Musings on being a(n) (black) expat in the wake of the Mike Brown verdict

77 Comments

• Oh Oneika

  I have felt low. So low. And isolated. As a black person living in England. I look through my newsfeed on facebook and all I see are inane posts about Christmas lights? And reality TV shows? Meanwhile, I am thinking, some kid got shot by a police officer, his body left to literally rot for four hours before medics bother to come, and the police officer goes off scot-free?

  I may not be African American. And I loathe the subtle attempts to divide that I experience (“oh but you’re not African American, so you’re a *different* type of black”). But I – we – share a collective experience that is mired in racism and effects of white privilege that continues to this day.

  The sense of isolation really hit home for me. There is something about this particular murder that has really struck something raw in me. My boyfriend is white, and he has been asking me why I have seemed so sad all this week. But I can’t be bothered to tell him. Why does it have to be me that explains it is about more than just the killing of a young, black boy by an overzealous, militant white cop? Why does it have to be me that unpacks my white boyfriend’s knapsack of white privilege that means he doesn’t have to care if he doesn’t want to?

  I feel isolated. And sick of being the one that has to educate. I’m fed up.

• I totally understand the feeling, I too have not said anything about the case because quite simply it would take too much effort to explain the grievances. Which is also a shame on my part but sometimes I don’t quite feel like being the poster girl for understanding black issues!!

  For example I tried explaining how fed up I was and still am, of the blanket terms used to describe Africa especially with the Ebola outbreak. It took me ages to explain why I was annoyed that the media kept referencing the entire west Africa (which is actually better than the usual Africa) rather than the specific countries. It’s hard to explain the damage this does to the entire image of Africa when the only image many of my friends have is that of poverty and suffering. I feel that to go into the complexities of race issues you need time but the more time you spend discussing it the more you appear to be that angry black chick.

• In many ways I am relieved I did not grow up in America. It is apparent (or perhaps, even more apparent, for an outsider looking in) that the structure of that society is designed to thwart any perceived attempt at black achievement or improvement. It is disgusting that I have to type out such statements in 2014. In all honesty, I think my self esteem would have been crippled at an early age if I grew up in such a society.

  • I feel you! The racism and racial degradation in Canada is less prominent… But it’s there.

  • TA just read your post,. Where are you located…which country? Where did you grow up? I want to send my daughter to study in another country. She deserves to see life at a much grander stand. BY the way we reside in the United States, Washington, DC.

    • Based in NYC, grew up in Canada!

• Thanks Oneika for such a thoughtful…outburst… 😀 As a black American I Iong for leaving the States again and moving abroad. Growing up here was tough but I did not have the understanding that I do now that our lives do not matter. And sadly enough it is just not the black ‘boys’. No one really speak up about the untold things that happen to the black girls. Over 56K of us are missing in the U.S. as I type this. I am an advocate of blacks striving to move to places that are more accepting of us. At this point, as I am a descendant of a civil rights activist–who was such 30 years before the civil rights movement, I realize that blacks in this nation will be protesting and fighting forever for rights. In fact we’ve been fighting for 4 centuries. Nothing has change. So eventually I will begin to write about places blacks can move to, to have better lives, because staying here honestly is not an option. If you are poor, you have an even greater chance of being murdered in the streets by a vigilante or cop. But to me there is a bigger issue than race when it comes to the Mike Browns, Trayvons and such. What’s appalling is how cops in general get away with such brutality without even a blip. That to me is scary. It reeks of a police state. I am tired now.. I cannot even write any more about this. I am just sad about it all..

  • P.S. that is not to say these things are racially motivated but.. these people are smart, if they get the country to turn a blind eye to suffering of one group then they can start killing off others. Make you numb then take over. also, if you think the Mike Brown thing is sad, don’t read the story about the 12 year old killed on a playground by a cop in Ohio for carrying a toy gun. His name was Tamir Rice.

    • THIS—>”But to me there is a bigger issue than race when it comes to the Mike Browns, Trayvons and such. What’s appalling is how cops in general get away with such brutality without even a blip.”

      I agree that it’s the overarching implications that are worrisome. That said, until other groups — privileged groups– are affected, I don’t see much being done in the way of addressing police brutality. #sadbuttrue

• Thank you for so eloquently expressing this. As an American abroad I relate with how strange it can feel to be so far away in the wake of such a tragedy. I also have heard nothing about it here in Thailand with the exception of speaking with one other American, and it can be extremely difficult to explain the many layers of complexity surrounding these social issues to somebody who isn’t already familiar with them. I really enjoyed reading your perspective about something spent a lot of time in my mind and heart the past few days, so again, thank you for sharing.

• Thanks for sharing this Oneika. I don’t know what to say. I’m on the blissfully ignorant spectrum and your post is the first time I’ve really had to confront my feelings about it. I read about it – in an academic and detached sense – but I’ve not considered how it affects me. It was ‘another reason I would NEVER live in the US,’ ‘another messed up thing that happened to black folk’ (and I follow The Root on Facebook, a constant stream of messed up things that happen to black people).

