To be Black in the United States is to live in a perpetual state of Wrong Place, Wrong Time.
By Kejhonti Neloms
My white neighbor felt something cold and hard against his temple before the fear set in. He was being robbed. Again. This was last Friday at 2 in the morning, and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had been out all night with some of the locals in Oaxaca—mezcal as a hobby—and had stumbled over to a dimly lit ATM a little ways away from downtown.
The first time Peter was robbed, he was also simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had never been threatened with a machete before, but he quickly found out what’s good. He was on a hike behind the giant auditorium dedicated to the beloved Benito Juárez when a skinny and frightened Oaxaqueño decided he was absolutely going to feed his young children that night.
“Tu telefono; la cartera; los tarjetas. Ahora, Cabron.”
I’m not mad at the Mexican men who robbed that gringo, my neighbor. I am happy that no one was killed in the encounter. I am happy that those Mexican men were able to provide for themselves and their families. I don’t think they robbed him to fuel a drug habit, and even if they did, who am I to judge?
In fact, I admire the bravery of those thieves. They saw a way to feed their families with the only harm being to a white man who has already benefited from taking so much from them, and they capitalized on it. They knew that this gringo was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And those Mexican men were simply in the right place at the right time to do what they needed to do. It all makes sense to me.
I think of my neighbor, and I know why he was robbed. He was robbed because he is white, from America and he was at an ATM by himself at 2AM. It makes sense to me. I can make sense of it. He knows why too. If he does all of those same actions again, he will probably be robbed again. It is formulaic, and it is not spontaneous.
Behind the Guelaguetza auditorium—where he was robbed the first time—is what extranjero’s would call a whole ass jungle. Even though it’s not super dense, there are a lot of trees and foliage. There are one hundred different paths coming to and leaving the auditorium. It’s easy to hide, it’s easy to escape, and it’s easy to get lost. In front of the auditorium is one of the most iconic views of the city. It’s a beautiful trap.
Behind the trees is an area of real poverty. It is always so strange that cities are built like that. Everywhere I go, especially in the US, the most beautiful views stand right next to the poorest areas. This particular barrio is called Cerro del Fortin, and it is not safe for extranjeros. If there is any place to get held up at knife point, it is Cerro del Fortin. I don’t really know the history of that particular hood, but the locals say it’s the only part of town where you can get stabbed in the middle of the day. The entire state of Oaxaca is extremely safe, but really, if you don’t know the place you don’t want that kind of work.
But this guero went to Cerro del Fortin (on some white people shit), and he was robbed at machete point (of course). It makes sense. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he doesn’t do that stupid shit again, he won’t be robbed again. It is formulaic; don’t start none, won’t be none.
This is just simply not the case for any Black person in America. It doesn’t matter what we are wearing, or where we are going, or where we came from, or how old we are, or our gender, or how many degrees we have (and niggas really do kill me with that one; as if their whole ivory tower won’t be snatched away by Mr. Bullet), or what you said, or what you didn’t say, or what you did, or what you didn’t do. If you were awake. If you were asleep. If you were getting ready for work. If you were in a Walmart. If you were in a field. If you were… If you are… When you are… How you are… That you are…
Do you ever lay awake at night and wonder how Aiyana Stanley-Jones could have been at a better place at a better time? What was a safer place than her Grandmother’s loving arms at 12:15 am in Detroit? What was the wrong place and time for Tamir Rice? He was 12. He had a toy gun. He was in a park with his big sister. It was the middle of the day.
Was Malissa Williams in the wrong place at the wrong time? She was in a car. It was nighttime. It is America.
Was Trayvon Martin in the wrong place at the wrong time? He’s Black. He was alone. He had Skittles.
Was Rekia Boyd in the wrong place at the wrong time? She was 22, Black and a woman. She was also walking with her friends. Wrong existence, wrong time.
Was my ancestor Kathryn Johnson in the wrong place at the wrong time? She was 92, and she was sleeping in her bed. Atlanta. She kept a gun next to her because she knew what the tea was. She was shot 37 times by pigs anyway.
Living while Black in the United States is living in a perpetual state of Wrong Place, Wrong Time. Unlike Peter’s robbery, there is no sense to our deaths. There is no sense to be made. Our deaths are nonsensical and impossible to explain away. Our relationship to violence is not dependent on our transgressions. There is no safe place for us in that cursed land, with those cursed people.
It’s something that I didn’t fully understand until I left the United States. There is anti-Blackness everywhere, including Oaxaca, but extranjeros can wield proximity to whiteness, unlike the Afro-Mexicanos who bear the brunt of it. If I am robbed here in Oaxaca, I could still be an American in the wrong place at the wrong time, but when I am murdered in the United States, it doesn’t matter where I am or what time of day, or who I was with, or what I was wearing. Our deaths are contingent on nothing. But white life, and white peoples’ ability to always find a better place and a better time where they are safe, is contingent on Black death.
There is not any hope for us in this white world. I firmly reject this world, and I am eager to see it’s undoing. And if white life is contingent on Black death, maybe this white world’s undoing is in creating non-white spaces like Cerro del Fortin, where white life is absolutely unsafe. Maybe this world’s undoing looks like holding every individual white person at machete point and demanding their money or their life when they insist on turning our safe spaces into theirs at our expense. All I know is that when the end of this white world comes (and it is coming), our people will finally know freedom.
Suggested Reading:
Frank B. Wilderson III, “Afro-pessimism & the End of Redemption,” The Occupied Times, March 2016
James Baldwin, “My Dungeon Shook,” The Fire Next Time, 1962
Kejhonti Neloms is a queer student/teacher. He has dreams of starting a community center for black queer kids.
