A conversation with the ACLU of Michigan's Mark Fancher
For the past 16 years, Mark Fancher has been the staff attorney for the ACLU of Michigan's Racial Justice Project. In that role, he has led our work responding to issues that have racial implications, from taking on the school to prison pipeline and police agencies that discriminate against people of color to schools using Native Americans as mascots. As part of our recognition of Black History Month, we recently sat down with him for a question-and-answer session that touches on issues ranging from the racist roots of policing in America and the resurgence of violence by white supremacists to why he has hope for a brighter future.
Q: Do you prefer being referred to as Black, African American or something else?
A: It depends. When I am in my personal life and around people who understand, it's strictly African. In a professional setting, that can create confusion or be a distraction, so I'll yield to a more conventional reference, which can vary depending on the circumstances.
Q: Why do you prefer the term African?
A: There are several reasons. The first is that the Americas are stolen territory, and as far as I'm concerned, only the indigenous populations have the right to call themselves "American" – so I can't be an African American. Second, the dispersal of Africa's people throughout the world, and certainly to the Americas, was forced. My kidnapped ancestors did not want to stop being Africans, and in their honor and memory I claim what was taken from them. Finally, I believe the liberation of all people of African descent can be accelerated by global unity. By thinking of ourselves as simply Africans rather than as African Americans, Jamaicans, Brazilians, Barbadians, etc., we promote the idea of one global African family with a primary allegiance to an African homeland that once liberated from the clutches of foreign interests will be a source of power and security for everyone.
Q: What does your job at the ACLU of Michigan entail?
A: It basically involves handling legal work related to issues that have racial implications. That can include a broad range of responses, from having casual contact with the people whose actions are causing concern, writing letters and filing complaints, all the way to the other end of the spectrum, which would be full-scale litigation.
Q: Is there a case you've worked on that you are particularly proud of?
A: I don't know if pride is the right word. I've had a number of cases I found to be gratifying. It is difficult to pick just one. But the ones that have made the biggest impact on me are those involving children who have been wronged, kids who've been physically attacked or emotionally traumatized. For example, just a few years ago, we helped put a stop to a YMCA camp's slavery reenactments involving elementary school children who were put on auction blocks and, as "escapees," chased through the woods by adults on horseback. Taking on things like that and bringing about change is very gratifying, and it has been a great blessing to be able to do these things.
Also very gratifying was a report we released in 2009: "Reclaiming Michigan's Throwaway Kids: Students Trapped in the School-to-Prison Pipeline." In that report, we showed how the frequent use of suspensions and expulsions contributes to Michigan's high drop-out rate and how those suspension practices hit black students the hardest, putting them on a high-risk path to incarceration. I think that report helped kick-start heightened awareness of a crucial issue. That was a significant project.
Q: Just last January, after Black people played a pivotal role in electing our new president, a white mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to stop the vote from being certified. Do you think the attempted insurrection was fueled by racism?
A: I think it was an expression of fear by white people who are afraid of where they see this country going. More specifically, they are terribly afraid of what's going to happen to white people as the result of demographic changes that they perceive as a threat to their economic and political power. White workers are being misled about the real source of their ever-increasing economic struggles and loss of political power. Driven by propaganda and the fear it generates, they feel justified taking a militant approach to re-establish the white hegemony, white dominance, white control they feel is slipping away.
Q: You do a fair amount of work related to discrimination and abuse on the part of police officers. How deeply is the issue of racism tied to policing in America?
A: It is intimately connected. From its very beginnings, policing in America has been rooted in racism. It began with slave patrols established by plantation owners and local sheriffs and constables being empowered to form posses to track down and capture escaped slaves, then imposing severe punishment, including extreme torture and death. Following emancipation, we saw how police were used to enforce Jim Crow-era laws designed to fill jails and prisons with formerly enslaved people who, as prisoners, were rented out to plantation owners that formerly relied upon slave labor. We saw how, through the later part of the 19th Century and much of the 20th Century, police were used to enforce segregation laws intended to keep people of color "in their place."
In the 1960s, we saw how police, with their billy clubs, attack dogs, and fire hoses, were used in an attempt to brutally quell the Civil Rights movement and the nonviolent protests that were held to gain equal rights and treatment. We saw it in the FBI and its COINTEL program, which led to the assassination of Black Panther leaders and others involved in the struggle for Black liberation. And we see it still today in the way Black people and other people of color are still being disproportionately targeted for arrest and incarceration by law enforcement agencies across America, and the unjustified killing of Black people by police. Just last month, researchers analyzing data provided by Michigan State Police showed that its officers continue to disproportionately target Black people. Given all this history, it is hard not to see policing in America as a racist institution.
