Guest AuthorHistorically, Florida has been a hellish place to live for black men. But don’t take my word for it: look up the Groveland Boys.
The state may be turning a corner. Here’s why some optimism is warranted:
Last week, a jury in Jacksonville concluded that it is not OK to kill a black male merely because he’s playing his music loud with a bunch of his boys.
Several weeks before, the Ocala City Council repealed an ordinance that banned citizens from wearing sagging pants and fining them if they refused to comply.
In both cases, it is easy to say that good judgment ruled the day. Still, anyone familiar with the state’s history will be somewhat surprised by these displays of fairness.
In the U.S. of A, the black male doesn’t always receive his due. Yet that has not prevented him from persevering with astonishing grace and poise in many spheres of American life: athletics, business, politics, and culture.
Or better put: Barack Obama, LeBron James, Kenneth Chenault, James McBride.
Still, black masculinity seems to frighten many.
Even among blacks, especially the black bourgeoisie, some black men are viewed as cultural obstacles.
They find black male swagger a threat to the cultural assimilation they so ardently value.
So, the Michael Dunn verdict comes as welcome relief. After the Trayvon Martin killing in Florida and the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson, Mo., the verdict demonstrates that American justice is not a farce.
What happened in the Dunn case? Dunn fired 10 shots at a car with four black young men inside it, after arguing over loud music and his belief that a gun was flashed before his eyes.
Dunn’s apprehension and violent response is easily traceable to aspects of American culture.
That is, there remains a visceral fear of young black men. In the past, it was his allegedly uncontrollable sexual appetite; today, it is his propensity for violence.
Some of this fear is justified. Some of this racist attitude is permitted because the culture has made black bad boy rebellion a part of its social science and political language.
And the black middle class, or its representatives, have allowed this language to color their thinking.
For years, a black state senator named Gary Siplin tried to get the Florida Legislature to ban sagging pants.
His effort was an example of all the black middle-class neurosis about its position in American life, its fanatical devotion to a proper image of black life.
That cultural insecurity is what informed black City Council Member Mary Rich’s effort in Ocala to ban sagging pants.
But, that a mostly white jury was able to overcome cultural preconceptions and respect facts is an unalloyed good.
Moreover, that a city council, after national derision, repealed a foolish law directed at young black men is a positive step.
The result: young black men are receiving a rare bit of fairness, and justice — those very American notions of equal treatment for all.
And it all happened in Florida: a cause for mild optimism.
Chris Timmons is a writer living in Tallahassee. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
