Reimagining Black Safety
By: T Lt West
Tags: Safety, Wellness, Police, Community, Racism

My conversation with these three seers led me to create a list of seven ways that we might establish true safety and make it a way of life going forward.

1. Bring back our connection to our ancestors. One of the most common indigenous African philosophical constructs is the idea of ancestral veneration. A basic scientific principle is that energy is never destroyed; it is simply transformed. This principle must also apply to human energy. Ancient people understood this as a basic truth of human experience and felt profound, ongoing connection with their ancestors. This connection helped them face challenges from a position of strength and with a perception of protection and safety.

2. Embrace Ubuntu. Ancestral veneration is rooted in the concept of Ubuntu. This idea says that “a person is a person because of other persons.” In other words, none of us exists alone; we are not really individuals. We belong to a collective of people who have existed for millenia. This understanding stands in direct conflict with the Western notion of rugged individualism. True safety may be found by tapping into the genetic memory of that indigenous wisdom.

3. Take the painting off the wall. If you go back far enough (and sometimes not that far) almost every ethnic group has used song and dance, not for the purpose of artistic display, but as an integrated part of daily life. Somehow, in Western civilization, art has become something we collect and view at a distance, like a painting on the wall of a museum. Perhaps re-engaging with spontaneous music and dance would bring us closer to a way of life more in keeping with a safe environment. There is safety in the release provided by song and dance.

4. Focus on quality of life. One of my own anecdotal observations is that when people have a decent quality of life, they are less likely to accept an unsafe environment. They become committed to maintaining their safety, the safety of their family, and the safety of their community. Conversely, when people’s lives are precarious, they will often end up in unpredictable, perilous, and unsafe circumstances. The math here is not that hard.

5. Defund the police. Yes, I know this phrase is a lightning rod, but that’s only because it has been highly politicized. Something is genuinely amiss with police funding. According to a New York TImes report from June 12th, 2020, city police budgets across the country have risen by millions of dollars annually — even during lean years for city finances, and even despite a steep nationwide decline in violent crime that began in the early 1990s. More dollars are being funneled to police departments to fight the “ghost” of an out-of-control crime rate, and this has come at the expense of funding for other city services. Police departments have also grown more militarized, equipped with assault-style weapons and even tanks from arms makers. “Defunding the police” doesn’t mean eliminating police from your city. It simply means that resources should be focused on necessary services that address mental health, food scarcity, addiction, and other challenges that have been exacerbated by massive income inequality, and not merely on adding more armed men and women on the streets, which often only invites violent altercations. Police budgets should not be tied to political whim, but to overall crime trends and statistics. Science, data, and truth should still matter.

6. Support Relationships. The more we devote time and resources to developing and strengthening relationships among family and friends, the more we can tap into those relationships to help family members overcome challenges instead of leaving that responsibility to the police. Traditionally, family has been the first line of defense in a crisis. Without this support, we call on the police to step in where family could be the first call. Of course, there are times when the police should be called, but imagine a society that supports families and provides more family-based services.

7. Stop creating the “Procariat.”If you combine the words precarious (unstable) with proletariat (working class), you create the word Procariat. Millions of Americans live the life of the Procariat — the unstable working class — especially African Americans. If you cannot plan for the next eighteen months, you are living an unsafe life. If your household is food insecure, you are living an unsafe life. If you don’t know where your next paycheck will come from, you are living an unsafe life. When we start to address these issues, we will improve safety for African Americans and halt the perpetuation of the Procariat.

We have opportunities to do something about safety; they are not beyond us. They don’t even require us to leave the comfort of our homes. They do, however, require a shared philosophy of Ubuntu that helps us understand that when others around us are unsafe, we are all unsafe.