  And it does affect me. I think I choose not to think about it because eventually you realize that, especially this far away, there’s little you can do about it. The news will move on (or find another gunned down black face – which they have, a 12-year old boy), the cops will go back on the street, and people will forget. Personally, feeling that powerless in the face of a grave injustice makes me feel like shit, like nothing I’m doing matters, so why do anything at all?

  So I read about it, store it for future reference, an example of ‘Yes, racism still exists’. But I definitely don’t think about it – and when people I know that don’t know anything talk about it, I furrow my brows, maybe throw a side eye, and hope they don’t look to me to speak on it, “as a black person, you know?”

  • Sometimes it’s easier to be safely ensconced under that rock! I totally get you, Alyssa!

• I can completely relate to this post. I was an expat in Asia for a few years and to be honest, I quite enjoyed not having to think about race. As a black American woman, I found it refreshing to just live my life without worrying about racism. Now I’m temporarily back in the U.S. and this Ferguson situation, in addition to all the other race related news on television, just angers me.

  Thank you for this post Oneika. I have had the same feelings that you expressed in this blog post. I definitely appreciate being able to talk to other black folks who “get it” whether near or far. I’m pretty sure most black expats feel the same way but since we’re likely one of the few black faces in any given environment, feeling isolated is inevitable. And like you, I have no interest in explaining the complexities of race in North America to people who don’t get it (you know what I mean). I’m pretty sure I’ll return to the expat life – one of the many great things about being an expat is living a full life without being bombarded with race all the time.

  I’m rambling.. the point is, this post basically states my feelings in a nutshell. Oneika, I think you did a great job articulating what many of us black expats feel about the situation in North America 🙂

  • Thank you so much for reading and for your comment! It’s nice to know that I”m not alone and that you, as a former black expat, understand what I’m feeling.

• I’m in Australia and haven’t heard much being said about it either which I find upsetting. Although i’m white British, I have always struggled with living in some of my favorite places (lived in York when studying at uni, have spent much of my life in the South of France, and now Australia where I’ve migrated to 2 days ago). I was born in a very multicultural city and now find it incredibly difficult to be surrounded by people or in places where people have very little awareness or interest about the difficulties faced by others in terms of race and culture.

  Lizzy from Nomad Notebook

  • Thank you for your comment! I find that people who are not directly implicated find it difficult to empathize because it’s so far removed from anything they have ever felt or experienced (probably due to their position of privilege).

• I do not know if many of us will even get the entire story correct.There are so many different versions of what happened to Mike Brown that frankly I don’t know which one to believe. I too prefer to be in a multicultural setting and cannot ever imagine living in an environment where folks are clueless. Despite all of this I would recommend to black Americans to teach their sons and daughters to be a little more subdued and silent when dealing with the authorities . The lives of black people, vis- á- vis non black people, and even with other black people are not worth much in the United States . I think if Americans were to wake up and find out that black people disappeared from the face of the earth, life would continue, business as usual and a good of many of them would be happy too. Sadly,I think black Americans have become a problem.

  • I have never read something so tacky as this…

  • Ridiculous.

    • This is why you don’t want to explain. Where to begin to explain to someone like Maritza Bernstein that the United States has always thought of Black people as a problem rather than people? Where to begin to explain that people who demand their human rights are not simply “a problem?”

• I have heard a bit about the Mike Brown case and I think it is incredibly sad what happened to that boy and disgusting that the cop got off scot free. But that being said, there are so many horrible, disugusting injustices happening all over the world every day, and a lot of your colleagues in Hong Kong wouldn’t be North American so wouldn’t have the same connection to the story that you would. It’s not that they wouldn’t care (well maybe some wouldn’t) but there is just so much going on in the world and not everything revolves around what is happening in the US

  • I agree with your statement and logically I know this to be true. But it still hurts that this news has made nary a ripple in Hong Kong. Because it’s a breach of human rights and it’s happening in the USA, one of the most powerful and developed countries in the world.

    • Fair enough Oneika. It is despicable that there are events like this happening in one of the most powerful countries in the world – and scary

• I am a black American living in Hong Kong and I feel the same way. Fortunately a few American coworkers share my opinions on the matter. I do wish that I could protest in the streets. Instead, I am left with utter sadness and a tremendous feeling of defeat.

  Let me know if you want to meet up to discuss life.

  • Defeated isn’t the word! I’m always up for meeting new folks, drop me a line!

• Absolutely loved this post. Its been everything I’ve been feeling these past few weeks. ESPECIALLY the part about not having someone to commiserate with. Its so hard to explain to anyone here(France), the history and the underlying ( and not so underlying) tones of racism that still run rampant in the United States. However when I try I get someone trying to explain it away ” America allows citizens to carry guns so the cops are fearful for their own lives.” While I do believe that is a part of the problem that doesn’t explain away the huge disparity between the number of young black males killed compared to other races. Oh but my favorite is the “Your president is Black…” *sigh* I don’t even know where to begin with that one.

