Yet another travesty of justice
I know, it’s been a while since I talked about anything besides my writing or did reviews for other peoples’ stuff. I got out of the habit of ranting because I’ve been getting sicker, and I only have so much energy to devote to being upright. So whenever a rant takes hold in my head, I’ve dispelled them by saying out loud, “Nobody cares what I think.” That’s probably true here too, but I find that I care about this too much not to say something.
Yesterday, the jury for Michael Dunn found him guilty of firing into a vehicle, and for three counts of attempted murder. But when it came to the death of Jordan Davis, they couldn’t reach a consensus on whether a murderer was actually guilty of murder. They stalled for three days debating this “confusing” topic, and they still couldn’t decide if a white man murdering an unarmed black boy was really murder. Compare this to Marissa Alexander, who jurors decided was guilty in 12 minutes for firing a gun into the air and gave her 20 years. Compare this to CeCe McDonald, who defended herself from racists who tried to kill her and was sentenced for manslaughter.
Some people are saying “Oh Florida,” like this is just a problem with one state, but there’s a lot of places in America where simply being black is enough evidence to prompt getting shot by racist white gun owners. This is not just something in the south. This is not “something in the water.” It’s a lingering racism that no one wants to talk about or deal with. People point to Obama being in office and claim that’s some kind of proof that America conquered race, but they ignore how many people hung effigies of the President after he took office. They ignore how, instead of focusing on his policies to find fault with his job performance, white people are still acting like he’s a Kenyan Muslim who somehow pulled a fast one over the whole country with a fake birth certificate. People ignore the photos of toilets with “Free Obama Dolls” signs pointing down. That’s all damning proof that we have not conquered race.
The real culprit we need to talk about isn’t the blatant racists, the ones who wear their hate on their sleeve and at least let you know in advance to avoid them. No, the problem lies with the milder racism and erasure of “color blindness.” This so-called enlightened mindset of some white people prevents them from seeing racism, and it presumes that all people are the same, and that we all have the same troubles in life. It erases the additional burdens that people of other races have, and when people from the other races complain about how bad things are, it’s the color blind “ally” who talks down to them the most. It’s the color blind ally who insists, “but we’re not all like that.” It’s the color blind ally who threatens to withdraw support if people of color are too angry over their children being murdered day in and out in obvious racial attacks. And it’s the color blind ally who insists that they have nothing left to fight for because “we conquered race.” No, we did not. We have dominated the race conversation and prevented the victims of hate crimes from getting justice.
Being color blind is not acceptance of race, it is tolerance of race. It is also acceptance of racism, and when color blind allies seek to silence people of color, they are in fact promoting racism’s ongoing progression in our society.
We cannot be color blind. We need to admit that racism is an ongoing problem. We need to see how much harder people of color have life precisely because white people work so hard to make life difficult for them. It is our responsibility to police our own race and insist that justice work for everyone, and not just for the privileged whites. It is our responsibility to get mad whenever racism rears its ugly head, to join with the victims and mourn and rage with them instead of advising them to “just get over it.” It is our responsibility to hold the legal system accountable for their failures to end racial discrimination.
If this sounds like it’s unfair, consider history, and the abolishment of slavery worldwide. That didn’t come about because slaves said, “This is unjust.” They were saying that for a long time, and no one cared. It wasn’t until white men took responsibility for their own race and fought against slavery that change could occur. That’s still the case to this day, but white people now find a lot of ways to dodge any kind of social responsibility to evolve our society toward true equality and acceptance of diversity. So instead of making progress, we’ve backslid to the point that lawmakers are legitimizing racism and racial extermination under the guise of self-defense laws. That isn’t going to change simply because the families and friends of victims are angry about it. To change and begin making progress requires that white men look at themselves and admit that the problem lies with them. It lies with them whether they’re openly racist or whether they’re color blind.
Tolerance is not good enough. Complacency and acceptance of the status quo will not heal this festering wound in our society. To end racism and truly conquer it, we must accept our responsibility and admit that we owe it to everyone else to police our own race. We need to see color, to see the suffering of other races and want to do something about it. Or else all our talk about modern enlightenment or progressive values is all just vain efforts at polishing a turd.
