and unjustly chaste and Black
women, conversely, as disgustingly
lascivious. The Black man’s power
and his danger are in his phallus,
while the Black women’s fury
and scorn lie in her perpetual
dissatisfactions with her male
counterpart. It is all bullshit, it is all
absurd, yet we continue, all of us,
to live this lie, a lie we try to make
true.
3 ½ minutes Ten Bullets, a recent
documentary on the murder of
Jordan Davis, discusses the issues
of the perception of Black men
as threats. The word perception
is crucial to this dialogue, for
in our abilities to perceive and
understand one another (à la
Foucault) lie the inherent desire
for the dominant group to exert
their will over the subaltern.
Jordan Davis, a seventeen-year old
black boy living with his mother
in Florida, was killed because he
was perceived to be a threat to
the life of Michael Dunn, a typical
white man of typical sensibilities.
The film presents itself as relatively
straightforward in its desired
intent; it focuses on the people
who knew Jordan in order to build
from their memory an image of the
bright young man who fell prey to
the vicious snares of a society built
on the notions of Black cultural
and existential inferiority. Michael
Dunn, who can be described as
nothing more than average in
every way possible, is the type
of person who when given the
possession of a firearm because
of his Second Amendment rights
and the right to defend himself
because of an ambiguous law, is
able to commit atrocities against
black people on the grounds of
his own fears. In providing the
spectator with Dunn’s personal
lamentations and gripings through
recorded jail phone calls, the
filmmakers present a manifestation
of the white conscience which
so many of us bear, which is the
justification for the deaths of
hundreds. The film’s amalgamation
of various forms of audio media
create a web of thoughts on the
issue of Stand-Your-Ground laws.
One voice among them rings
disgustingly clear – The issue is not
about actual threat, but perceived
threat.
Perception is ambiguous,
is subjective. I can perceive
something which is not there, can
find evidence to prove that I was
justified in being alarmed. In an
ideal, colorless world, these laws
could function properly to provide
people with t