This Hate Crime Changed My Life 10 Years Ago Today, on July 30, 2016

“I’mma gon’ head and grab it!” Cassie yelled over the sounds of the loud

music in the distance, elated that we had an opportunity to play the game.

I waited by the boards, so that no one else would approach and take

our place.

That’s when it happened. As Cassie returned with the bean bag, our

countenances were immediately struck by the image of a short, petite,

scraggly-looking, dark-haired white woman with a demented scowl

approaching us from the left. Upon reaching us, she began to yell and

scold us over the supposed theft of the bean bag. Mind you, we were at

a public venue that we paid to enter just like she did. It would be like

claiming a member of a health club stole your basketball as you shot

around because they retrieved the item after you ignored it.

“What are you doing!? We were playing with that! You could’ve just

asked to play with us! Give it back!”

We were taken aback by the audacious way this woman, whom we now

know to be Jessica Lynn Sanders, approached us. Was she seriously

approaching us with this level of animosity over a game?

“You weren’t playing with it!” Cassie snapped back. “Whatever…”

I could tell Cassie was frustrated, but content with not dealing with the

nonsense Sanders had brought our way. I had already surmised that

this woman was not getting the bean bag back, though. You don’t talk to

someone like that, especially not my wife.

“You look like a fucking whore!” Sanders retorted.

I thought this insult was odd, because for one, my queen is far from a

whore. She is, in fact, the personification of beauty, brains, and moral

aptitude. She is royalty. Secondly, Sanders and my wife both had halter

tops, which weren’t revealing. The main difference, of course, was that

Cassie had images of proud, intrepid Black women on her shirt. Sanders

must’ve hated that!

“Who the fuc—”

As we were preparing to respond to her egregious assertion about my

wife, Sanders interjected and raised the stakes. No one could have

predicted that the desire to play cornhole would have led to this,

but it did.

“You’re both a bunch of fucking niggers!” Sanders said with aggressive

certainty and frustration that her previous plea hadn’t led to the retrieval

of the bag.

“You’re acting like niggers. Niggers!”

She kept going. This couldn’t have been her first rodeo hurling such a

racist insult at a Black person. I was shocked, but I wasn’t surprised. I had

seen this situation occur countless times, especially on social media. With

Trump’s rise, it seemed to be a regular occurrence, unfortunately.

Her onslaught continued. She had said it more times than I can

remember, but it was well past ten.

“Give it back, you niggers!”

One of her Black friends, a dark-skinned guy a few inches shorter than

me with a solid athletic build, stood nearly in between Sanders and

me, refusing to make eye contact. He only moved as we did, seemingly

protecting her from an imminent attack. Her other Black friend was a

light-skinned girl who seemed to be mixed. She stood by with her hands

on her hips. Unlike the other friend, she faced us and seemed distraught.

Her other white friend remained in the back, toward the cornhole game

where Jessica had come from.

We knew this could happen at any time because we were Black in

America, but we were still hurt and shocked. I responded with an insult

that didn’t bother her in the least bit.

“Well, if we’re niggers, then you’re a cracker!”

The response was weak, in comparison, but it was accurate. “Cracker” is

a term rooted in slavery, referring to whites who had a propensity to use

the whip to severely beat and punish enslaved Blacks. It echoes the loud

cracking sound that came from the whip when used. The whip would

ricochet so loudly off the back of the enslaved Black that was the target of

the abuse that you could hear the whip and skin crackle simultaneously

as blood splattered everywhere. Unbeknownst to many, cracker

refers not to skin color, but to a racist act that emitted a grotesquely

repulsive sound.

My attempt at an insult had no effect, so she continued. A millennial, I

contemplated grabbing my phone and recording the onslaught. I had

seen this play out so many times in the past. When the target of the hate

recorded it and posted it online, they were usually able to attain social

justice with the help of outraged allies who worked vigorously to expose

the bigot’s racist ways to the public. I intended to do the same. It was

my only line of defense, since saying “nigger” isn’t against the law. As

the verbal barrage continued, I had made up my mind to use my phone.

