At the two-year memorial for #AndrewJosephIII in Tampa in 2016, Deanna Hardy-Joseph, the 14-year-old’s mother (who is also my cousin), recounted how Andrew was perfectly-mannered, a scholar-athlete, never in trouble, a joy. The Josephs were Huxtable-level perfect; the parents, Andrew (the elder) and Deanna, had been high school sweethearts, were college-educated, professionals, lived in a gated community, invested in charity work, and had two smart, charismatic, beautiful children—Andrew and Deja. They survived intact despite being ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and having to resettle from New Orleans to Tampa. It was outrageous that 14-year-old Andrew—a kind boy, who was simply trying to help his friend who was being harassed by police at “Student Day” at the County Fair—would be targeted, detained, strip-searched, labeled a gangster, removed from the fair, dumped on the side of the freeway (along with five others … of 99 total “ejected” that night … all of them Black boys), and marked for death by police. As Deanna’s shiny round face, perfectly-shaped mouth, motherly softness, with hauntingly sad eyes, tells the story to the crowd circled-up outside the fairgrounds, we are all outraged that they could treat her son like less than a dog. Our chests fill with rage and pain. There is stillness in the circle. Then #CaryBall’s mother steps forward. She had come to support Deanna from St. Louis, where Cary had been an honor roll student, with a 3.86 GPA, high ambitions, promise … .stolen by the gun of a police officer who didn’t see who he was; they saw him as a thug, a n*****. Mike Brown, Sr. then moves in. He spoke of how his son #MikeBrown planned to become an aircraft mechanic, of how he loved his grandmother, of his warmth, of who he was as an 18-year-old young man and how Ferguson police portrayed him as an animal, a brute.
As we stood in that circle, the warmth of the Florida sun baking in the tears that flowed freely, I thought about my own three children. None of them had a 3.86 GPA. My middle daughter was a “free spirit” who could often be found under her desk at school, carried slime in her pocket, spoke out of turn in class, found humor in everything, and laughed loudly, defiantly, in a manner that filled entire campuses, and frustrated teachers, administrators, school police…and her mother to no end. My oldest is a born revolutionary, who regularly challenged authority, and organized others to do the same, especially in the face of white power-holders and “good Negroes” who propped up racist institutions. I couldn’t say of them what these parents were saying of Andrew, Cary, and Mike, but weren’t they worth their lives, too?
Why must our children be perfect to live? Why do they have to pull up their pants, or get good grades, or be respectful, and have ambitions, to live? Why can’t they be children who hop fences, cuss when they’re out of their parents’ earshot, smoke a little weed, hate math, have dangerous-joyful lives, make mistakes, and recover from them? What if Yuvette shoplifted at Home Depot? What if Ezell jaywalked? What if Mike stole cigars? What if Redel robbed the pharmacy? Or if Devin went for a joyride in his dad’s girlfriend’s car? What if Jesse were tagging? What if Wakiesha cussed out the prison guard? What if Kisha and Marquintan were high in the car? What if Richard spent his childhood in Youth Authority? Or if Carnell had a gun in his waistband? What if AJ were in a gang? I’m not saying that any of these things are true, but what if? If the folks on whose behalf we struggle weren’t perfect, if they were n*****, are they not worth their lives?
White-supremacist-patriarchal-heteronormative-capitalism socializes us to aspire to “good Negro” status. It convinces little Black girls from East Oakland to graduate from Howard—summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, to pledge the oldest Black sorority, to earn PhDs, to be in the “right” rooms … with other “good Negroes,” to learn to taste wine, to only laugh intentionally, to favor jazz over hip-hop, to submit to a political and social grooming process that sets us up for “firsts,” titles, and the illusion of power. It convinces us to revel in exceptionalism, that there is a such thing as individual advancement, and that those who are denied pats on the head by benevolent elites are somehow inferior. We are told that to buy in is not the same as selling out, that we can be a “credit to our race” without being of the people. “Good Negroes” are not n****s. We are trained to have disdain for them, to despise them, to deny the n**** within our own selves, to redeem ourselves from it, to kill it. But our position as “good Negroes” is tenuous. It’s bestowed by a power structure that preys upon us, but requires us few to veil its existence.
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Killed just two days after #MikeBrown in Ferguson, #EzellFord became the touchpoint for Black Lives Matter organizing in Los Angeles. The 25-year-old, intellectually-disabled Ezell was well-known and beloved in his neighborhood, 65th and Broadway, a space where young Black men were especially targeted by police. LAPD officers Antonio Villegas and Sharlton Wampler were harassing Ezell on August 11, 2014. They escalated, got him face down in the street, and shot him point-blank in the back. The official autopsy showed a muzzle imprint burned into Ezell’s skin, likely the fatal shot. The neighborhood and Ezell’s family were retaliated against for speaking out; police berated his family, ran up in their house, and arrested one of Ezell’s most outspoken cousins on an “unrelated” charge. Community outrage sparked Occupy LAPD, an 18-day, 24-hour encampment in front of LAPD headquarters that ran from December 2014 to January 2015. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck justified police actions. As the Civilian Police Commission prepared to rule on whether or not Ezell’s murder was in-policy, we knew it was important to pressure the mayor, who appointed the commissioners.
On Sunday, June 7, 2015, two days before the scheduled ruling, about a dozen of us, dressed in white, prayed together and sang spirituals as we filed down Irving Ave., gathering in front of the wrought iron and brick fencing that encircled the mayor’s mansion. I had been to the mansion before, gathered in its lush gardens, eating decadent hors d’oeuvres, blending in with women of means decked out in flowery dresses and floppy hats. I knew Eric Garcetti. We shared mutual friends. He’d given me his personal phone number just months before. I was being considered for commission appointments and had been contracted by the city as a researcher. I was on most “good Negro” lists, and the Black elite often saw me as next up in the line of Black political succession.
It was still dawn when we knelt at the front gate and poured libation in Ezell’s name. As the sun rose higher in the sky, we took to social media, pledging to occupy, challenging the mayor to come out, and finally catching him trying to leave out the back door the next morning. We blocked his blacked-out SUV with our bodies. As I approached his open window, I could feel my fledgling good-Negro status slip away.
I’ve been arrested six times as a part of movement work (after a few times as a juvenile … for less noble reasons). I have been threatened with trumped-up charges that could have gotten me some serious time. I’ve been threatened, surveilled, intimidated, and physically roughed-up by police. I’ve been doxed by white supremacists. My children have been targeted and placed on lists. My name no longer appears on lists for official gatherings. I’m no longer the “good Negro” at the dinner table. The husband of a public official pointed a loaded .45 at my chest and said, “I will shoot you.” I have plummeted from the “good Negro” pedestal upon which I was once positioned.
The truth is, such status is always illusory. It is never assured. The pedestal is always wobbly. The truth is, we are all n****s … even when we pretend to be “good Negroes.” We must not reach for a status that is only bestowed by a white supremacist system that really despises us. We must resist. To claim not only our alignment with n****s, but our identity as N****s ourselves is the greatest act of defiance; it is our sacred duty as descendants of enslaved people, freedom fighters, street