  • Yup, these dismissive comments ultimately derail the conversation. We need to get down to the root cause. France is the first to tout their non-secular, inclusive politcs but a closer look shows the cracks in the veneer. Talk to any black, Muslim, or Jewish person in France and they will have a very different story to tell than the “Francais de souche” (“French” French).

• One of the big problem in this country that too many blacks pretend to ignore is the numerous amount of violence that takes place in predominantly black areas ( black on black crime);and this is what tends to put a great fear in the eyes of those who are not black, especially the police. Until black people in this country and other concerned groups of people begin to address this problem honestly, we will continue to see this “fear of the poor black man”, which often ends up with black men being killed by the police, especially in cases that did not necessarily had to have ended up with death. And it is about time blacks recognize that there are many different groups of blacks in this country. Most of the black men who get killed by the police are usually poor uneducated black men and seldom we see the educated, middle class or wealthy black men get killed by policemen.

  • I have to agree to disagree on this one. I don’t believe for one minute that there is a disproportionate amount of violence in the black community. What I do believe is that the narrative has been shaped (read: skewed) by the powers that be: creating a dichotomy between the poor white boy who commits mass murder because he is “depressed” and the worthless black man who commits crime because he is reckless and lawless. Statistics of black vs. white violence aside, white police officers seem to have a propensity for using excessive and unnecessary force when detaining black people (see Eric Garner et al). Again, I think it’s really easy to focus on things that are irrelevant to the topic at hand.

    • You are correct than mass murder is a white crime, but it’s also a rare crime that gets a lot of publicity. You are also correct that blacks get punished worse for the exact same crimes. Statistics show this is all true.

      But how can you say you don’t believe there is a disproportionate amount of violence in the black community? With all due respect Oneika, you are not looking at official crime statistics.

      The murder rate for blacks is 8 times higher than for whites.

      http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf

  • @Maritza: You seem to miss the point… The fact that you are solely receiving your information from mainstream “news” is telling of this. The main objective of mainstream “news” in America is to divide and distract. They only show events that cause mass ruckus and clash between viewers. They will have you blaming or siding with one group of people. You have to take them (if you have to) with a very fine grain of salt and think critically.

• I feel like there can never be a truthful conversation about race in America.

  Yes, blacks are disproportionally locked up for drugs. They are disproportionally stopped by police. All that is really happening and the statistics bear it out. Clearly this is unfair and has to be stopped.

  On the other hand, blacks have a much higher RATE of violent crimes. When you look at violent crime in general, whites tend to kill whites, and blacks tend to kill blacks, and slightly more blacks kill whites than vice-versa (cops excepted).

  Still, I do get frustrated when whites are chided for being afraid of blacks, because there’s some cognitive dissonance going on. Blacks statistically do commit violent crimes at a much higher rate than whites.

  I would never get into this discussion with a black person because no one is allowed to start with the truth. A more helpful discussion would be . . . WHY do blacks have a higher violent crime rate and where do we go from there? If we can’t acknowledge what is real, then how does change happen?

• Adding this . . .

  I think if we admitted that the black violent crime rate is higher, we could start to talk about what’s behind it . . . like maybe the failed war on drugs for a starter.

  Not to pick on blacks, because whites have wrought PLENTY of violent havoc in this world. But I just wanted to say that I get frustrated about truth-telling.

• The reality of things is that Asians also hate Blacks. They’d probably celebrate the deaths of Blacks. Whites love Asian because Asians worship Whites and view Blacks in disdain.

• It is interesting that you bring this up. I have been living in Turkey for the past 6 months and while I do get aggravated and angry at the things that are happening while I am away, and do feel uncomfortable about my lack of being able to do anything; I have found that there are some people who are conscious of the events and it is alleviating for me. I love people, and i love learning about other people’s stories. Traveling is one of the ways that I can do that, and to listen to someone of the oppressed group here sympathize with me about the murder of Mike brown and Eric Garner, or have a random store attendant tell me they don’t like white people because of how they treat black people (however simple minded that is) or to have a friend literally be stumped while listening to the details of mike browns case, or even have someone relate the protests in Ferguson to those in Gezi Park is…wow! I am sorry you feel all feel so isolate, and know that I am blessed to be able to hear these people’s perspectives . It is as if they are looking with new eyes, 6000 miles away , and they just get it. Their genuine concern and questioning have shown me their desire to understand the pushback and unrest happening in our country.

  Candy

• OHHHH Oneika,
  Where were you when I was in China? I sure needed sometimes another person like me to talk to. I had 3 kids with me, but 2 teenagers and a toddler don’t always make good socio-political conversationalists. Although I am fighting my way back to Hong Kong (previously resided in Chengdu, China) but I hope to return to live in Hong Kong, for long term this time. It’s nice reading your posts. Maybe we will meet up in the not so distant future.

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