Brad Griffith
11/16/18
Prof. Carrie Hall
English Paper: Revision
The Fight for Control
*Tom and Jerry are having tea at Starbucks and 2 black people walk in and sit next to them
Brad: Yo bro still can’t believe I did that yesterday?
Matthew: I know I was surprised too, you really started wildin
Brad: Facts I was shooting shit up, you know I was on fire
Tom: Jerry, do you hear that?
Jerry: “Shooting shit up”, they’re definitely in a gang
Tom: We should call the police before we’re next
*5 minutes later
Officer Smith: Put your hands where I can see them
Brad: For what, what did we do?
Officer Johnson: We got a call saying you two may have committed murder
Brad: Murder? We were talking about a basketball game…
Slang takes back the control and forces people to hear what they once didn’t have to. But due to this, a new type of slavery has been invented where folks are literally scared to speak the way they want to. Before the constitution was amended and black people were still ¾ a human being, white people didn’t have to listen to a word we said. We weren’t allowed to speak unless spoken too and only do what we’re told. After the constitution was amended, people got more rights. Freedom of expression being one of them. However, when it comes to control, they’ll always be one party that fighting dirty.
To begin, how would you feel if during your whole life people have been pressuring you to express yourself in a certain way. From experience I can tell you it’s extremely annoying until the point where you feel like there’s no way out. I specifically remember middle school, where I had a teacher that was mean and extremely blunt. Back then my I hated writing because I didn’t know how to express myself on paper. One day we had an assignment due which I wrote mostly in slang because that’s what I was comfortable with. However, the teacher didn’t like my usage of slang and in front of the whole class explained why. She made me feel dumb because I didn’t know how to say the things she wanted to hear, rather I said the things I was comfortable with. Till this day I remember that because it reminds of a time where I always felt pressured to speak a certain way. Even in elementary, I had mainly white teachers so that pressure stayed with me for a while. Although, now I chose to express myself freely which is such a relief and I truly see why white people hated it so much. Slang sounds carefree but full of emotions which reminds white people that we’re free from the chains. Free to be our own person and strive to be the best that person can be. Which contradicts their view of us that we’re savages and ¾ human. Since we can now speak in our own “language” whenever we want, we seized control of their will over us and now bend it against them. The change hit a nerve so big that they mock us for being ourselves so we can feel ashamed and slowly revert back to being scared and dependent. Going from controlling our every whim to not being able to tell us how to speak really hurt them, so of course they’ll get mad and call us dumb for saying what we what because now we actually can.
Before we found our voices, racist didn’t have to do much to keep control because we were too scared to take it. Since we’ve taken it back racist decided to introduce a new type of slavery. The one where they try to suppress our tongue by installing fear through police brutality. Statistics on mappingpoliceviolence.org stats that a black person is 3x more likely to get killed by a police officer than a white person. It also states that in 2015 30% of the killed black victims were unarmed compared to only 21% of white people. More data coming from mic.com says that “Another Washington Post investigation from August found that black men — who constitute 6% of the nation’s population — account for 40% of the 60 unarmed people who had been fatally shot by police by that time”. Like I said before, with slang we have flipped the switch from being controlled to having it however, by doing so it amplified racists fears of black people. Therefore, they’re trying to punish us by keeping us terrified for our lives. The statistics show that most victims killed were unarmed so what good reason would police have other than to send a message. A message saying that we aren’t equals and the fight to gain control is a losing battle. Even protestors who rally against these horrible acts are beaten. The control we took with slang is literally being suppressed my bullets and batons.
All in all, even though slang allowed us to get back some of the freedoms that were supposed to given, the fight for control proved harder to face when the opponents aren’t just playing with words. What first was a fight for freedom of speech became a war for power and control over one another. Sooner than later everything changed back to black people running for their lives from white people trying to kill them. This time the whites have guns and are supposed to be protecting us. Furthermore, this proves how crucial slang is because it’s our guns. Slang provides us with the strength to do what we couldn’t before-take control.
Work Cited
Police Have Killed 852 People in 2018.” Mapping Police Violence, mappingpoliceviolence.org/.
“Mic | Breaking News, Opinion, Reviews, Analysis.” Mic, Mic Network Inc., mic.com/.