I reached inside the depths of my cargo shorts, pulled out my phone,

unlocked it, and went directly to the camera and pressed record.

“Whachu call me?! Say it again!” I yelled emphatically as soon as I

pressed record.

Sanders, completely dismayed and irate, immediately slapped the

phone out my hand. It went twirling like Simone Biles on a balance

beam and thankfully landed in the grass. As I sought out my phone,

you could hear the faint sounds of house music in the distance, a cruel

irony that represented the experience of Black folks in America. As

we struggled with a racist episode and attack, the rest of the festival’s

attendees, unaware of the situation due to the loud music and distance

of our debacle, continued to enjoy themselves since it didn’t directly

affect them.

I picked up the phone and pressed record again, anticipating that it had

stopped because of the hit. However, it was still recording.

Her Black female friend, who stood to Sanders’s right and my left,

offered support for her friend and assured us that she had not been doing

anything wrong.

“It doesn’t bother us!”

What’s more, her other Black friend, the buff brotha who stood to her

left, continued to inch closer toward the gap between myself and Sanders

as she continued. Their inaction represented another cruel irony about

racism in America. That is, there are Black folks out there who would

rather make excuses for white supremacy than address it. I was furious,

irate and at a loss for words. At the very least, I expected those who

looked like me, who also knew her, to intervene, restrain her, and let her

know she was being ridiculous. That help didn’t come, though.

Although we have a proud history of Black freedom fighters, we also

have an unfortunate history of Blacks who have chosen to relinquish the

communal and familial attitude of Black culture in an effort to acquiesce

to white society. This is sometimes done out of fear and a haphazard

attempt to assert individuality in order to distance oneself from the

perceived negative aspects of Black culture. It symbolically screams,

“Look massa, I’m not like the others! I’m different!” The so-called justice

system begs to differ, though.

With that said, her white friend in the distance, who also witnessed this

melee, deserves the same level of blame as her Black friends. She should

have also intervened.

“Nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger…nigger…nigger,”

Sanders continued with her hands above her head, with a cigarette in

hand in a celebratory manner, daring me to react.

“So, if I hit her, what happens to me!? She knocked my phone out my

hands! She called me a nigger!”

I wanted to grab her and throw her to the ground. I wanted to punch

her into oblivion with the strength of Ogun. I felt defenseless, though. I

had sought to pose a question in the heat of the moment that had merit.

She had been permitted to verbally abuse me, but had I responded in

conjunction with her racist provocation, then I would be deemed the bad

guy. Such is the experience of being a Black man in America.

My reaction thus far had been the inverse of how I was raised and how I

had usually responded to threats or name-calling growing up. By the age

of ten, I had fought more times than a heavyweight fighter climbing the

ranks before a title match. If anyone on my block looked at me the wrong

way or disrespected me or my sister, I wouldn’t hesitate to swing on

them to defend our honor. As I matured, I calmed down and learned the

value of a more cerebral approach. I hadn’t felt the need to lay hands on

someone since a white friend of mine disrespected me for attempting to

play matchmaker with a girl he liked when I was in eighth grade.

“You don’t know me, man, I will fu—” I stopped myself. I had quickly

remembered why I had begun recording in the first place. This wasn’t

about me and what I wanted to do to her. This was now about finding out

as much as I could about this evil woman. I did not yet know her name,

so I was now set on having her relay as much information as possible.

“If you hit me you’re a nigger. Go home, you’re acting like a nigger!”

Sanders was making even less sense than she had been before, but she

continued and began to turn and walk away.

Not before I could interject and demand more information, though. “You

ac… Keep saying it. And what did you call my wife? Gimme yo’ name

too! Gimme yo’ name too!”

As she began to walk away, she took one step in the opposite direction, pivoted while conjuring up a hefty glob of spit, which sounded like a dental suction device, and catapulted it in our direction. Some of the phlegm got on my arm, but it barely touched me. However, when I looked at my wife to the left, I noticed the slimy, mucous-laden glob of spit had gotten on her right arm. I immediately turned my phone off, balled my fist, and…”