Look. Listen. Linger.
Ed. note: The Milwaukee Bucks chose to strike and not play their playoff game on Wednesday in the pursuit of racial and social justice following the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., and the rest of the teams scheduled to play subsequently decided to strike as well. The Strickland will be suspending operations through noon tomorrow after this piece so that the Black Lives Matter movement gets the time and attention that it deserves as the preeminent social issue in this country right now.
Look. Listen. Linger.
Look: There is no basketball. The NBA and WNBA are on strike. Basketball is entertainment for the masses. Entertainment brings peace, but can only exist where peace already exists. For many of us, there is no peace because there is no justice. Jacob Blake, a Black man, was tasered and shot at seven times by Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheskey. Four of the bullets hit him. His spinal cord was severed and he’s paralyzed from the waist down, perhaps permanently. Sheskey, with his gun and his backup also carrying a gun, was afraid a Black man might have a knife.
Look: Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two people in Kenosha protesting systemic violence against Black people. He drove 20 miles from where whites are 89% of the population to where they’re 77% of the population and killed two humans troubled enough by centuries of racism against Blacks to protest it in public. Video from after the murders shows Rittenhouse with an AR-15 over his shoulder walking calmly toward police officers from the same department that shot Blake.
Listen: The protestors are shouting at the cops to arrest Rittenhouse. Shouting he just killed someone.
Look: Rittenhouse is not shot. He isn’t tasered. He isn’t even arrested. He goes home to Antioch, 20 miles away. He isn’t arrested until the following day. When he gets his day in court, he will walk into the courtroom. Jacob Blake may never walk again. The 36- and 26-year-olds Rittenhouse killed never will.
Look: After deciding to go on strike, the Milwaukee Bucks put out a statement.
“The past four months have shed a light on the ongoing racial injustices facing our African American communities. Citizens around the country have used their voices and platforms to speak out against these wrongdoings.
“Over the last few days in our home state of Wisconsin, we’ve seen the horrendous video of Jacob Blake being shot in the back seven times by a police officer in Kenosha, and the additional shooting of protestors. Despite the overwhelming plea for change, there has been no action, so our focus today cannot be on basketball.
“When we take the court and represent Milwaukee and Wisconsin, we are expected to play at a high level, give maximum effort and hold each other accountable. We hold ourselves to that standard, and in this moment, we are demanding the same from our lawmakers and law enforcement.
“We are calling for justice for Jacob Blake and demand the officers be held accountable. For this to occur, it is imperative for the Wisconsin State Legislature to reconvene after months of inaction and take up meaningful measures to address issues of police accountability, brutality and criminal justice reform. We encourage all citizens to educate themselves, take peaceful and responsible action, and remember to vote on Nov. 3."
Look: Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth described Rittenhouse’s two murders like this:
“Persons who were out after the curfew became engaged in some type of disturbance, and persons were shot. Everybody involved was out after the curfew. I’m not going to make a great deal of that, but the point is the curfew is in place to protect. Had persons not been out involved in violation of that, perhaps the situation that unfolded would not have happened. So, last night, a 17-year-old individual from Antioch, Illinois, was involved in the use of firearms to resolve whatever conflict was in place. The result of it is two people... are dead.”
Look: Rittenhouse’s Facebook page includes a photo his mother posted of him dressed in a blue law enforcement uniform and the hat state troopers wear. He wanted to be a cop. He wanted to protect and serve the values that cops like Beth do.
Listen: Two years ago, Beth said the following:
"I think at some point society has to get so fed up that they are no longer willing to tolerate people who are not an asset to society. I think we have to create a threshold where, once you cross the threshold, Wisconsin, the United States, builds warehouses where we put these people who have been deemed to be no longer an asset, that are really a detriment, like these five people. I have no issue with... people completely disappearing. At [this] point, these people are no longer an asset to our community, and they just need to disappear."
Look: More trans Americans have been killed this year than all of last year. Many were Black. They die quietly, off the margins, invisible to those who don’t view them as an asset, who don’t see them as part of “our” community. They disappear. But we will not forget them.
Listen: When they say nothing is more American than jazz (they mean “Black American,” but they don’t say it), listen to the words like you do the music. Listen to the notes they’re not playing, the words they’re not saying. Listen to what Beth is saying without saying it. Kyle Rittenhouse heard it 20 miles away. Heard it all his life. Because of that, a father may never walk with his children again and two lives were ended, and a killer slept warm in his bed while 20 miles away, the bodies grew cold.
