It’s been a tough week for Stephen A. Smith. And I definitely don’t want to pile on when I feel that he didn’t say anything that warranted a week-long suspension, but as I watch this Renisha McBride trial, I can’t help but remember his shameless ‘stan-ing’ of Mark Cuban’s bigoted rant from a few months ago. In the wake of the Donald Sterling fiasco, Cuban defended the besieged Clippers owner by stating that everyone has racial prejudices and then announcing that he’s a bigot. He even said, “If I see a Black kid in a hoodie on my side of the street, I’ll move to the other side of the street.” Personally, I found those comments absolutely disgusting, but what offended me more was the fact that so many white people actually agreed with him (guess that whole post racial thing is officially over huh?). And what I found even more absurd than the caucasian reaction, was how many Black folks (like Smith) who praised Cuban for being honest and illuminating.
Now, it’s one thing to say, “Hey Mark, at least you are not hiding your racist inclinations,” but it’s an entirely different thing to exalt his xenophobia. Mark Cuban didn’t even add any variables to the Black kid OR the hoodie such as gang colors, a menacing look, an obscene neck tattoo or a crazy fight scars that could give his claim more adequate support.
He simply equated Black person + hoodie = threatening, regardless of whether or not the hoodie-wearer is Theo Huxtable or Kimbo Slice. Hell, he would be threatened by one of his own players in that context. But it should also be noted that he never specified gender either, and while everyone assumed he only meant Black boys, the truth is that there is a very irrational fear of Black girls in our society that we seem to NEVER talk about.
When Theodore Wafer began preparing his defense with his lawyers, it was obvious that he was going to rely on the fact that he was “scared” when she came banging on his door in the middle of the night after drunkenly crashing her car and requiring help. To be honest, I would be scared too if some random person was frantically knocking on my door at 4:30 am and I would be inclined to keep my door closed and contact the authorities. But no matter how hard Wafer’s defense team attempts to prove his fears were justifiable, the main point that may go overlooked in this case is that after she banged on the door, and after he opened it and saw her injured state, he chose to gun her down like a dog because her Blackness was irreconcilably dangerous.
After Stephen A. Smith was reamed on Twitter by the few folks with enough common sense to realize his propagation of Cuban’s comments was complete BULLSHIT, ESPN invited Dr. Michael Eric Dyson on Smith’s show, First Take. Dr. Dyson brilliantly dissected why Cuban’s comments were troubling and unacceptable by unpacking what that collective xenophobia leads to. When you criminalize Black skin in your head, and deem Blackness to be wildly violent, unpredictable, and wholly inferior, your actions towards Blacks will change towards being more defensive and less sympathetic.
When Renisha McBride showed up on Water’s stoop looking for help, he didn’t see a wounded woman – he saw a potential evil nigger, just like the police officers who shot Jonathan Ferrel to death when he ran to the police looking for help after a car wreck. It’s easy to shoot a Black person dead when you fail to see their intrinsic humanity based on prejudiced assumptions.
Renisha McBride, just like many other young (and old) Black women who are constantly labelled as violent and impure, deserve better than a society that treats them as sub-human. While Black men are busy praising white men for ultimately being racist, there is far too little conversation about the very real problem with white American’s fear of people of color.
LAB
Lincoln Anthony Blades blogs daily on his site ThisIsYourConscience.com, he’s an author of the book “You’re Not A Victim, You’re A Volunteer” and a weekly contributor for UPTOWN Magazine. He can be reached via Twitter @lincolnablades and on Facebook at This Is Your Conscience.