Why Didn't We Riot?: A Black Man in Trumpland

by Issac J. Bailey

We aren’t against forgiveness, we just know that throughout American history, that’s what black people have been required to do, and do so willingly, only to see White America pocket those acts of grace and hardly ever return the favor.

The worst part, though, is knowing all of this — that “toxic stress” kills and ruins lives — but never being able to say it definitively, because the science isn’t that finely tuned yet. Racism kills. Literally.

That’s the part of the American story many don’t want to hear, that we “over-comers” have wounds that won’t heal, that can only be managed, that we must reconcile ourselves to.

To white supremacy, grace looks like black people being praised for swallowing our anger or labeled radical if we refuse.

As Dr. King told us, a riot “is the language of the unheard.” That’s why so many are quick to pat black people on the head when our blood has been spilled, because that’s easy, requires no sacrifice. It’s a way for white people and black people to keep in place what historians who study the antebellum South sometimes refer to as the “Magnolia” and “Sable” curtains. During a time in which white people beat and raped and “sold” black people, white people believed black people saw themselves as beloved members of the white family and appreciated the guidance of their wiser, more moral white masters. That lie could only be sustained with the cooperation of black people, who went along with the ruse mostly to fend off white fears about slave rebellions.

One of the unacknowledged truths of diversity is that living among those unlike you won’t automatically lead to enlightened views. Diversity is not enough. White people are expert at compartmentalizing when it comes to race. It’s why they can love and respect individual black people while despising or misunderstanding black people in general. It’s why the “I have a black friend” defense is nonsensical. My white brothers and sisters in Christ chose Trump and his bigotry over us — not because they had to, but because they wanted to. All those years spent earnestly engaging them on their own terms in their own homes in their own church did not dissuade them from making that choice.