Emmett Till – Matthew Shepard

Emmett Till was a fourteen year old Black boy living in Chicago in 1955. He was on his way to visit relatives in Money, Mississippi. He came home without himself, just his dead body, mutilated beyond belief. Emmett Till was a baby, just a boy, fucking FOURTEEN!!! He wasn’t a civil rights activist. He wasn’t a criminal. He didn’t come to file complaints against the Jim Crow law. He was visiting his great uncle. At first he was having fun. His cousins and he became friends quickly and they were playfully teasing each other outside of a market in the middle of town. Emmett was showing off a photo he had of himself and a pretty white girl, his girlfriend. His cousins were shocked and didn’t believe him, as things were different there in Money. This was the kind of town where a few weeks earlier a young Black girl had been beaten almost to death for “crowding” a white woman.

A pretty white girl walked by and went into a store. Emmett’s cousins, knowing he would never do it, dared him to flirt with her. Little Emmett Till had been raised in the North, and had no way of knowing that taking this little dare, harmless and sweet, would cost him his life. His cousins were shocked when Emmett followed the girl into the store. They tried to stop him but they didn’t get to. There was not much interaction between Emmett and the girl. Speculation range here from a possible catcall, a whistle, maybe a “Bye, Bye baby….” Less than two days later, Emmett Till was no longer Emmett Till, but a broken symbol of how hatred lives and kills and rots us from the inside out.

Racism is a cancer that is unstoppable if unchecked. Emmett Till is a messianic figure, because his murderers were actually tried for murder, not that it had been the first time white on black violence had reached the courthouses in Mississippi, even though there had been a long standing immunity against white lynchers in the courts of Money (just fucking ponder that for a second – immunity – LONG STANDING) but the brutality of the killing, the age of the victim, juxtaposed with the unbearably tiny offense of flirting – fucking FLIRTING??!!! – brought so much publicity to the case, it caused a wave of outrage from the entire nation. Jet Magazine printed photographs of poor baby Emmett Till. Thousands attended his funeral. His mother had insisted on an open casket so that all could see what they had done to her baby.

The men charged with the murder, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, were declared innocent, but in my world, memory is a jail from which you can never escape and they suffered, their cages not made of iron, but the indelible blood and guilt are bar and shackles that will never set you free.

So thus began the Civil Rights Movement. Some months later Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, claiming her right to be, to exist, to be equal and free, just like any other American.

We have come some fair distance in the continuing struggle for racial balance. It is only fair, average, a little better than okay. But there is lynching still. And we don’t need ropes anymore, there are more efficient ways of doing it. I am not just talking about Rodney King, but we can start there. There is worse.

Amadou Diallo, just a few years ago, shot 44 times by police in NYC for holding his hands up in surrender. Wouldn’t you say that is a lynching? Jermaine Jackson called what is happening to Michael Jackson a ‘modern day lynching.’ Where is the evidence against Michael? When asked, almost all white celebrities call Michael a ‘freak’ and ‘it’s about time,’ and black celebrities talk about the music he made, what he did for them, his contribution to the world of song, for the sorrow and pain they feel for him, and they echo what Jermaine Jackson calls it. Lynching. I believe him, as I believe it is what is happening to Kobe Bryant. It seems that William Kennedy Smith can be acquitted, exonerated, welcomed back into the family fold. Arnold Schwarzenegger, accused of sexually molesting sixteen plus women, who was never brought to trial, is now governor of California.

Vincent Chin, a twenty three year old Chinese American, out on the town with his friends at his own bachelor party, was beaten to death by two white men. They were auto workers, frustrated at being laid off, blaming the Japanese automobile industry boom. This was their chance of getting revenge. Who cares if Vincent Chin was an American? Who cares if Vincent Chin was not in the auto industry? Who cares if Vincent Chin is not Japanese? These men were acquitted too after being fined a mere $3000. But they will pay, as they will never forget the inhumanity that gripped the baseball bat that would crush Vincent’s skull. They will never sleep easy again, hearing the sound of a man dying by their own hand. They will suffer for eternity, as God is just.

Matthew Shepard was the same as Emmett Till and Vincent Chin, the only difference being that Matthew was killed because he was gay, not black or Asian. Little Matthew Shepard, hung up like a scarecrow, but also like Christ, left in a Wyoming cornfield, dying as he looked up at the stars, wondering when God would come to get him.

Are you angry? I am. I am angry and I am sad. I can only say that we have not the luxury of our own privatized civil rights movements because the crimes, the hatred, the ignorance, the rage against the who/what/why some of us are, is a much much larger foe. We cannot fight alone, as this battle will be lost without alliance. But together, we are more than the sum of our parts. In union, in communion, in joining hands, we conquer all, for we have love on our side. We have God on our side. Most importantly, we have ourselves on our side.

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