The Alabama boat brawl video, Black self-defense, and America’s long legacy of racial violence

When a group of people docked a pontoon boat in space reserved for a riverboat in Montgomery, Ala., last weekend, it set off a chain of events that had all the makings of a racial uprising.

It began when a Black riverboat cocaptain asked the group to move the pontoon boat so that the larger vessel, the Harriott II, could dock. The occupants of the pontoon boat, who are white, attacked the Black man, who fought back. And as witnesses took video of the cocaptain being accosted, a group of African Americans came to his aid.

As of Tuesday, warrants had been issued for three white men on charges of assault; one man had surrendered and two others were expected to turn themselves in shortly afterward. Meanwhile, a Black man who wielded a chair during the melee was wanted for questioning.

Normally, such a fracas would be viewed as just another episode in the never-ending stream of viral fight videos — social media spectacles that frequently celebrate senseless violence. But for Black people who have grown accustomed to seeing images of African Americans being brutalized, this was different. This was powerful. This was unity.

That’s why Black people are celebrating the uprising in Montgomery. In the images of a 16-year-old Black boy swimming to help, Black men throwing punches against aggressors, and women joining the fray, we see our people uniting to defend one of our own. And while violence is not always the answer, that kind of unity yields respect.

But let me be clear. We are not content with winning respect from white people. The outcome that matters more is Black people respecting one another.

In a society where we are force-fed images of Black suffering, Black poverty, and Black crime, it’s easy to believe that we are in a state of permanent chaos. In truth, most African Americans are living normal, productive lives, and we are doing so despite efforts to convince us otherwise.

As always, there will be those who will seek to blame Black people for fighting back. In reality, though, that cocaptain, like so many of us, was simply doing his job, and his attempt to exist while Black was repaid with racial violence.

Such moments have occurred so frequently in America that we have yet to rectify many of them. Still, we are regularly called upon to celebrate whenever justice is sought.

We’re expected to cheer the establishment of a national park site honoring 14-year-old lynching victim Emmett Till. We’re told that it’s a victory when the family of Henrietta Lacks is paid for the commercialization of her cells. We’re encouraged to clap as our elders fight for compensation a century after the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Dutifully, yet mournfully, we join our people in commemorating such efforts. We do so despite the fact that justice often arrives decades or even centuries after the original offense — if justice arrives at all.

So why we are celebrating the fight on the docks in Montgomery? We are tired of waiting for justice. We are tired of being victimized. We are tired of seeing videos of Black death played on a loop.

We simply want to be able to exercise the same right that is freely extended to every other group — the right of self-defense.

So why we are celebrating the fight on the docks in Montgomery? We are tired of waiting for justice.

We know that there was a time when Black people were vulnerable to the threat of white mob violence.

Not today.

We’ve seen enough to know that in places like Montgomery, they’re trying to turn back the clock. We understand that when they hear “Make America Great Again,” they hear the call to white supremacy. We understand that when they see Florida’s governor whitewashing the horrors of slavery, they believe they can return to the glory days of Dixie. Not today.

Now that we’ve fought back on the docks in Montgomery, we can fight back at the polls in Philadelphia, fight back in the courts in Atlanta, fight back by supporting Black colleges, fight back with a boycott in Florida.

If we don’t, the gains we’ve made could someday be snatched away, but as long as we’ve got breath in our bodies, we’ve got two words for that.

Not today.