Dear Dean Magazine: September 2023

M Y R O N J . C L I F T O N
D R . M Y R O N J . C L I F T O N
The lack of empathy from white people specifically toward
Black people is an entire industry by itself and one that
never runs out of fuel.
There are literally hundreds of articles and millions of
social media posts and comments dedicated to Vice
President Kamala Harris… laughing. She has never shot
anyone in the face but judging by the hatred from white
people just for her laugh one would think she had done
that and much worse.
We can be serious, thoughtful, studious, and quiet and be
hated but nothing quite alarms white people as our joy.
They will boo our most accomplished athletes and loudly
root against us. We saw it with Venus and Serena Williams
for years at many US Tennis tournaments during their
careers, most notably at Indian Wells, Ca, when the allwhite
audience viciously boo’d and hurled racist epithets at
the young stars with so much vile energy the sisters did not
return to the venue for 14 years.
It was then President Obama’s correspondents jokes about
Donald Trump that many say spurred Donald to run for
president. He was so mad at being made fun of at an event
designed to make fun of the rich and famous that he
decided to ruin America and install himself as dictator.
Such is the power of our jokes.
When we aren’t seen or accepted with humanity and
empathy it becomes that much easier to further our
dehumanization by denying us the most basic and
important human emotion — laughter.
Our smiles are so powerful that we are in awe and happy
when Dr. Martin Luther King’s family releases a photo of
him laughing and smiling.
Making American life harder for us at work, school, in
public, in politics, in our neighborhoods, and in our online
communities is awful, degrading, and humiliating. And by
trying to stifle the healing emotion of laughter and
laughing, of jokes and giggles, and of the joy and life, family
and community affirmation that comes with those
necessary human emotions, racists and white
supremacists are doing something much more evil and
insidious.
They are attempting to make us empty humans devoid of
culture, history, and joy.
DEAR DEAN MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 2023 | p.12
Black people will not be quiet or tamp down our humor or
laughter for the comfort of anyone. Ever.