“No matter how much money you have, no matter how famous you are, no matter how many people admire you, you know being black in America is tough.”

LeBron James sat in front of dozens of news cameras to discuss racist graffiti that was spray-painted on the front gate of his house. By the time the majority of news reporters arrived at the home, the offensive language had already been painted over.

Some casual observers of all the media coverage might have thought that all the hoopla over a word painted on the gate of a rich and powerful man’s $21m home was a bit overdramatic. How tough is it really, for a multimillionaire to endure a single racial slur for the short amount of time that it appeared before staffers painted over it?



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But when James said “being black in America is tough”, he was speaking to a fundamental truth of blackness in America. It is tough, and we are never allowed to think otherwise.



When I discuss issues of racial oppression – particularly racial oppression of black people, I’m often countered with examples of rich and famous black Americans. “What about Beyoncé?” “What about Serena Williams?” “What about Obama?” The implication is – how can things be as bad as you claim when these black people are able to amass so much wealth and power?

But Beyoncé was inundated with racist hate for daring to perform at the CMA awards, Serena Williams is regularly mocked for her black features and compared to an animal, and Obama was for eight years branded a radical Muslim. There is no amount of fame or fortune that can fully protect black Americans from racist hate.



One of the most painful ways to kill someone is to continuously rob them of their peace of mind. That is the aim of these racist attacks like the graffiti painted on James’ front gate, or the noose found at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC.



These are not imminent threats of physical bodily harm. These are reminders that at any time, the horrors of this nation’s murderous racist past can be revisited upon you. These are reminders that you are never safe, and you should never get comfortable. These hateful actions aim to keep us afraid, unbalanced and distracted.



I myself receive with some disturbing regularity, similar reminders of how unsafe I am as a black woman. I receive emails with images of lynched black bodies, I receive tweets stating that a van is coming to collect me for “re-education”, I receive promises that I will pay for the work I do writing about race in America. People have created fake online accounts for the sole purpose of reminding black people in hundreds of messages a day that they are never really safe.



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How powerful it must make someone feel to know that by sending an image, they can invoke 300 years of racial terror. How powerful it must feel to know that with a can of spray-paint they can make a rich and famous professional athlete feel unsafe?



These messages work because they are true. We, as black Americans, are not safe. We are 2.8 times more likely to be killed in encounters with police than white Americans, black mothers are three to four times more likely to be killed in childbirth than white mothers, black Americans are five times more likely to be incarcerated than white Americans, black Americans are seven times more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder than white Americans, black kids are four times more likely to be suspended from school than white kids, black Americans are almost three times more likely to live in poverty and more likely to live in areas of highly concentrated poverty.



We are not safe. We are not safe when driving down the street, in our schools, in our doctors’ offices. We are not safe and as black Americans there is not much we can do about it. This is why the messaging of these hate crimes are so effective. They are a reminder of the reality that we as black Americans live with every day.



These messages should be taken seriously as the hate crimes that they are. They are weapons of psychological torture aimed at making black Americans feel unsafe. And as violent racists have been further empowered in the wake of our last presidential election, it is more important than ever that we stop these terror campaigns that not only lead to psychological harm against black Americans and other people of color, but also help inspire physical attacks against people of color. But if we really want to reduce the impact of these hateful acts, we need to address the systemic issues of racial inequality that make these acts so impactful.



We must work to address the real life barriers to health and safety that are impacting black Americans every day. We must look not only at the hateful message, but at the reality that the message is representing.



When we address the ways in which black Americans are threatened every day by the realities of life in a racially oppressive society, these messages will still be hateful and criminal reminders of horrors of the past – but they will no longer be a promise of horrors to come.