Race in America cont'd
For the past six years — and especially since the Charlottesville domestic terrorist attack in August 2017 and the events leading to the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol — there has been renewed focus on White supremacist groups. However, in my mind, these vile creatures are not really our main problem.
Don’t get me wrong, the revolting images from the Charlottesville — where, among other things, racists chanted Nazi slogans, made monkey sounds, and, in the grand finale, a car bulldozed into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and leaving nineteen others injured — and the ones from the Capitol insurrection are nauseating, but at least most of these despicable racists ditched the white hoods and showed us their faces. Uncovering their wickedness is the beginning of the end for them because, eventually, goodness conquers evil every time.
It’s always better to know exactly who the enemy is, because then you know exactly who and what you are fighting against. As Sun Tzu said in The Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
The primary (and much more complicated) problem is two other groups: 1) Those who harbor racist beliefs but genuinely believe they don’t, and 2) The alarmingly large group of people who tepidly acknowledge that things are not great race-wise in America but choose to remain blissfully oblivious and radio silent in regard to inequality and injustice — those who aren’t balls to the wall racist in their everyday lives necessarily, but who are perfectly content to accept an unbalanced, unfair system.
It’s pretty clear from the behavior of both of these groups that they believe racial wounds have — or certainly should have — healed by now.
I mean, come on, people! Black folks can eat at the same lunch counters as White people, go to the same schools and use White bathrooms …look how far we’ve come! Black folks can now legally marry White people...hooray for love! We even let Black folks go to the Ivy League...in some of our spots! A statue of Robert E. Lee...what’s the big deal? Just get over it already!
Just get over it already? Really? The truths of the matter are these:
Truth One
Severe racial inequality and injustice still exists in the United States of America. Not only do scars from the past remain painfully evident for many Black Americans, but they are still discriminated against every day and in every way.
From big things like Black people dying at the hands of the police and shockingly inequitable statistics in practically every category, to seemingly smaller things like a White lady clutching her purse a little tighter on the street when a Black person passes, or the look of shock on a White person’s face (however fleeting, but it’s there) when they find out a Black guy is going to college without a football scholarship. It happens every minute of every day.
I truly believe that, for the most part, these “smaller things” are unintentional and not intended to harm. In fact, the White person involved probably doesn’t even realize the impact they are having on the Black person (which, if you think about it, is the entire problem in a nutshell). But these things hurt, deeply.
Without question, we have made tremendous progress since the 1960s. The workplace is far more diverse, we now have an expanded Black middle class, and America even elected a Black president and vice-president, all remarkable advancements that were inconceivable even twenty years ago.
It’s true we have come far. But it’s also true that we still have a long way to go. Think about this: In October 2022, Daniel Smith passed away at the age of ninety. He was one of the last children born to a parent who had once been enslaved.
Or this…If you are a Black person in your mid-50’s, you are among the first generation of Black Americans to be born on U.S. soil with all of your legal rights. Can you even believe that?
Truth Two
It’s virtually impossible for Black Americans to “just get over it already” and they should not be expected to. Prolonged, pervasive disparity has taken an egregious toll on members of the Black population, a community uniquely susceptible to the inequitable cycles of preceding generations.
Let’s just accept this as truth to save ourselves time because, when talking about social and racial injustice, there is simply no getting around the actual statistical evidence...facts that some White people in this country continually refuse to acknowledge (please don’t twist my words here, I said some White people, certainly not all).
Some of these White people have their own ideas about why statistics are so consistently inequitable. Oh yes, I know what they say, because I’ve heard them say it. They say that it’s Black peoples' fault. If Black people would just not be so lazy and work a little harder…if they wouldn’t be so content just living off the government…if they would just be better parents. Some even insinuate that the level of competency and/or intelligence in the Black community is less than that of the White community.
These outright racist assertions are just dead wrong. They are not only morally wrong; they are factually wrong. Grossly uneven statistics do not exist because Black people are lazy or bad parents or a less intelligent underclass that thrives on self-destructive patterns of behavior. Uneven statistics exist because the sins of our past persistently haunt and the indifference of the present continually strangles. For decades, the damaging consequences of our misaligned social policies have conspired to repress many Black Americans.
The issues facing these vulnerable families are linked in complex ways...a significantly evolving work environment, income disparity inadequate education, expensive health care, low or no employment, episodic poverty, dangerous and segregated housing, opioid addiction, predatory lending, and an extremely unfair criminal justice, system just to name a few.
It seems like every time compromised families get their heads somewhat above water to establish a semblance of control over their lives and destiny, they get whacked back down by cycles and circumstances that were created for them generations and generations ago.
Truth Three
White people can have empathy for the long, painful journey of Black people, but it is impossible for us to truly comprehend the abject horror of the “stinging darts of segregation.” Not everyone experiences life the same way. Unless you are Black, you cannot possibly imagine what the experience is like.
Better I let Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. make this point from his Birmingham jail cell:
Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, 'Wait.' But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your Black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward White people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: 'Daddy, why do White people treat Colored people so mean?'; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading 'White' and 'Colored'; when your first name becomes 'nigger,' your middle name becomes 'boy' (however old you are) and your last name becomes 'John,' and your wife and mother are never given the respected title 'Mrs.'; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness' — then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
I have a childhood friend that I’ll call “Lisa.” Over the years, I have been involved in several reunion-type dinners with Lisa, and they all go about the same way…which is to say that it all goes well until something goes horribly wrong. The latest dinner — with all White people I should say — was over the Christmas holiday right before Covid and the nationwide protests over racial injustice. The dinner went something like this: