Source and picture from adidas: CREATING LASTING CHANGE NOW
The picture above is from the adidas website. I wrote this after reading about and listening to the accolades placed on sneaker brands for working on problems with workplace racism.
Systemic racism prevents the ability to educate where it’s needed the most; with White people. White America has created a circular pattern of actions for itself. The lack of education around the history of this country hits every level of White America. Misinformation and willful ignorance of how the past informs the present as it relates to Black people is the primary problem.
When I grew up we read black publications like Jet Magazine. Every year there would be a picture of Emmitt Till. This image is burned into my conscious. It created a form of PTSD. I grew up in Memphis, only a few hours from Money, Mississippi. Memphis is also overlooked in the discussions on massacres of Black people. In 1866 at the beginning of reconstruction, White people tore through the city killing and raping Blacks. I introduce these two things and place the picture of Till below, because last year racists shot down the marker in Money that marks the death of Emmitt Till. LAST YEAR! Most white kids don’t even know who Emmitt Till is. White kids don’t have this type of fear built into their DNA. We live in the South although I lived in California for years. Even in San Diego, we would walk around areas of La Mesa and El Cajon and there would be flyers on the ground for White Supremacists. The University of Memphis recently built an ongoing exhibition to educate people on the Memphis Massacre:
https://www.memphis.edu/memphis-massacre/
All Black people have PTSD. Emmitt Till was 14. A White woman lied and said he whistled at her. His killers were acquitted. They pulled his body from a lake. His mother had an open casket funeral to show the world what was done to him. I had to look at this picture since I can remember and live with the fact that this could happen to me because of a lie. Everyday a new case where a White woman lies on a Black person shows up. Others never show up and those men end up dead or in prison. This is Black reality whether you’re educated or uneducated. This is just the surface. Black kids today have more trauma than anyone can imagine. For them and for me, we die without consequence from Whites still. The sad part is someone will read and ask what about Black on Black murder?
Learned behavior and a circular problem. All Black people have PTSD and I have the great misfortune of passing down PTSD biologically to my son and daughter and through my words and actions. I have to teach my children that they can be Emmitt Till. The world teaches them they can be the next Breona Taylor.
What do White people teach their kids? Watch out for Black people, they’re dangerous?
The miseducation of White people starts with class. Poor White people are indoctrinated into a world where they are superior to Blacks. The miseducation of poor White people is reinforced by educated White people at the top of the economic ladder. White people in the middle (who are more educated than any level of White folks and are more aware of the inequities) are stuck in a loop of ignorance and ignorance is bliss. The White middle is so afraid to lose their status, they don’t do anything to educate their bosses or subordinates. The middle, on average, tends to be more informed about Blacks because they tend to spend more time around Black people. The middle is greater in number than their poorer peers and richer peers, but because Whites aren’t taught history accurately even those around Blacks don’t understand the depths of Black mental issues. It’s hard to advocate for Black people when you don’t know who we are outside of MLK and slavery.
There are more poor White people than poor Blacks. There are more rich White people than rich Blacks.
This is understood.
What’s important here is more poor (all) White people are capable of climbing the economic ladder to middle class. Which means that until real education happens on race in America and is accepted by all White people, America can never be great. White America can’t change because to acknowledge their racism would require White people to confront themselves and the hardest thing to do is to admit that you’re at fault for the systemic issues plaguing this country. White people living today think slavery and the fight for Civil Rights happened a long time ago. White people today think because Obama became President, we are equal. Even the President of the United States had to teach his daughters about Emmitt Till.
Racists shot down a sign about Emmitt Till in 2019.
Timothy Loehmann shot down Taamir Rice, a 12 year old boy, in 2014.
We can’t be equal because the wealth that Black bodies created generated America’s caste system. The laws created by politicians reinforced the caste system. That caste system never ended. The reason I made it a point to label White people as poor, middle class and rich is because even the poorest White person in America would never choose to be Black.
You know when the poorest White person would choose? If Blacks were given reparations; which moves me to the “investments” by sneaker brands in response to the protests taking place right now. The money adidas and Nike are talking about investing is marketing. Nike spends 8 billion a year on marketing. Their 100 million dollar investment into Black communities looks good, but the reality is it placates a community that fuels the sale of footwear in this country. adidas is making an “investment”, but the problem is money won’t fix the issues inside of any corporate company, but it’s a start.
Money can help improve racism, but it could lead to another civil war in America because rich White people will tell poor White people to be mad, and the people in the middle who could help change things won’t. White people have anger and animosity over how brands are responding to ‘Black Lives Matter’ right now. When those White people earn jobs at these brands and change economic levels, they will raise kids who become managers and police. Those kids will remember the anger and resentment around companies “investing” in Black folks. Those White folks will perpetuate the system.
