Richard Collins III was on the precipice of graduation. He had been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Army. He was a son, a friend, and an American soldier but to Sean Urbanski, a member of the “Alt-Reich: Nation”—a racist Facebook group, he was nothing more than a disposable Black body. On May 20th at 3am, Urbanski approached, stabbed and killed Collins.
In the era of respectability politics, people will talk sheepishly about the murder of Collins and the sempiternal attacks on Black bodies. However, I cannot. So here are three uncomfortable realities that Black America must face:
1. Racism is permanent and dangerous.
What happened to Collins cannot be explained or discussed without first understanding that there is no era in American history where Black lives have truly mattered to the ruling class. Black people have had to suffer the racist and oppressive upshots of hate crimes for centuries. The hatred and the disregard for Black lives is homegrown, it's historical, it's endemic, it's permanent and it's dangerous.
2. The Politics of Race continue apace.
America’s historical definition of racism as a human problem, as opposed to a systemic issue, has created an atmosphere that has emboldened the first line of defense of a pre-existing system, namely police officers and the “Alt-Reich.” America’s farcical attitude toward the value of Black lives has made sport of the violence being practiced against Black bodies. If nothing more, Collin’s death proves that the politics of race continue apace, running opposite of America’s founding principles of equity, freedom, and justice for all.
3.The law of whiteness is a thing.
What to do with the Black body, post-civil war, has always been an extension of political rhetoric. The politics of race in America has always intended to exploit and control the Black body. The exploitation, that later became law and American custom, was needed to secure capital while creating a group of out of caste people. Ironically, the just-us system has always been used to exacerbate oppressive systems that have concretized racial borders. Yet, when faced with the societal issues that are a direct result of law and custom, there is an expectation for the just-us system and the law of whiteness to work fairly and in favor for everyone. This belief in a system that was never intended to benefit America's outcast is just downright disappointing.
The sooner that Black America comes to terms with these realities, the better.
