I am deeply troubled and saddened by the police shootings of two African American men this week. I am also troubled and saddened by the protest in Dallas by Black Lives Matter that turned deadly for the police. This was nothing short of a riot and a indication of the level of tensions in this nation. I know there are many who think that since we have an African American President that our collective history of slavery and Jim Crow laws are a thing of the past. Not so. And how is this still a thing if there isn't some elemental vestiges of racism. I give you Uncle Ben Rice and the ever popular Aunt Jemima. Indeed.
I hear that the pundits on Fox and the Republicans have pronounced racism dead. In fact, they say, there is reverse racism. The white privileges they have enjoyed are merely slipping away as the playing field is leveled. And this is somehow reversed racism.
The police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota are the latest example of the problem of race in this country. The fact that one of the victims had a police record, which they discovered after the shooting, in no way justifies or excuses the police action.
We are forty-nine years removed from the riot in Detroit. Detroit was predominately white city with an inner city of housing projects and marginalized African Americans. A police raid on a blind pig set in motion the decline of a great city as whites began fleeing to the comfort of Southfield, Birmingham and West Bloomfield Hills. We still continued to live in Detroit. I went to a predominately African American high school (Mumford). I was one of six white kids in the school. I can say I know what it is like to be in the minority but I still have the color of my skin which grants me access to places some of my Black Brothers and Sisters cannot go. I do not know what it is like to be a African American mother of a son and be constantly worried that the police will stop him because he is DWB in a white neighborhood.
After Dr. King was shot in 1968 the mayor requested that the National Guard be sent to Detroit in case another riot should take place. It didn't and the city was calm and in a state of shock. The man who implored us to judge not by the color of one's skin but the content of their character was gone.
I quite understand the rage that led to the shooting of the police officers in Dallas. I don't excuse it. A peaceful protest by Black Lives Matter turned ugly. Very Ugly. But I understand the rage. Too many young Black men are perishing at the hands of authorities. However the sniper attack is cowardly and will only serve to set the cause back as the racist emerge from the closet and say things like "See, this is what we mean. 'Those People" have no respect for the police and they are just lawless They get what they deserve". And there will be those what will say just that.
I think the Black Lives Matter cause is a righteous one and needed, much as I then thought that the Black Panthers were a viable social and political engine of change. We need a dialogue in this country about race. We need to stop glossing over our history of slavery. It happened. Deal with it. I have friends who say to me that the Confederate flag is just a symbol and free speech. I say so is the Nazi Swastika but it doesn't make it less repugnant. These are strong and evocative symbols that really have no place on the national stage.
The Republican party having become the party of the Trump is revealing what a great divide there is in the country. It has brought more into the open the overt racism and the covert racism of the few. Trump won't disavow the white supremacist who supports him. Won't acknowledge the anti-Semitic nature of some of his tweets and attacks on the Clintons. All of this makes me heartsick that these feelings are rising to the surface in this country and some folks say this is a good thing. We need to "take back the country and put an outsider in office" Yep, someone who is merely fanning the flames of hatred and prejudice. I can't wait to hear what sick take the Trump will put on Dallas and he will. Trust me he will.
I am saddened by all these events. I am heartsick that a man like Trump, who has more opinions than he has common decency, might actually get elected. That so many of his supporters will say he is one of us, when he is no such thing. He is an opportunist, a huckster and a rich man. Rich beyond their dreams of winning the lottery. Why these Americans are willing to vote against their self-interests is beyond me.
I am running out of steam but I want to be clear. Our society still bears the taint of racism. Our society has let the few, whether it be the rich or the most vocal (read: The NRA) have their way while the majority either is silent or votes against their self-interests. Yes we need to take this country back from the demagogues who posit that there is no more racism because we have a Black President. Just as they will say misogyny is dead when we have a woman President. And I have to believe that common sense will prevail and we will have a woman president.
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