Money creates a paradox.
Giving money to Blacks and Black causes is a band aid; until the consumerism-based consciousness of uneducated and educated Blacks is changed. The problem here is like the issue in White America. The educated Blacks fear there isn’t enough so they have stopped going back to educate, leaving Blacks at the bottom behind. The blacks in the middle don’t have enough influence or power to pull their own people up and educate both White and Black people making the middle class Blacks null (the Black middle shouldn’t have to educate both Blacks and Whites, but this is the reality). The rich Blacks are busy learning to generate generational wealth and they become symbols: aspirational, unattainable figures that inform White society that it’s possible to bootstrap reinforcing racist ideals.
Racism is a circle that needs investment to bring balance, but that money is a temporary patch on a wheel rolling through broken glass unless White people fix themselves and unless Black people return and build our communities. Unfortunately Black people don’t have enough to fix the communities, which takes me once again back to the brands and their investments. If those investments are into community based programs (STEAM, Arts and Trade) in a graduated manner with the most money going into impoverished neighborhoods, paying the people there to operate in support positions, this would help. The second tier of investment should happen in the middle income neighborhoods and the final investment happens in stronger communities that don’t need the money, but shouldn’t be overlooked because even the best Black neighborhood pales in comparison to the best middle class White neighborhood.
I’ve written all of this to share a post from a series of discussions that began a few years ago:
Nike’s Current Diversity Crisis Could Be Happening In Almost Every Major Company | Reality Check
These discussions were being held by employees at Nike, adidas, and Under Armour and other brands since the 90s. adidas has recently had to face the truth about their mistreatment of employees. I’ve learned over all of these years that so many Black people have been frustrated at brands. I’ve also seen that those Black employees who fall on the sword are often seen as antagonistic and because the sneaker industry operates in two cities primarily, Boston and Portland, overwhelmingly White cities, if a Black person is fired or let go from one brand, it becomes difficult to breakthrough and work at another company.
So Black employees remain quiet.
That is until the straw of George Floyd became a doorstop leaving the racial discussion door ajar. In recent weeks people have asked why George Floyd? It’s not Floyd. Floyd’s death happened at a moment where America for the first time was experiencing what Black people have been living forever.
Get it?
White people were furloughed and laid off.
White people couldn’t buy items from stores.
White people couldn’t enjoy the simple benefits of going to the movies or to dinner.
The Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 created for the first time in American history a very similar oppression for every American. For the first time White America witnessed how Black folks are treated and after being bottled up, frustrated, lonely, isolated and having so much taken in a short amount of time, White people finally realized that it’s hard having everything taken away without explanation or reason.
adidas employees are finally speaking out. Which means Nike employees will follow suit and Under Armour employees and New Balance and every company will have to answer for their lack of African-Americans in C-Suite and higher level positions.
America was being America when George Floyd died and the only difference is America was pimp slapping every race via the virus when it happened this time.
So what is the paradox?
Companies are bending over backwards to fix their houses, but the core of the problem will remain because money might create opportunity, but it doesn’t get to the root of the issue, people. Footwear News is an example. In 2018 they created a 40 Under 40 in Footwear and in an industry where the most popular shoes are marketed via Black people, we were absent. They then created a second list and it was full of Black designers because that is the only place they could find Black people in footwear.
Footwear News Does a Weak Job of Creating a More Diverse 40 Under 40 | Opinion
It becomes very difficult to make things right because it will take amazingly GOOD people for it to work. Change has to be forced. I’m rambling.
Nothing will change in America until America acknowledges the mental illness it has created in Black people and continues to create. Nike and adidas are giving reparations. The U.S. needs to follow suit and White people CAN NOT be mad about this. White people need to understand that reparations are needed on the fiscal side to give Black folks one rung on the ladder. That money will remove the financial aspect, but this country also needs heavy investment into the mental health infrastructure in both Black America and White America.
The more financial support is given to Blacks, the more White people will want to kill and destroy what Blacks have. This is why Tulsa and Rosewood happened. Now is the time. adidas and Nike have profited on Black bodies as sharecroppers. The money is a start, but I pray that the funding goes into programs and those programs are highlighted and explained in great detail.
I feel that these protests are different. They feel different because they happened at a moment where everyone finally understood what it’s like to live Black… for three months. Imagine having to pull yourself up by the bootstraps while living everyday explaining to your kids the two different worlds they must occupy.
White people had to live like Black folks for three months and the world has exploded. Think about that.