“
When do you think the protests
will stop?” My mother asked me
this when we were both sitting in
the kitchen a few days ago. “Didn’t they
arrest the cop who killed that guy? I don’t
understand why there are all these violent
protests still. And how does it benefit any-
one to vandalize a building?”
My mother is the daughter of two
Cuban immigrants. My father is the
proud son of two Cubans who also came
to the United States decades ago. Many
older members of my family, including
my grandparents, have likewise voiced
concerns about the legitimacy of the pro-
tests erupting around the country in the
aftermath of George Floyd’s death. One of
my late relatives was imprisoned in Cuba
for more than 20 years for his activities as
a political activist. I have been wondering
lately what he would have to say about my
family’s response, given Cuba’s own his-
tory of protest. Likewise, political activ-
ism before and during the 90s in Cuba
bears notable distinctions from the con-
temporary protests in the United States,
but there are also important parallels.
When the Soviet Union dissolved in
1991, Cuba lost its main trading partner as
well as the source of much of its interna-
tional political support. An economic cri-
sis soon unfolded within Cuba, resulting
in strict rationing, rolling blackouts (for up
to 20 hours) and severe medicine short-
ages. In 1994, nearly a thousand Cubans
gathered at Havana’s Malecon (a sea wall
along the country’s capital known for its
tourist appeal) to voice their frustrations.
Protesters broke windows and destroyed
property as others recorded the events
unfolding, desperate for their voices to
be heard. The uprising was effectively
quelled on the same day it started because
police shot, beat or threatened protesters
who would not leave the streets. Nobody
really writes much about this uprising.
But many Cubans solemnly remember it,
even if they no longer live on the island.
Cuban-American communities should
bear those parallels in mind when consid-
ering their role and respective privilege
in the broader context of police violence
against people of color.
Despite the destructionist tactics
used by protestors, the Maleconazo riot
is a point of pride for many Cubans who
now reside in the U.S. If my own commu-
nity’s continued willingness to speak out
against past injustice at the hands of Fidel
Castro’s military and police force is any
indication, many Cubans who now reside
in the United States would not be so quick
to condemn the Maleconazo riot more
than 25 years ago. I struggle to imagine
any of my grandparents criticizing those
protestors who vandalized buildings
in a display of their frustration against
their country’s deteriorating economic
conditions. No Cuban-American I know
speaks out against those who stole boats
that same year to flee to the United States.
In some ways, the lack of understand-
ing that many Cubans in my community
have exhibited towards those protesting
police brutality and the United States’
long legacy of systemic racism is surpris-
ing. In many ways, however, this reaction
is predictable.
Despite the history of anti-Latino sen-
timent in the United States, Latin Ameri-
can communities have not always been
compassionate or responsible partners
in the fight against racism. Even though
people of Hispanic descent have been
racially profiled by police or are increas-
ingly the target of hate crimes, racism has
been deeply internalized in many immi-
grant communities. As Karla McKanders,
a clinical professor of law at Vanderbilt
Law School, writes, instead of seeing
themselves as natural allies in the fight for
social and economic justice, many white
and white-passing Cuban-Americans
see themselves in competition with Black
Americans. Furthermore, George Marti-
nez, a professor of law at Southern Meth-
odist University, writes that some Latinos
“often sought to ‘pass’ as white … because
they thought that becoming white
insured greater economic, political and
social security … [which] meant gaining
access to a whole set of public and private
privileges, and was a way to avoid being
the object of others’ domination.” Like
many privileged Cuban-Americans, I per-
sonally have been guilty of implicit bias and
racism — both intentional and not — and am
still learning how I can most effectively dis-
mantle the subtle, yet powerful hatred that
often exists in my own community.
Whether these comments are intend-
ed to belittle Black activists or not, many
of the critiques I have heard of the ongo-
ing protests are nonetheless reflections
of that same subtle hatred. Deflecting to
concerns about property damage belit-
tles the real and immeasurable pain that
police brutality has inflicted upon Black
communities. Responding to the interna-
tional outcry over the irreplaceable loss
of lives with reports of damaged vehicles
or stores suggests that perhaps, in fact,
you might not think Black lives matter as
much mass-produced, replaceable objects
from Target. (As an aside, it is never a
good sign when a multi-million dollar
corporation’s response to looting is more
charitable than your own). Dismissing
these protests as “violent” and thus irre-
deemable avoids an important discussion
about why protests are taking place at all
and does not consider the larger history of
protests across the world.
5
Thursday, June 18, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
5
OPIN
INIO
ION
When do you think the protests will stop?
ALLISON PUJOL | COLUMNIST
Allison Pujol can be reached at
ampmich@umich.edu.
KEITH JOHNSTONE | COLUMNIST
E
very morning I wake up and
pray, Pray that my Black life
might matter today.
Flashing lights came on behind
our car and my lunch immedi-
ately went straight to my throat.
My mother, who is a University
of Michigan trained corporate
attorney, told my sisters and I to
quiet down as she nervously rolled
down the window to face a white
officer in the wealthy northern
suburbs of Detroit. As she tried
to explain that my father usu-
ally drove the car, he cut her off,
“What are you doing in this neigh-
borhood?” “Officer, I live around
the corner,” my mother explained.
