Black Men are human.
Black Men have emotions.
Black Men deserve to live.
There's no denying the long history of black men being characterized as aggressive, scary and angry in our society. Time and time again, this characterization by white people of black men in this manner has been detrimental—and even deadly. Quite frankly, I am tired of it. So to the white people who think nothing big of characterizing black men as overly aggressive when compared to others, to all the Kristine Leahy's and Lee Garrett's out there: recognize the role that your demonization of our black men has on black lives—your racism, prejudice or whatever you want to call it is showing, and it isn't cute.
To start off, most of us know that this is the first season of ABC's The Bachelorette where a black woman is the star of it. So yes, I had to tune in to this show for the first time ever and support our girl Rachel Lindsay. On this week's episode, as tensions rose between contestants Eric Bigger and Lee Garrett, the show touched upon the troubling, but not surprising way in which the characterization of black men by white people can really affect lives—in this case it could lead to Eric's elimination from the show (and the continuation of the idea that black men shouldn't have emotions and opinions, or they're dangerous).
Lee Garrett is a white male contestant on the show who has been under fire recently after records of his racists tweets resurfaced online after being deleted. Eric Bigger, a black male contestant on the show, after having enough of the drama in one episode, confronted Lee and others asking why he was constantly being attacked by the others.
Lee continuously suggested that Eric was "too angry" and "aggressive", questioning why Eric would ever be so aggressive (as if Lee and others hadn't just bad mouthed him to the girl who he is trying to win the affection of). Meanwhile, the camera turns to Eric who doesn't appear aggressive at all—he appeared to be a human being with human emotions expressing himself. At one point, after Lee continues to throw out the idea that Eric is aggressive, Eric even asks him, "Are you afraid of me?" Yes ladies & gents, in 2017 black men still have to worry about the perception a white person has of them, and whether this perception is so-called "fear"—because fear, white people, and black men can be a deadly combination.
A few weeks back, Charlamagne Tha god blasted Kristine Leahy as Donkey of the Day after Leahy, a host on The Herd With Colin Cowherd, asked LaVar Ball if he was threatening her on-air. Charlamagne argued that the same energy Leahy used in that instance, was the same type of energy that led to the loss of black bodies: "That type of demonizing led to Emmett till getting killed." He stated that, "If you was paying attention, you kept hearing Lavar Ball say 'Kristine, I don't want to talk to you because you scare me.' The reason he kept saying that is because he understands that a big, scary black man going at little white woman in America never ends wel."
And Charlamagne is right. What Lee Garrett from the Bachelorette and TV host Kristine Leahy have in common is that they both (as white individuals who no doubt benefit from a system of advantage based on race), played directly into supporting the trope that black men are overly aggressive, threatening and scary—a trope that has continually dominated society ,and led to the awful murders of black men like Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin, and the list goes on and on.
No matter how small a comment may be, the way our black men are being characterized—whether on TV reality shows, talk shows or in real life—it matters to black lives. So for goodness sake (and black lives depend on it), dear white people—stop demonizing black men.
