or foot. As such, Blackfolk need not go to any great length to instill fear in white racists.
All we need to do is act like a human being in their presence. Fear will ensue. Especially if we refuse to stop acting human when they use subtle or not not-so-subtle means to make us act like the subhuman creature they require us to be in order to keep their identity from crumbling.
A simple and common opportunity to instill fear, especially if you are a black man, is by refusing to step down from the pavement (or sidewalk) for white people when there is plenty of available space for you to pass. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Whitefolk often act as if the pavements were laid exclusively for their kind, and I was once so in the habit of appeasing this delusion that I didn’t even realise I was stepping down for them when it was completely uncalled for. I would tell myself things like there are no cars on the road or that this road is a pedestrianised space in order to justify their blatant racism while dragging myself through the gutters of my unacknowledged trauma and conditioned submissiveness.
As I began to learn more about my Black roots and allow my natural black male dreadlocks, beard, beauty and strong presence to shine, I just so happened to notice more white people walking two, three or more abreast on the pavement refusing to go single or even double-file as I passed them, forcing me down onto the road, as if despite my highly distinctive appearance and presence I was totally invisible.
Once this happened on a long straight road in a section of a busy English city renowned for its ‘inclusivity’, in a particular disctrict of this city which is densely packed with food and drinks outlets. They were a couple, visibly tispy, walking for at least two hundred metres towards me on the pavement as the sun was setting on an overcast day. As the gap between us closed to a few metres they were still bulldozing forward side by side and before I knew what had happened I found myself on the pavement in a puddle of bitter rage, my socks wetted by the sense of impotence. Something in me snapped that evening. I vowed to change my behaviour and not let myself be so easily run onto the road by stupid racist white people.
Now when racist white people hog the pavement I often just stop in front of them. I did this once with a younger couple in a quaint town I was visiting for the day where this behaviour is more expected than in the afformentioned supposedly ‘inclusive’ city. It was a temperate afternoon and I knew from about twenty metres away that though these two could obviously see me, and despite my being significantly older than them, they were not going to allow me to pass them on the pavement, so I stopped and said to the boy as he almost walked into me, “there is enough space on the pavement.”
This led him to make a confused and indignant noise, as if he had been unfairly shamed in public with his girlfriend, as if someone had called him a rude name which struck a nerve with him. He was startled too, as if he had been threatened by my refusal to go into the gutter without any good reason. Indeed, my acting like a human had instilled fear in him, although this was not my intention, it was simply what I needed to do to retain my sense of being human, and of therefore deserving to be treated as such.
A white woman once apologised when I stopped in front of her in a similar situation. I didn’t even say anything, because there was no need. It was obvious that I’d stopped because she’d given me no other choice but to step down or walk straight into her. She said sorry and changed her trajectory so that we both had enough space. That was once.
If Blackfolk want to crank the fear factor up to dizzying heights we have to go a little further than acting like a human, into the realm of acting like a joyful human, and let our joy be a genuine expression of our higher consciousness, of the spiritual and intellectual which set us apart and above the animals. Good music is a useful weapon in this respect.
A lot of us listen to good music in public using headphones, and we often feel joyful as we do. But we don’t express our joy, and nor do we have to, because we are human. Just as we can choose not to step down off the pavement for no good reason, we can choose which emotions we express in public, to the extent that we are able to control our emotional expressions. But sometimes a song comes on that leaves us no choice but to express our joy through head nodding, an indulgent lip bite, stank face, rogue gyrating shoulder or two, perhaps even eyes closed to take it all in, whatever way the good music chooses to move joy through you.
I got caught like this on the top deck of a bus sitting across the aisle from an elderly white man. I’d moved next to him because an unfinished beer can had plopped on the floor out of nowhere near the back of the bus where I’d previously sat, dribbling its stale urine-coloured contents down under the left column of seats, to the obvious and hilarious dismay of the little boy sat across from me at the time. The only free seats out of nose-range of the smell were near the front, and as soon as I took my seat I felt daggers emanating from this terse older white fellow to my right. It was the familiar razor beam of the white gaze.
All Blackfolk know the white gaze. When a pair of eyes seem to be cutting you at the knees with an onslaught of invisible bladeswings while draining the very lifeforce from your blood via the bottom of your heart, you are heavily in the white gaze. It commands you wordlessly to relinquish any and all positive thoughts about yourself, the world and the future, resulting in a way of thinking which is a scientifically verified recipe for depression. An assault from the white gaze is not dissimilar to the spirit-sucking attack of J.K. Rowling’s dementors, and you need not even be in the white person’s eyeline to bear its brunt. This man’s white gaze was attacking me side on, and eventually from behind as I decided to move forward when the best seat on the bus — front top deck window seat — became available.
I wanted to teach this old man a lesson, to extinquish his dehumanising gaze, especially as my encounter with the teenaged couple had happened earlier that day in the same quaint town which I was leaving via the bus, leaving a burning sense of injustice fresh in my heart. Luckily for me a song came on through my headphones which left me no choice but to express my joy, and I sensed that going with this would allow me to healthily satisfy my desire to teach him a lesson. So I let my Black joy shine as the funksoul took my body. I danced.
The intensity of a white person’s racism is inversely proportional to how dependent their identity is upon us acting subhuman, so I can only imagine the terror this poor white fellow felt as despite his unusually sharp white gaze I displayed the most human of behaviours as expressing joy through body movements in response to abstract airbourne symbols organised into patterns across time called rythm, across space called melody, and both together called music.
Blackfolk need not do much to instill fear in our white racist enemies. We just have to act like a human and continue to do so when they use subtle and not-so-subtle means to make us surrender our humanity. This poses a grave and immediate threat to their identity, and the resulting fear is fuel for a whole lot of the nasty and nonsensical reactions we have come to know as ordinary interpersonal racism.
If we are feeling particularly troublesome, by which I mean particularly human, we need only allow our expressions of exclusively human joys like intellectual conversation, spirituality, artistic appreciation and dance to shine, but let them only ever shine for ourselves, never for them.
Okay, I must admit I was shining mine a bit for them when I turned my dance moves up to extra hot on my way off the bus as I walked down the stairs in front of the old man’s seat. I let my exclusively human joy shine mostly for myself, but a bit for them too because I wanted to rub my joy in his racist face. I felt I was teaching him an overdue lesson. But Yah did not put me on this earth to terrify old racist white men through the simple act of expressing joy. He’s got more pressing demands of me, and of you too. Anyway, you know how much to shine, and for whom, so I’ll be signing off now. Shalom.
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