Feel the Bern for Black Voices

Feel the Bern for Black Voices

My Spanish class started a few minutes late yesterday. A student brought up Beyonce’s Black Panther homage at the Super Bowl and it lit a fire in the classroom. I can’t say that we all agreed, but everyone talking agreed that it was her prerogative as an artist, her moment, and a great moment at that, to shine a spotlight on the issues surrounding racial inequality in this country. General consensus was “go her!”
 
What my class couldn’t agree on was why people and the press are so fired up about it, why it has cause so many people to be so mad. Without really thinking I mumbled to myself, “It’s because we like our black people best when they’re not talking.” The one black student in the room, sitting a few seats down from me, said, “What did you say?” and the room went silent.
 
I paused, considering whether I should try to fudge some other answer, but decided I believed in what I had said enough to repeat it for the room,
 
“It’s because we like our black people best when they’re not talking. Beyonce can sing, but she can’t have a voice.”
 
The student nodded. The class stayed silent.
 
“Thank you. Yes.”
 
The problems people of color and minorities face in this country are not fringe issues that can be ignored, they are serious and literally life-threatening, and must be at the forefront of our minds as we elect people into the seats of government that far too often have created and exacerbated these inequalities, but that also have the power, should they choose to use it, to begin to fix them.
 
One of the many reasons why I #FeelTheBern.