D. Watkins - The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in America

Copyright 2015 by D. Watkins

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Na Kim

ISBN: 978-1-5107-0335-3

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-0340-7

Printed in the United States of America

To Freddie Gray, and all the other innocent victims of senseless violence. We wont let you die in vain.

Genius Child

This is a song for the genius child.

Sing it softly, for the song is wild.

Sing it softly as ever you can

Lest the song get out of hand.

Nobody loves a genius child .

Can you love an eagle, Tame or wild?

Can you love an eagle, Wild or tame?

Can you love a monster

Of frightening name?

Nobody loves a genius child .

Kill him and let his soul run wild.

Langston Hughes

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

James A. Baldwin

The Beast Side Playlist

Foreword

Oh Baltimore, man its hard just to live, just to live...

W hite Americans who pride themselves on being racially tuned inand yes, that would include melike to think we turned a major corner back in 2008 with the election of Barack Obama, a 21st century emancipation of sorts that voters then proceeded to ratify in 2012. And no matter what has happened since then, America will always have that ecstatic victory night when the president-elect and his family strode onstage at Chicagos Grant Park and it seemed, for that moment, we were all living the dream together. Then reality set ina reality that seemed to grow more grim with each police killing of an unarmed African American citizen or some other explosion of racial violence.

In San Francisco, where I live, we watched this racial tempest spread from Florida to Ferguson to Baltimore to Charlestonand we thought, it cant happen here , in what is still widely considered to be the progressive capital of America. And then the citys public defender released a stunning report revealing that San Francisco police arrest blacks at more than seven times the rate of white peopleeven though African Americans represent just six percent of the citys population and are being rapidly driven out by San Franciscos exploding wealth gap.

African Americans continue to be the canaries in our coal-minethe citizens whose unequal opportunities and unequal rights reveal a deeper truth about the fundamental sins of our nation. Black families in the inner city bear the brunt of economic malaise, collapsing urban infrastructure, deteriorating schools, and police violence. But the rot is spreading. Today, the east side of Baltimore and Oakland, tomorrow, the suburbs.

The nations schools, playgrounds, offices, and shopping malls still remain surprisingly segregated. We live in our own worlds. The more fortunate like to think crime and misery are carefully contained, that they happen to others. The fire might seem a long way off, but most of us can smell the smoke. Many of us are just one payday, just one twist of bad luck, from the inferno. The rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting screwed; the 99 percent are all in this together.

If African Americans have historically been Americas sacrificial victims, they have also been its prophets and crusaders. When I was young, it was prophetic black leaders who tried to awaken the country before it was too late. And it was books like James Baldwins The Fire Next Time and George Jacksons Soledad Brother . These were the writers who had looked into the fire. They had much to tell us about what they saw there, if we were smart enough and brave enough to listen.

Now we have D. Watkins and The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in America . Watkins is a native son of Baltimores east sidethe beast side. He has survived the kind of life in urban America that has claimed the lives of many of his friends, family members, schoolmates, and brothers and sisters on the cornerso many, in fact, that he compares his life to war, because thats what it is. He writes with the compassion, and unsentimental clarity, of a survivorof a man who is passionately determined to stop the cycles of violence and suffering that have long been inflicted on his community from within and without. Watkinss voice is strong and original. He cuts through all the media windbaggery, political grandstanding, and preachy banality that define Americas racial debate these days. The Beast Side is a rare, highly personal dispatch from the streets. At times, its a roar to fight the power, or a lament to the heavens about the tragedies that seem to have no end. At other times, its an urgent plea to the young ones in his care to act smart and stay alive, or its straight talk for a community in need of radical self-transformation. This is the first book to capture our post-Obama reality in all its maddening, and occasionally inspiring, complexity. It must be read by Americans of all colors and all social backgroundsby anyone who bleeds for our country and prays for its deliverance.

The Beast Side is the first title in a new series called Hot Books that Ill be overseeing in partnership with Skyhorse Publishing. The Hot Books series will seek to live up to its nameoffering tightly-written books (no longer than 40,000 words) that passionately address the most burning issues of our day. Some Hot Books, like The Beast Side , will take the form of argument and storytelling. Others will be works of investigative journalism, trying to fill the void left by too many newspapers and magazines in the digital age, when in-depth reporting and editorial budgets have been severely cut back. Whether they are searing collections of essays or works of crusading journalism, Hot Books will draw inspiration from that great prophetic tradition of speaking truth to power and enlightening the public. Hot Books authors will dare to speak the unspeakable.

Our body politic has grown sluggish and dull-witted, stuffed with a steady diet of junk media and corporate propaganda. Its time to light a fire under this slumbering giant, American democracy. Its time to think dangerous thoughts. Welcome to Hot Books.

David Talbot
July 2015

Introduction

O ne night, I participated in a peaceful protest near downtown Baltimore. My fellow protestors and I were standing in solidarity with the citizens of Ferguson, Missouri, over the murder of Mike Brownan innocent African American teen, who was on his way to college when he was cut down by a policemans bullets. It felt good to unite with so many different people for the same causea diverse group with handmade signs and a shared sense of outrage. But even as we shouted for justice, I knew it wasnt enough from my experiences in rallying for the Jena six and Trayvon Martin. I do have an immense amount of respect for protestors, marchers, and organizersbut in the end, after all that chanting, marching, and lying down in traffic, Darren Wilson, the cop who murdered Brown, still went free, and cops in America still feel comfortable killing innocent black people.