A bead of sweat appeared above
her forehead despite the fact
that she was telling the truth.
The tense exchange continued,
“Ma’am, have you been drinking?”
If I wasn’t about to cry, I probably
would have laughed at the ridicu-
lousness of the question. In my 20
years on this Earth, I have only
seen my mom drink three times
and, certainly, none of them were
at 4 p.m. on a Monday afternoon.
After a few more tense minutes of
the exchange, the officer let my
mom go without ever explaining
what she did wrong. As we pulled
away, I began to cry.
Every morning I wake up and
pray, Pray that I won’t fear for my
safety today.
When tragedies like George
Floyd’s death occur, the tradi-
tional response from white lib-
erals has been to go directly to
social media, posting to remind
everyone how woke they are
while advocating for changes to
the systemic disenfranchisement
of Black people. Hashtags trend,
protests are organized, conflict
ensues and escalates and the con-
versation
ultimately
becomes
more about the violence in these
protests than the inequities fac-
ing the Black community, fueling
the left’s rage. This, in turn, allows
Fox News and other conservative
media talking heads — who claim
not to be explicitly racist but sim-
ply support a policeman’s right to
kill unarmed Black people — to
change the narrative and muddy
the waters. Suddenly, the voices
are so muddled that most people
tune out, Trump or someone else
in the Republican Party creates a
diversion, then eventually every-
one moves on. Nothing changes.
Every morning I wake up and
pray, Pray that I will see my bed at
the end of the day.
With my brothers and sisters,
I watch these movements with
hope, believing that this time
might be different; This time
police might be held account-
able and real change might send
shockwaves through the system.
Together, we cringe when the
president sends a tweet. Together,
we raise our voices in solidarity
as opposition to whoever stands
against our movement, but we
know that speaking up risks our
lives. Knowing this, we speak
louder because each word might
be our last. Each word might force
us to leave this world too early, like
our brothers Trayvon and Freddie
and our sisters Aiyana and Bre-
onna.
Every morning I wake up and
pray, Pray that my ancestors’
dreams are fulfilled today.
My ancestors back in the moth-
erland were ripped from their
peaceful villages and forcefully
taken to a new country that they
were forced to build on their
backs. For 200 years, they tilled
soil and farmed land with the
faint hope that one day we might
achieve freedom, that one day, we
might get a share of our owners’
wealth. Despite all we gave, these
owners bound us with chains, beat
us with whips and instilled fear
into our hearts. 400 years later,
we are still put in chains by Paul
Ryan nearly decimating Medicaid,
by John Roberts allowing states to
gut our voting rights, by Trump
emboldening the “very fine peo-
ple on both sides.” Don’t even get
me started on our fallen brother
Clarence Thomas discrediting the
affirmative action that got him
into Yale Law School. Not only are
we put down by politicians who
don’t believe we belong here, but
we are kept down by the police
who have internalized their own
privilege and hate us even though
they do not know us.
Every morning I wake up and
pray, Pray that, upon Officer
Chauvin, guilt will weigh.
I believe that police have a criti-
cal function in the workings of
any civil society, but some officers
have replaced their mandate of
“protect and serve” with “harass
and demonize.” I believe that most
policemen and women wear their
badge with honor, but no Ameri-
can who believes in the freedom
that this country purports to offer
should be alright with a border
patrolman who shoots a Mexican
teenager across the border. We
should not ignore a man whose
hands are up but still gets shot.
We absolutely should not be
okay with a police officer who
kneels on a Black man’s throat
for allegedly counterfeiting a
$20 bill. See, if you accept these
atrocities, you don’t just support
the police, you are a racist plain
and simple and, if you do not
actively oppose it, you implicitly
support it.
Every morning, I wake up and
pray, Pray that I can secure the
blessings of Liberty today.
My grandfather is and will
always be my hero. He embod-
ies the kind of heroism that we
all should strive for because it’s
not written in history books, but
it entails waking up every single
day and trying to make your cor-
ner of the world marginally better.
He worked his whole life, being
one of the first Black swimmers
in Detroit, serving in the military
during World War II and work-
ing as a public servant back in the
city for more than 40 years. After
he retired, he worked every day
to teach all 16 of his grandchil-
dren what it meant to be a Black
person in the United States, and
what it could mean. He taught me
that being Black means standing
up for your community, but it can
also mean growing prize-winning
hydrangeas. It means lifting up
our neighbors, but it can also mean
beating people at Bid Whist. In his
96 years on this Earth, he spent
every day securing more bless-
ings of liberty for me, my sisters,
my mother and my city. To honor
his legacy, it is my responsibility to
not only further secure the rights
that he fought for but also to fight
to spread these rights to more of
my downtrodden brothers and sis-
ters. The most important of these
rights is the right to live without
the deadly consequences of police
brutality. However, it does not just
fall on me, it falls on all of us to bat-
tle every day to make our corners
of the world, and thus the world
itself, better. So, go out and peace-
fully protest today, but tomorrow,
the next day, the next week and
the next month, try to improve
someone else’s life because large
barriers cannot be broken by one
protest.
Every morning I wake up and
pray, Pray that my Black life will
matter today.
Protests or no protests, I wake up Black
Keith Johnstone can be reached at
keithja@umich.edu.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com