With the sudden rise of open racism, being an African American has not gotten any easier. Please note that I said “open racism;” the black community is not naïve and we were well aware that racism existed, but most people had the couth to keep their comments private. Now with a presidential candidate not afraid to preach hate and officers that seem to be targeting the black community in lethal ways the bigots are coming out of the shadows. In the past one could go their entire life without experiencing a racist comment because they lived in an area that was mostly exempt. However, living in the 21st century means that we have technology that connects us with the world and allows people to share their comments regardless of where they are in the world.
It’s not just us average citizens being attacked anymore but our black actors and actresses are being targeted now as well. “Ghostbusters” actress Leslie Jones has been the victim of social media hate recently due to the color of her skin. She has been called everything under the sun from “an ape” to “she is the source of Aids” within a matter of days. People have taken to defaming her name by creating fake tweets under her name.
At moments like this we have to decide fight or flight. Jones attempted to fight back at first but 140 characters just isn’t enough to speak sense into the world fast enough.
So she settled for the flight. But there was another option besides fight or flight, the option to be nice. As someone who was recently attacked by a racist man who had no intent of letting up regardless of whether I answered him or not I can understand Jones’s rage. I can understand her need to fight back and defend herself. I can understand how tired she felt at the end of the day combating people back and forth. People that don’t know her from a crack in the street but impose their opinions on her anyway.
I know what you’re thinking, “how can I be kind to someone that is disrespecting everything I am?” I have the perfect example. An African American woman mother, Shavahnna Ann, was attacked in her messages on Facebook by an irate Caucasian woman and her reaction has to be seen in order to be properly appreciated.
By the end of the messages she practically made a new friend. By using kindness she seemed to be able to turn a bigot into someone that saw the error of their ways and apologized for their actions. While of course this won’t work with everyone the amount of finesse, willpower and care that went into each message deserves a round of applause. Kill them with kindness wasn’t just a phrase in this conversation, it was the reality and the result was better than any Twitter or Facebook beef handled any other way.
