white people can have a torch-wielding mob, but when black folks march peacefully, it’s martial law

I’ve lost count of the number of marches and street protests black citizens have planned and led in this Black Lives Matter era. Lets go with “a lot.” What isn’t lost on me is black people’s recurring fear that these protests will end horribly, in clouds of tear gas, a hail of bullets, screams, blood, tears and imprisonment.

According to reports, the alt-right demonstrators last weekend not only chanted “all lives matter” — as one might expect — but also “Russia is our friend,” and carried torches as they marched Virginia streets to defend their “white heritage.” Torches, y’all. Lit on tiki bamboo.

Said Spencer, “I’m here to take part in this great celebration of our heritage and to say ‘no’ to the city of Charlottesville. You’re not going to tear down our statue and you’re not going to replace us.”

Unsurprisingly, the rally went off without a hitch — that is, until counter-protestors showed up and showed out. Only after this anti-alt-right group of marchers interrupted the event were local police prompted to intervene, ordering the crowd to disband.

No harm, no foul, right?

Except — if you’re accustomed to bracing yourself for news that a race-based protest in America’s streets has, yet again, attracted a strong police presence and protesters have or may, yet again, accrue injuries that range from mild to serious, the tamed and rather reserved response of the state to this white rally appears, to the naked eye, to almost be otherworldly.

If white culture is divinely sanctioned as some of the greatest minds in Western culture believed it to be, perhaps the outcome of this rally should be attributed to a god. Or perhaps we can attribute it to something much more terrestrial and human-made: the legacy of white supremacy.

That legacy, defined by the brutal reaction of (white) America to black protests, does not lend the impression that protests in general, no matter the demographic engaged in the act of protesting, is a prickly thorn in the side of the American polity. For without provocation, police officers outfitted in riot gear and military-grade weapons typically intervene to stifle black protests before they can gain any headway. Even though black protests are known to be nonviolent, something as inoffensive and harmless as a cold stare or snarky placards seems to be all the probable cause individual states need to step in.

However, Spencer and his merry band of torch-toting miscreants were permitted to carry flammable weapons, Ku Klux Klan-style, in broad daylight without attracting so much as a bullhorn warning.

One is led to ponder why. And, after pondering, it’s not difficult to surmise the reason.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., someone who was well-acquainted with the violent white backlash elicited by black protests and sought to ease the anxiety of America’s white population through encouraging nonviolence, said, “The greatness of America is the right to protest for right.” He was invoking history — specifically, the history of American protest.

However, that history must also be qualified, for the history of our nation is one of a governmental system, at the local and state level, that has never responded well or enthusiastically to black activism, to blacks embracing their “right to protest for rights.” At the same time, it has prioritized and celebrated white activists for these brave acts and nominated them as the saviors of American democracy.

Revisit those old black-and-white film reels that grade-school teachers show students when they cover the black freedom struggle, and what you’ll inevitably notice is the differential treatment of black and white protesters. It’s the same difference in approach we see today, particularly in how those white protesters were treated in Charlottesville compared to, say, the huge fallouts in Ferguson, Baltimore and elsewhere. And, like today, black activists were always behaving nonviolently at the mercy of the violence that law enforcement inflicted on them, while their white counterparts did the opposite.

What that should suggest to us is that, as a nation, we still have not reconned with that history, our history, our past and how it continues to exert an influence on our present. And while I continue to believe that we can, the more these blatant racial contradictions are spotted and teased out, the more difficult it is to ascertain when it’ll happen.

*This post was originally published at www.wearyourvoicemag.com

*Antwan is an educator, cultural critic, actor, and writer for Wear Your Voice Mag (WYV), where he focuses on the dynamics of class, race, gender, politics, and pop culture. Prior to joining the team at WYV, he was an adjunct professor in the African American Studies Department at Valdosta State University in southern Georgia, where he taught African American Literature. He has traveled the U.S. and U.K. showcasing a fifty-five minute, one-person play titled Whitewash, which focuses on the state of black men in the post-civil rights era. Antwan received his B.A. in English and Literature from California State University, Dominguez Hills, and M.A. in African American Studies from University of California, Los Angeles. He is a Ronald E. McNair Scholar and NAACP theater nominee.