White matters

This kind of story may generate a laugh because it’s so absurd; to acknowledge the shameful truth about it is likely to bring you to tears.  Watch this video where Daily Show correspondent Wyatt Cenac tests a theory: that birds are treated better than black people in Mississippi. Birds revered more than people in black town in Mississippi

(Thanks to Kintea Bryant for sharing this story on Facebook.)

The Turkey Creek community in Mississippi, originally settled by emancipated slaves in 1866, has been resisting destructive development, industrial pollution, and the tragedies of Hurricane Katrina and the BP Oil spill to protect the wetlands and a sustainable future for those who have lived there for generations.  Their appeals for justice to local and state officials went unheeded until the Audubon Society stepped in to protect the birds in the area by preserving land for them.

I appreciate the ongoing work of the Audubon Society and I have to ask what is going on in our culture where the lives of black people are so devalued that what happens to them does not matter – until the presence of the birds is in danger.

What frightens me is how much the presence of our humanness is in danger.