Meet Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black (Thought-Provoking Commentary)

Deprogramming Conservative Tendency To Apply the ‘Black Brute’ Smear

The safety lens through which Black boys and men are viewed has a generational smear on it. This smear collectively distorts us into ‘Black brutes,’ savage stereotypes that upgrades our downgrading throughout changing times.

Examining this smear is especially timely during a presidential election cycle when it is applied to boost voter turnout and campaign donations.

Our African ancestors were the first group of Black boys and men smeared as brutes. This smear staff endless abuse, insults and disenfranchisement, setting a standard that persists to this day.

Today’s version of the ‘Black brute’ smear is particularly evidenced by a sector of online conservative influencers obsessively posting video of Black boys and men fighting, stealing or being sought after as suspects in crime.

The fact millions eagerly consume such cherry picked content shows size of the audience who believe this smear accurately describes us, minus Black icons of the right like US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and economist Thomas Sowell.

Having been a Brother for, looking at my imaginary watch, fifty-eight years and counting, offers me a personal ration of ‘Black brute’ mistreatment too.

I’ve had White conservatives throughout my life be very disrespectful toward me. Any taking offense or rebuttal is spun as being intimidating, disruptive and even grounds to threaten law enforcement intervention despite my not having broken any laws.

A consequence, intended or otherwise, of conservative emphasis in preserving the status quo includes preservation of this tendency to treat Black boys and men like brutes.

While this tendency doesn’t raise its pointy head in every encounter, it lurks just beneath the surface.

It makes itself known often enough that even conservative US Senator and former presidential candidate Tim Scott had to share his episodes of being smeared this way.

Being committed to creating community safety doesn’t grant me any more exemption from what Brothers have faced for centuries than it did Senator Scott.

The millisecond I differ with a conservative on racial issues there’s a high probability that rage, invective and accusations of criminality follow.

I’ve watched people I’ve known for years use the ‘Black brute’ smear on me as if I’m now a career criminal where moments ago the person lauded my safety work.

This is nothing new, by the way. All my life I’ve known how tenuous good will toward vocal Black men can be among keepers of a status quo hostile toward us.

Inside many minds on the right is a tendency to smear Black men with whom they differ in ultimately unflattering light older ones hold March 3rd, 1991 police beating victim Rodney King and murdered suspect George Floyd whose officer-involved demise on May 25th, 2020 was dismissed by numerous conservatives after President Donald Trump left office as a drug overdose.

Let me cool off those already hot under the collar: this post isn’t a reverse attempt to smear conservatives as rabid racists out to ‘get’ Black boys and men. It is a heads-up about life for those who aren’t on the shortlist of conservative Black males liked by that ideology.

As a Brother on the independent Black center right, I’m candidly addressing a tendency used by bigots right and left to position conservatism as antagonistic toward my community- especially during a presidential election cycle.

While historic tensions with conservatism does exist, deprogramming tendency to apply the ‘Black brute’ smear allows coalition building on common issues, gun rights and mass migration head the list, which liberals use to undermine the Black community and conservatives alike.

If the fact I even raised this issue enrages you, my point has been made about how widespread this tendency is among conservatives.

EVENT AND EVERYDAY PEOPLE PROTECTOR/ADVOCATE

Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black is a philosophical protector specializing in security management beside event organizers and owners of establishments serving the general public. For more information click on the links below.

https://www.thecaptainblack.com

Substack:
https://capblacksafetycreator.substack.com/

Amazing How Deeply One Can Be Touched By A Pure Soul

Met a special needs passenger at work this afternoon who almost made me cry. She happily greeted me and I made sure to shake her hand. Such purity can move one deeply.

I’m not a touchy-feely person but I wanted to give her a big hug, but didn’t. As a Black Muslim philosophically and Gen X Southern Brother, I’m very conscious of maintaining decorum with the opposite sex.

Especially when our ethnicity aren’t the same. Sorry if that’s a downer but it’s the world in which I was trained.

Back to this beautiful encounter.

Anyone who knows how cold my heart is knows this had to have been a God moment.

The sweetness of special needs folks is a reminder in these instances to skeptics like me that it’s not the mentally and physically challenged who build weapons of mass destruction.

They’re not the ones who scam people out of their life savings.

Nor do they car jack or launch mass shootings targeting defenseless school kids and staff.

Their purity communicates clearly, regardless of speech impediments and mobility challenges.

These instances remind me of my late mother, a public school speech pathologist and audiologist, who loved her special needs students.

She regretted having to fill out mountains of IEP paperwork (with my occasional assistance) which reduced treatment time with her students.

Lastly, as I do in these instances, I thought of the loving woman who accompanied this special young woman. I thought about what could happen if she’s not longer able to take care of this special young lady?

That’s a gut punch- a big one! Society shouldn’t have mentally and physically challenged adults alone, having outlived grandparents and parents, without much needed support.

Amazing how deeply one can be touched by a pure soul.

https://www.thecaptainblack.com