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THE NORTH AMERICAN CULTURE OF WHITE SUPREMACY
by Murphy Browne
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
© Tuesday, November 3, 2015
“Racism is more than intentional malice; it is cultural conditioning. Black
lives didn“t matter so much to politicians who were passing down strict
sentences that disrupted and destroyed Black families. They didn“t matter much
to politicians when Black voters asked for reform and treatment, as opposed to
aggression and incarceration. Because those politicians didn“t empathize with
Blackness. But when a young, suburban white girl named Courtney Griffin
overdoses, those who empathize with her need to understand why it happened and
how to prevent it from touching them and those like them ever again. And those
white folks who empathize have the political leverage to actually affect change
in a way that is compassionate and comprehensive.“
Excerpt from article written by African American journalist Stereo Williams
The recent brutal attack on a female African American high school student by a
White police officer stationed in the school she attended (in South Carolina)
has been a topic of discussion for the past week. The attack on Monday, October
26 recorded by another student in the classroom captured the almost surreal
scene of a hulking White man in police uniform standing over a seated African
American female student. Then shockingly he hooks his arm around the girl“s neck
and in one motion topples her to the floor as her body is trapped in the seat.
This hulking brute then drags the girl who is about 1/3 of his size out of the
seat and flings her like a rag doll across the floor. He then crouches over her
prone body and can be heard barking orders that she put her hands behind her
back. During this entire ordeal the stunned student does not make a sound. The
other students in the class appear to be in shock and they do not make a sound.
Then a lone voice is heard protesting at the cruelty and unfairness of attacking
a defenceless fellow student. That lone protesting/questioning voice belonged to
18 year old African American student Niya Kenny who was also arrested because
she spoke up.
Since Monday, October 26 with the release of the video on social media there
have been several stories published, television commentaries and commentaries on
social media. It is not surprising that many comments faulted the so far (as of
Sunday, November 1) unnamed brutalized African American student. The fact that
an African American girl was brutalized by a White man who reportedly can “bench
press“ at least 600 pounds and many people blamed her says quite a lot about how
African women are perceived.
This is nothing new; on May 5, 1962 (speaking at the funeral of Ronald Stokes in
Los Angeles) El Hajj Malik El Shabazz said: “The most disrespected woman in
America is the black woman. The most un-protected person in America is the black
woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.“ This was 53
years ago and today in 2015 the images in popular culture seem to bear this out.
Less than 5 months ago on June 6 a White police officer was recorded brutalizing
a 14 year old African American girl as she sat on the grass outside a swimming
pool. In similar fashion to the brutal October 26th attack in South Carolina the
White police officer grabbed the child dressed in a bikini, threw her face down
on the grass, pressed his body onto her and put her in handcuffs. The reaction
then was the same as now. The internet lit up with mostly White people making
excuses for the brutal attack on an unarmed African American child whose only
“crime“ was the colour of her skin.

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Regardless of the noises made by those who say they do not see colour; the fact
remains that Africans are judged by a different standard, sometimes even by
other racialized people. There are racialized people invested in the culture of
White supremacy.
They see themselves and others who look like them through White supremacist
lens. Even with the evidence of a video they will suggest that the victim of a
brutal attack by White police somehow deserved or provoked the attack especially
if that someone is an African woman or girl. When the video of Sandra Bland (who
died in police custody on July 13, 2015) surfaced the excuse was she should have
been deferential to the police.
Following the attack on the defenceless high school student in South Carolina
two racialized television personalities defended the action of the police. The
excuses included that in spite of the video of a brutal and unprovoked attack
there was no need to “rush to judgment.“ In the other instance there seemed to
be a rush to blame the victim of the attack because she had a cell phone in
class. Ironically if there had been no cell phones in the classroom there would
have been no evidence of the attack. The 2 entertainers have so angered many
members of the African American community that there is a petition asking that
they both be dismissed from the positions they hold. Much of the negative
comments made by racialized people seem to be a result of self-hate. This is
generational, the result of centuries of enslavement. During his May 1962 speech
Shabazz addressed the issue of self-hate: "Who taught you to hate the texture of
your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? To such extent you
bleach, to get like the white man. Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose
and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your
head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught
you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don't want to be
around each other?" Internalized racism or self-hate manifests itself in various
ways including always seeing yourself and others who look like you through White
supremacist lens.
The over policing of African bodies is a hold over from the time when almost
every African in the Americas was enslaved. This over policing continued even
after slavery was abolished with Jim Crow laws in the Southern US and similar
laws in other jurisdictions even in Canada. While in Canada the laws may not
have been as specific as in the USA they definitely existed. When Viola Desmond
was arrested at the “Roseland Theater“ in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia on November
8, 1946 she was charged with evading payment of a 1 cent tax. In reality she was
arrested because she sat in the section of the cinema reserved for White people.
Her refusal to move to the “Coloured“ section resulted in arrest, injury and a
criminal record that lasted until April 15, 2010 when she was pardoned
posthumously by the government. African Canadian Civil Rights activist Carrie
Best and her teenage son had suffered a similar fate on December 29, 1941 at the
same cinema. The disrespect of African women in North America is obviously not
confined to the USA. On August 10, 1993 Audrey Smith a 37 year old African
Jamaican woman visiting relatives in Toronto was stripped naked and searched by
police on a busy street (King Street West and Jameson Avenue) in Toronto. The
Black Action Defence Committee (BADC) called for the dismissal of the police
involved and the dismissal of then Toronto Police Chief William McCormack. BADC
described the stripping of Smith as a "dehumanizing, racist, illegal and sexual
attack." It was not until September 1995 that a three-person panel of inquiry
was held which not surprisingly cleared the police officers while Smith“s
character and reputation were shredded in the process.
In 2015 White supremacy continues to negatively affect the lives of Africans in
North America (the USA and Canada) with police in many cases acting as judge,
jury and executioner. Carding in Canada, stop and frisk in the USA continue to
create havoc in the lives of marginalized men, women and children. Police in

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schools further endangers the lives of racialized students. Not much has changed
since 1962 when Shabazz said: “The White press inflames the White public against
Negroes. The police are able to use it to paint the Negro community as a
criminal element. The police are able to use the press to make the White public
think that 90% or 99% of the Negroes in the Negro community are criminals. And
once the White public is convinced that most of the Negro community is a
criminal element, then this automatically paves the way for the police to move
into the Negro community, exercising Gestapo tactics, stopping any Black man on
the sidewalk, whether he is guilty or whether he is innocent, whether he is
well-dressed or whether he poorly dressed, whether he is educated or whether he
is dumb, whether he is a Christian or whether he is a Muslim. As long as he is
Black and a member of the Negro community, the White public thinks that the
White policeman is justified in going in there and trampling on that man“s Civil
Rights and on that man“s Human Rights. Once the police have convinced the white
public that the so-called Negro community is a criminal element, they can go in
and question, brutalize, murder, unarmed innocent Negroes and the white public
is gullible enough to back them up. This makes the Negro community a police
state. It is the most heavily patrolled neighbourhood, it has more police than
any other neighbourhood, yet it has more crime in it then any other
neighbourhood. How can you have more cops and more crime? Why? It shows you that
cops must be in cahoots with the criminals!“
Today in 2015 the words of El Hajj Malik Shabazz still ring true, are still
pertinent. Even with videos showing blatant, police misconduct, killing of
unarmed African American men, women and children there are always those who
blame the victim whenever the victim is African American.
By Murphy Browne
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
© Tuesday, November 3, 2015