Philosopher George Yancy responds to the murder of three Black people in Jacksonville, Florida, by a white supremacist.
H. A. Nethery: On August 26, 2023, in Jacksonville, Florida, yet another white man took Black lives — three to be exact. Three unique and unrepeatable existences snuffed out by the trigger pulls of an AR-15-style rifle. You’ve written a great deal about anti-Black racism, and I think every day about what you’ve written and said about the concept of hope within the context of your philosophical work. In fact, in athat you conducted with historian Robin D. G.
I have often heard white racism described as a disease, a kind of pathology. I think there is a different way of thinking about this. Whiteness, as I’m suggesting here, is not just the “dis” , but it is also the “ease” of whiteness. That is, whiteness is the simplicity of never having to ask oneself: “Is this my country?” Black people, however, through the pain of double consciousness, continue to ask such a question.
I realize that this is a circuitous route toward responding to your question. Palmeter was hell-bent on murdering Black people — people who look like me, people who look like my mother. This recent killing at a Dollar General Store in Jacksonville, Florida, speaks to me of the history of anti-Black rituals. It speaks to me of a legacy of just how insignificant Black lives are deemed in the U.S.
While “stochastic terrorism” is an important concept, I wouldn’t use it to explain Ryan Christopher Palmeter’s actions. What’s my point? “Stochastic terrorism” places emphasis on the “lone wolf.” Historically, when I think about the history of anti-Black racism in the U.S., I think about white supremacy as institutional and systemic. I think about the fact that anti-Black racism was written into law, supported by the highest offices in the land.
Like Baldwin, I can hear the white innocents screaming, “No! This can’t be true. You exaggerate, you go too far!” I would ask such white naysayers to critically rethink how their whiteness is tied to or sutured to the racial vulnerability and precarity of Black bodies. I would ask them to expand their moral imagination, one that reimagines whiteness as structurally unethical. In this way, I would speak with the wisdom of Baldwin: “I don’t know you personally, but I know you historically.
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