To Be Young, Gifted, Black and Still A “Problem”

By: Sache Primeaux-Shaw

As long as i’ve been an activist, I have seen many cases that stress me out to the point that I have to focus on other topics. At that point I tell myself that I should leave my “Freedom Fighter” hat at home and keep it moving for a couple of weeks. However Sandra Bland’s situation had me feeling some type of way. Bland was only a year older than myself.

She was educated and a sister-greek (She was a member of Sigma Gamma Rho, I am an AKA). She was in Texas because she was recently offered a job at Prairie View University, a historically Black college that was also her Alma mater.

Bland was extremely outspoken and was an active voice in the #BlackLivesMatter movement. I saw my reflection in her work in so many ways. It was a reflection many of my fellow young Black social justice advocate can relate to. The dash cam video of her arrest was extremely startling because her only crime it seemed was stating her rights. Sandra ended up dead in a Texas jail only three days later with the cause of death being suicide by hanging.

There are several theories, including that she may have been dead in her mugshot and that her death was a cover-up, floating around. After reading the details of her case, I became even more disturbed. The tired argument of, “just do what the police say and you’ll be ok” is out of the window. She had NO reason to be arrested other than insulting the officer’s ego. Bland is not the only case of police brutality occurring without incident.

Rewind back to earlier this year when college student and campus leader Martese Johnson was beaten by officers for having a fake ID. Johnson was the epitome of one of “the good ones.” He was a Honors Student, had a clean record, didn’t abuse drugs, was a member of a Black fraternity and he still got beaten like Emmett Till. That alone does not save us from the ugly fate that the “bad ones” get.

Stereotypes are still held by some in uniform and that alone will cause them to act out of line. LAPD in the 90s is a shining example of this. Sandra’s death at a Texas jail and her arrest at the hands of an individual who was known for being a racist at a prior job should not be a shock to us. Her death still touches a nerve and reopen a wound that Black America cannot seem to close.

These incidents still take me back to the quote that Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, the supporter of the “Talented Tenth” in the Black community himself, once made in his iconic work The Souls of Black Folks:

“Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half- hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word. And yet, being a problem is a strange experience,–peculiar even for one who has never been anything else, save perhaps in babyhood and in Europe. It is in the early days of rollicking boyhood that the revelation first bursts upon one, all in a day, as it were.” (DuBois, 1903).

DuBois’ assessment of how Black America continued to be a nuisance in the face of White Supremacy continues today with these incidents and many others. Bland and Johnson did everything “right” and still ended up short. Hood, educated, well-to-do or victim of the system; for those who continue to hold hate in their hearts and onto stereotypes of the past, we will continue to be a “problem.”

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Written By:Sache Primeaux-Shaw

Twitter:@feistysince87
Blog:tobeyounggiftedandblindian.blogspot.com