Stephon Clark Still Deserves Support Despite Self-Hatred
Dictionaries define self-hatred as an extreme dislike or hatred of oneself in addition to an extreme hatred of a group that the person is a part of.
Unfortunately, many African-Americans have dealt with self-hatred since the days of slavery because of the constant negative imagery associated with being African-American and the stereotypes of ourselves that we have adopted as truth.
This unfortunate phenomenon is nothing new.
Therefore, despite the uproar that Stephon Clark’s old tweets have caused, the late Sacramento, Calif. resident was still our brother and needs our support, despite falling victim to confusion and self-hatred.
During his murder trial in the mid 1990s, many in the Black community supported O.J. Simpson despite the fact that he distanced himself from his community and his culture decades earlier.
Many in the Black community supported Michael Jackson and Lil Kim despite allegations of them bleaching their skin.
Therefore, the Black community should still support the late Stephon Clark even after old tweets surfaced of him disparaging Black women and his desire not to have dark babies with his Asian girlfriend.
Clark died after Sacramento, Calif. police officers shot at him over 20 times, hitting him eight times, while he held his cell phone in his grandmother’s backyard.
The young Black man had allegedly smashed automobile windows close to his grandmother’s home and police converged onto the scene as a result.
Activists such as Black Lives Matter leaders began protesting immediately, even blocking the entrance to a Sacramento Kings basketball game.
However, support for Clark has somewhat waned in recent days after tweets surfaced of him saying that the only thing he wanted black was an Xbox.
Clark went on to tweet that dark b****** bring dark days.
His Asian girlfriend seemed to agree with his posts, even freely using the N-word in her own tweets.
Clark allegedly stated that he was not Black, he was Stephon Clark, a quote that is similar to an infamous quote made by Simpson decades earlier.
Unfortunately, Clark found out too late that even though he saw himself as an individual and not a color, did not mean that color would not come into play when dealing with some police officers.
Clark deserves support because his tragic and fatal fall should become a cautionary tale for young and old African-Americans who think they have transcended race.
People can talk about the human race being the only race and a colorblind society, but those things are not reality and probably never will be.
A colorblind society just represents wishful thinking and not critical thinking.
No matter how much education one receives, the first thing a person sees is physical characteristics from race to gender to size to age.
No matter how well you dress.
No matter how well you speak.
No matter whom you date, you cannot escape many of those characteristics.
Unfortunately, Clark never realized that.
The unfortunate thing is that Clark and his baby mother might have passed that self-hatred to their lighter skin children, which only leads to more colorism and division within the Black community.
Instead of spreading vitriol towards Clark, the Black community needs to make sure we stop poisoning young Black children with things that will create self-hatred.
Stop telling them that lighter is better than dark.
Stop telling them that they are so pretty for a dark skinned person.
Stop telling them that predominantly White schools are better than predominantly Black schools.
Stop calling straight hair good hair and coarse hair bad hair.
When the community stops doing those things, maybe self-hatred will also stop.
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