Ricky Jones: Why Tyre Nichols’ death will change nothing
Die. Cry. React. Recover. Repeat. This is the sad lot of the dark descendants of America’s slaves.
Tyre Nichols is the latest high profile Black death in the country. He will not be the last. It goes without saying that many Black people die daily. A sad number at the hands of other Black people. But Nichols’ demise, like others before him, drew disproportionate attention because agents of the State were filmed killing him. After such blatant instances of brutality inflicted upon Black people, there is outrage, calls for police reform and “change” (whatever that means).
America’s president will release a perfunctory statement. A few companies, sports coaches, athletes and other celebrities will offer up lamentations filled with sympathy, empathy and frustration. In the end, none of it will matter. They all will say, “We need change" (again, whatever that means).
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In these moments, people will turn to so-called Black leaders to hoist the age-old banner of hope and remind their benighted brethren that “everything is going to be all right. A change is gonna come.” Their encouragements, of course, are rooted in baseless faith and empty reassurances better suited for children fearing non-existent monsters beneath their beds than adults suffering from the very real consequences of racial oppression and barbarism. In reality, nothing is going to be all right. Nothing is going to change.
No changes will come to the racial social, political or economic power dynamics upon which America was built because of the latest videoed murder of another expendable Black body. Talk of this mythical change is little more than tasteless pablum parroted by people who either seek to anaesthetize the suffering, traumatized dark masses or who are too naïve to understand the true depths and possible immortality of American racism and the many layers of terror it breeds.
Die. Cry. React. Recover. Repeat.
Scholars like Indiana University historian Amrita Chakrabarti Myers who study slavery, race and the evolution of American policing will tell us what we are seeing is the result of “structural racism” and “white supremacy.” They will be outright ignored or shouted down by critics who exclaim, “Why is there any talk of racism in this case? The cops were Black!” Because they have no understanding of the underpinnings of racism and how many Black people are used as tools of hegemonic systems (many of them willingly), they do not know these officers are the contemporary equivalents to 19th century public slave-whippers and slave-catchers who also happened to be Black.
Few will explore the fact that the Memphis officers (and other Black Americans like them) have been so twisted by racial miseducation and missocialization that they do not see people like Nichols as brothers or even human beings. They see them through the same “boys in blue” eyes as their white compatriots. For them, Black people like Nichols are little more than beasts of burden who deserve to be humiliated, cowed, broken and even killed without consideration or remorse. From the streets to corporate boardrooms, these useful Black tools of oppression are so eager to prove themselves to their masters that they will not hesitate to betray, abuse or murder their own.
Nichols died in a horrible fashion. He will not be the last. Nothing will change.
Die. Cry. React. Recover. Repeat.
Nichols’ name will soon be rarely mentioned or completely forgotten as the news cycles move on. White supremacy will continue to rule every sector of American society. There will be no meaningful police reform or any other changes. Poorer Black people will continue to prey upon one another as they engage in what Frantz Fanon called “horizontal violence.” More successful, but weaker bourgeois Black people will continue to betray stronger ones at companies, institutions of higher learning, in political spheres and every other professional space in the name of individual greed and vulgar careerism (though they’ll never call it that.) Black unity is on life support, if not dead.
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Honest historical study of race would help
Scholars like Amrita Chakrabarti Myers are correct when they say better historical understanding of how American policing and so many other structures evolved around race would help place Tyre Nichols’ death and others into proper context. In fact, honest and substantive historical study of race would help us understand that and so much more. But alas, studying such subjects is now illegal in many American states, not just in Ron DeSantis’ Florida.
So now we wait for another Black person to die. It won’t be long. Those who survive them will cry as they did when they heard George Floyd and Tyre Nichols cry out for their mothers. They will march, protest and scream. And then they will repeat the traumatic cycle . . . over and over again!
After every cycle, some people will try and make you feel better by saying change is coming. They are lying to you. It is not.
Dr. Ricky L. Jones is professor and chair of the Pan-African Studies department at the University of Louisville. His column appears bi-weekly in the Courier-Journal. Visit him at rickyljones.com.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Tyre Nichols’ murder will not bring police reform or help Black people
