Ever since Sunday’s (Feb. 22) scandal at this year’s BAFTA Awards, when a man with Tourette’s Syndrome hurled a racist slur as Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo presented on stage, non-Black people have been trying to convince Black folks that they shouldn’t be offended.
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It’s just the latest example of Black folks being expected to forgive in the face of racism — which has a deeper historical context than you probably know.
Black folks having to extend grace or what’s been known as “turning the other cheek” dates all the way back to — surprise, surprise — chattel slavery. But the exact phrase gets its origins from the Christian Bible.
“Matthew 5:39” is repeatedly referenced throughout history, but it’s often misunderstood as a passive submission. In truth, offering the other cheek was giving the aggressor another chance to treat the other as an equal, not to take the disrespect sitting down.
But during American slavery, the phrase — like several other excerpts from the Bible — were perverted in order to defend violence against enslaved Africans.
Frederick Douglass once explained the issue with the Christianity taught by white slave owners. “Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference — so wide that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked.” He added, “I therefore hate the corrupt, slave-holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason but the most deceitful one for calling the religion of this land Christianity.”
This idea that enslaved Africans must “turn the other cheek” for white slave owners later manifested into a modern expectation that Black Americans extend grace even when they’re being slapped in the face. The method became both a weapon used to oppress Black folks and a survival tactic by African Americans to deescalate dangerous situations.
By the 1950s and 60s, however, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement revamped the phrase, making “nonviolence is the answer” the new face of the movement. The philosophy was simple: remain peaceful and lead with love even if you’re met with racist attacks. The objective was to avoid further conflicts while also making the violent injustices impossible for national media to ignore, according to Penn Live.
While King’s philosophy worked, decades have passed and Black folks have become accustomed and expected to meet hate with love even if it hurts. Whether it’s politicians telling African Americans to “get over slavery” or the recent BAFTA incident, many Black people are once again reminded of society’s unfair expectations.
Instead of acknowledging the pain caused by the incident at the BAFTA Awards, event host Alan Cumming simply said, “We apologize if you are offended tonight.” While his words were more than likely meant to validate John Davidson, the Tourette’s advocate who blurted out the N-word, they only echoed history for Black people who heard the slur first hand and the millions watching from home.
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