Q: Do you foresee a future where your work will not be needed?
A: Certainly not in my lifetime. I think racism in this country is hard-wired, and until there is a fundamental transformation, I don't see it going away. Black people and all people of color are engaged in a struggle to survive, on a day-to-day basis, the hostile world that confronts them. I believe that the struggle for liberation must be completed before the struggle for survival can finally come to an end.
Q: What was the first time you experienced racism firsthand?
A: One of my earliest memories involves driving with my family back to our home in Nashville after visiting my grandmother in Alabama. I was 6 or 7 years old. Our car stalled along the road during the night, and my dad got out to try and fix the problem. A truck full of white people, maybe six or seven of them, stopped to help. As they approached our car, and saw the color of our skin, the expressions on their faces turned from smiles to disgust as they turned on a dime and raced back to their vehicle. They didn't know anything about us – just the color of our skin. That experience impacted me deeply.
Q: What was the impact?
A: It contributed to my feelings of shame, inferiority, and confusion. During the early 1960s, there were no significant positive images of my people in mainstream media and culture. I had already developed strong feelings of regret about my skin color, and I fantasized about waking up white one morning. Those people on the roadside just brought it all home, and it hurt very deeply. I didn't come out of that mindset until about two or three years later when Stokely Carmichael, Rap Brown, the Panthers, Angela Davis and others stood up straight-backed and confronted the system without fear. When James Brown provided their soundtrack – "Say it loud – I'm Black and I'm proud!" – little Mark Fancher's mind was inspired and liberated forever. I was on a panel with Angela Davis not long ago, and I'm so glad I got a chance to tell her what she did for me without her even knowing it.
Q: What do you think about heritage months in general?
A: I think they are very good. It is easy for any institution to lapse into the belief that the dominant culture is everybody's culture and that we all see things the same way and view history through the same prism. But in many ways, our perspectives are extremely different. Heritage months provide an opportunity for everyone to take a look at cultures, life experiences, and histories that are different than those of the group they belong to.
Q: Is there any single book you think is essential for white people to read to help them broaden their understanding of racism and the impact it has?
A: I don't know of any single book. But there are a number of books that, in different ways, expose the fallacy embraced by many white people that people of African descent are inherently inferior and that their ancestors never accomplished anything -- that nothing important ever came out of Africa. It is a belief born out of ignorance and the persistent false image of Africa having always been a wild and savage place. In reality, the truth is just the opposite. Africa is where human life first emerged and where civilization as we know it began. Before the Persian, Greek and Roman empires existed, tremendous scientific, medical, academic and cultural advances were being made in Africa. To begin to get an understanding of how vast those achievements were, and the impact they had, I would recommend the work of two authors, Martin Bernal and Ivan Van Sertima. What Africans did was amazing, and people need to know about it in order to dispel their misconceptions.
Q: Is there any movie you would recommend?
A: Not a movie, but a 2016 television miniseries based on the Alex Haley book Roots. A more sanitized miniseries based on that same book was broadcast on TV in the 1970s. But it is the more recent version that, in my view, provides the best effort to recreate the experience of enslaved people that I've seen. I've only seen it once, but that is only because I can't bear to watch it again because it was so emotionally wrenching. What it depicted was so graphic and disturbing – especially the parts showing the brutality and horrendous conditions experienced by African people crammed into slave ships for the journey to America, what's known as the "middle passage" – I don't think anyone can watch that and not come away unchanged.
Q: Do you have a personal motto?
A: I don't think I've ever thought about it in those terms, but I guess it would be something carried over from my days as a Boy Scout: be prepared.
Q: Is there anything we haven't talked about that you'd like to address?
A: I was once asked, after one of my speeches where I described the horrendous sojourn of the African people, how is it is that we as a people have been able to survive at all given everything that has been done to us. I responded by saying that it is the same thing that sustains and drives me personally, which is a complete commitment to God. I've seen God at work in the lives of my people, and we've experienced it. Because of that, we don't get discouraged and crumble despite centuries of hardship because, with God's help, we know we will eventually emerge victorious.