Having been born into the white race, the race of privilege
in America, it’s easy to misunderstand what it means to be black. Even with desegregation, the majority of whites
and blacks still live in separate worlds divided by wealth, individual biases,
and an unforgiving and racially discriminatory justice system, among other
things.
Many well-meaning whites simply don’t appreciate the depth
of oppression in black communities, but social media affords us an opportunity
to see some of the truth.
Ubiquitous Smartphone images on the Web provide a window
into this other world, yet many of my friends don’t want to look. Maybe it’s because the window also serves as
a mirror. They may occasionally watch a
video, but generally speaking, they don’t want to see the plethora of brutal images
that conflict with the more sanitized and justifiable world in their mind’s
eye.
The recent, senseless killings of Ahmaud
Arbery and George
Floyd are eye-opening, but so are the more insidious examples; take for
instance, the white, somewhat hysterical woman in Central
Park, NY who calls 911 falsely accusing a non-confrontational, black birdwatcher
of threatening her life when all he did was ask her to leash her dog.
How can we effectively right wrongs like these without fully
appreciating the breadth of humiliation, degradation, and terror facing people
of color everyday. Indifference when the
truth is right there on our smart devices is unconscionable and ultimately
incites the huge demonstrations and rioting we see today.
Wake up white America and go to the videotapes – if you have
the courage.
Another compelling video shows a Glynn County Police officer
confronting a young, black adult who is parked in plain sight on an open,
grassy field at the edge of a Georgia park.
It’s broad daylight and he’s chillin’ on music on his day off. Although he is doing nothing suspicious, he
is subjected to lengthy, accusatory questioning, a body search, and several
attempts to inspect his car without cause.
A second officer arrives and without provocation pulls his Taser and
shoots the non-threatening man. The gun
malfunctions and the man is ultimately left alone.
Any white person subjected to such treatment would have been
apoplectic and a lawsuit would likely have followed. But, blacks are not readily afforded such
options. They often get brutalized and
in some cases killed if they display any dissatisfaction or resistance, and
they don’t have the same avenues of justice we do. They have little choice but to bite their
tongues and swallow their pride. The harassed
man, Ahmaud Arbery (also mentioned earlier), did just that and was
thereby granted another two years of life before he was killed while jogging
this past February by a retired cop from the same police department and his
son.
A common reaction of my white colleagues is that blacks may
have cause to be angry, but rioting and looting are not the way to bring about
change.
Yet, American history suggests otherwise. Wasn’t the celebrated Boston Tea Party
looting? A great deal of meaningful
social change in America has come as an outgrowth of social upheaval like the
Revolutionary and Civil Wars, the Great Depression, and the civil rights and
anti-war movements of the 1960’s. There
is fertile ground for promising, social change when virtually every American is
unsettled by national events.
When blacks do use peaceful means, white society always
finds a way to ignore the message and demonize the messenger. They say it’s inappropriate to deliver an
impassioned speech about injustice while accepting an Academy Award or
unpatriotic to kneel during the national anthem at an NFL game. White America is particularly incensed when the
unsavory truth invades their comfortable living rooms and disrupts
time-honored, American television traditions.
Colin Kaepernick did what few Americans would do: He put his lucrative and celebrated professional
football career in jeopardy for what he believed in. And yet few applauded his courage or
discussed his cause, instead they spent all their time criticizing his method. Kaepernick was eventually blacklisted from
the NFL and essentially gagged by white society.
How can we then criticize the rioting and looting? If you gag the oppressed too long with
apathy, violence will erupt. Oppressed
people need to be heard.
