"One asked, 'Where is the outcry when blacks kill other blacks?' Well, let me show you. While on the contrary, the response of poorer African Americans is more in-your-face direct and oftentimes referred to as hostile resistance or abrupt disorderly conduct. A response that takes a great deal of strategic planning, resources, and education on various issues. Stevenson responded from the audience: "Protesting has always been the response of middle-class Africans Americans to injustices. "Y'all only talk about police murder, what about all this black-on-black crime, that's the real problem! Black lives don't matter when we kill our own!" But his anger sparked a bigger conversation about the black narrative in general.Ī woman in the front row shifted the conversation. You sound silly!"ĭress-pants guy became real humble real fast-I couldn't stop laughing.
"We all work together to make DC better for everybody and these brothers are doing great work in Baltimore, so sit down. You know who I am and the work I do," Tony said. My temper had got the best of me on a panel before and I didn't want to embarrass myself or the organizers. I laughed to keep from flipping out on the dude.
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Then this loudmouth dude in a linty sweater with sparkles and wide-leg dress pants barged in yelling, "Y'all Black Lives Matter people not gonna be coming to my neighborhood and telling me how to run it!" It was light, funny, and I think some people were inspired. We were talking about our community work to a small crowd, sharing successes and failures and telling people what they could do to help us if they wanted to be a part of the positive changes happening in DC and Baltimore, beyond protests. I shared the stage with two well-known authors and community leaders, re-entry expert Tony Lewis Jr. It wasn't until Donald Stevenson, a real activist sitting in the audience at a panel I sat on in Southeast DC, broke it down that I understood. I guess it felt like everybody was talking to a group of people who don't listen. The woke crowd seemed off and I didn't know why. I went to two protests before I realized they weren't for me. And if you are lucky, you'll get that news worthy clip of yourself being arrested shouting "fight the power" as you go off to be detained for three hours.Solo image doing the black power fist pump.Definitely that iconic image where a small group does the black power fist pump.Sharing variations of the same image repeatedly. They have great jobs or no job because their families can afford to float them, they are the first to pop up at a protest, take the best viral images, and run home to talk about it on the internet. Woke people have the best graphic T-shirts and catchiest hashtags.
They blog, they have a brand, they wrap themselves in henna or war paint at festivals even though they rarely engage in a physical war, if they ever engage at all.
Woke people wear locs or baby fros and use coconut oil, olive oil, and hemp soap. Woke people are smart-they are normally educated with at least one bachelor's degree, keep a copy of a James Baldwin or bell hooks book on their person, have a passport, are fluent in all forms of social media, and have been to Cuba at least once since Obama lifted the embargo. Woke people know the origins of everything that hurts black people, the policies that allow these systems to function, and have the most effective language when given the opportunity to explain these issues, mainly online or during the intermission at spoken-word readings. I shot a peace sign at him and left the store.Įverybody's woke now, right? I wonder how that's working out? The term "woke" simply refers to not being asleep, not being ignorant to the issues that plague black America-racism, poor schools, food deserts, crooked cops, our broken justice system, unfair hiring practices, and the banks that bury us with vicious Black Taxes like unfair interest rates on mortgages. He laughed, "You betta wake up, man, it's a jungle out there! Stay woke!" His shop is just a little ways away from my neighborhood and he always has a nice selection.ĭude bagged my goods, I paid him and proceeded to walk away as he grabbed me by the sleeve of my hoodie to show off his new merch. "Big bruh, I got these #StayWoke shirts for twenty dollars!" said the dude I've bought my incense from for over five years now. Reprinted with permission from the author. Excerpted from " We Speak for Ourselves: A Word from Forgotten Black America" by D.