In the racialized space of capitalist gentrification, police are not only arbiters of the peace, they are the muscle of retail racism: You can only be in this space if you transcend your blackness by showing us some green dollars. Even then, there is no guarantee that green will transcend your black skin.
Interpretation
The quote critiques how capitalism and policing intersect to reinforce racial inequalities.
Anthea Butler's quote explores the complex dynamics of race and capitalism, particularly in gentrified spaces where economic privilege can offer a semblance of acceptance but does not eliminate the underlying racial biases. It emphasizes that while financial power might provide access, it does not guarantee safety or acceptance for Black individuals in a society that maintains structural racism.
In practice
This quote can be shared during discussions about social justice during a community meeting.
As a historian of American and African-American religion, I know that the Trayvon Martin moment is just one moment in a history of racism in America that, in large part, has its underpinnings in Christianity and its history. Those of us who teach American Religion have a responsibility to tell all of the story, not just the nice touchy-feely parts.
It's important to recognise that opposing racism isn't just about presenting an alternative set of values; it's about looking at how the far right play on people's hardships in order to nurture a sense of enmity between white people and those racialised as migrants.
What I think is different today is the lack of political connection between the black middle class and the increasing numbers of black people who are more impoverished than ever before.
The same crime element that white people are scared of black people are scared of. While they waiting for legislation to pass, we next door to the killer. All them killers they let out, they're in that building. Just because we black, we get along with the killers? What is that?
The March on Washington was a March for Jobs and Freedom. There are still too many people who are unemployed or underemployed in America - they're black, white, Latino, Native American and Asian American.
I think we've become blind in this country to the ways in which we've managed to reinvent a caste-like system here in the United States, one that functions in a manner that is as oppressive, in many respects, as the one that existed in South Africa under apartheid and that existed under Jim Crow here in the United States.
If the market is left to sort matters out, social injustice will be heightened and suffering in the community will grow with the neglect the market fosters.
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