Historically, white supremacy was the idea that white people were inherently superior to black people. Black success, owning a store, living in a wealthy neighborhood, enjoying leisure time, all threatened white superiority. Segregation was the solution to stifle black success.
Legal segregation is gone, but we live in its residue. It’s assumptions. America never did much work to right these wrongs, to undue these notions when these laws were overturned. So here we are with folks unable to fathom that black folks belong in “nice” spaces.
Here we are looking at the violence that is always embedded in segregated spaces. People are able to access this violence with a quick 911 call about their own discomfort.
Segregation was not a creation of the South, it was invented in the American North to separate and stigmatize black people freed by the gradual emancipation in Northern states. Massachusetts, New York City, Philadelphia all has segregation policies before the Civil War.
So don’t be surprised to see this segregationist residue in places outside the South. The exclusion of black people from all-white spaces began as an American phenomenon.
America needs a new understanding. New sets of policies and laws to punish people making false calls to the police. This has to stop. Folks have to stop terrorizing black people for simply existing in what they decided is white space. #StudyingSegregation