Listen: You’ve heard it all your life, the evil in every breath this land has heaved since the truly dangerous immigrants came and killed millions of indigenous, enslaved millions of Black people. But don’t just listen. Hear. Rittenhouse heard what he wanted to hear. Others hear the cry for justice. It is a phoenix that never dies. Even when you can’t hear it, it sings.
Listen: A chorus including Jacob Blake. Breanna Taylor. Bree Black. When George Floyd gasped in his dying breaths for his dead mother Larcenia, he cried out for it. So did Eric Garner. Sean Bell. Amadou Diallo. Yusef Salaam. Antron McCray. Kevin Richardson. Korey Wise. Raymond Santana.
Look: The city of Milwaukee offered the Bucks’ Sterling Brown a settlement if he’ll drop his federal civil rights lawsuit against them. Brown refused. Brown parked his car across two parking spots at a Walgreen’s at two in the morning. He was unarmed and did not resist when an officer asked for his license. Still, backup was called. Eight officers showed up. When Brown was asked for his keys and pulled a fob from his pocket, one of the officers thought it was a weapon. Two cops with guns paralyzed Jacob Blake because he might have a knife. Three cops assaulted and tasered Brown because of a key fob. Kyle Rittenhouse slept in his bed while two families had their worlds destroyed.
Look: The Bucks’ coach is Mike Budenholzer. He was the Atlanta Hawks’ coach five years ago when one of his players, Thabo Sefolosha, had his leg broken by New York City police. The city claimed Sefolosha had failed to heed officers’ orders to leave the area where one-time Knick Chris Copeland had been stabbed. Sefolosha was acquitted of any wrongdoing. The city paid him $4 million to drop his lawsuit. Racism is not a Southern thing. It’s not an ignorance thing. It is in this country’s DNA.
It’s 1979. The Knicks have settled on their final roster as the season begins. For the first time in NBA history, a team’s players are all Black. In 1970 and 1973, the city fell in love with its basketball team, whose two best players, Willis Reed and Walt Frazier, are Black. In 1979, the team is slandered with a nickname based on the worst American racial slur, because after 30+ years of teams featuring white players, one year of all-Black is too Black.
It’s 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Anywhere, U.S.A. Hear Rosa Parks told to go to the back of the bus. She’s tired, but she’s Black. That’s reason enough to treat her as less than.
It’s 1943 in Harlem. An African-American soldier, Robert Bandy, is shot by James Collins, a white police officer. Harlem riots. It is the sixth race riot in the U.S. that year, with World War II in full swing. This is the time and the people that today’s racists long for when they wear the red hats, when they scream from convention podiums, always louder, always shriller, because they think if they blare the lie loud enough you won’t hear the symphony that’s never broadcast live, but that we all hear in the air every goddamn day. The revolution will not be televised because TV is make-up. What’s real needs no mask.
Listen: This is what Walter Francis White of the NAACP said to the Harlem rioters after Bandy was shot: “Go to your homes! [...] Don't destroy in one night the reputation as good citizens you have taken a lifetime to build. Go home – now!" When the people of Harlem go quietly home every night and the systemic violence goes unopposed, they’re good citizens, honoring their reputation. When they protest, they’re disturbing the peace. Whose peace? Theirs? Ours? Yours?
It’s 1787. The Constitution says the Black enslaved population of any state will be counted as three-fifths of the white population of that state. Many Americans will grow up thinking the Constitution said Blacks were only considered three-fifths of a person. The truth is worse: the Southern states want Blacks counted whole toward their total population, but only to increase those states’ representation and political clout. If Georgia has one million whites and one million blacks, they want the state’s population to be counted as two million, but for political purposes all those people are considered white. Erasure and murder: one hand bloodies the other.
It’s 1720.
It’s 1648.
It’s 1518.
It’s any one of a hundred thousand days of Black people chained and imprisoned and kidnapped across the ocean, enslaved. You may never know their names or their faces. But be still for a moment. Basketball has stopped so you might hear what never does.
Listen. The cry for justice rises up.
Black Lives Matter.
Let it linger.
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