Get with it, White Folks: We are either the problem, or part of the solution!
It's never me, never my parroted racist rhetoric and buzz words, my incessant posting of undocumented propaganda, my invisible privilege, my lifelong bias that I'm not even aware of, or my unseen desire to perpetuate a comfortable reality that works just fine for me, while screwing over an entire class of people.
It's always some other person: a "bad apple", who engages in an "isolated incident", that was "intentionally provoked." We also know that this provocation, which is code for “they got what they deserved” was “perpetrated” (note the use of the language of the police) by a "welfare cheater", or “some entitled bitch who wants my job without earning it." or, "a couple of scary, young thugs". We also know, for sure, that "these people” are “lazy by nature", that their poverty is "their own damn fault" and of course, our favorite vintage Reefer Madness quote, “half of 'em are always hopped up on drugs, anyhow"! (Also note that Blacks and whites use drugs at similar rates, but imprisonment of African Americans for drug charges is almost 6 times that of whites).
In our “God given” righteousness, our rightness and our whiteness, we expect them to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and invariably cite Hollywood actors and millionaire athletes as examples of the possibilities, if only "these people” would “apply themselves".
The reality is, that America’s wealthy land and business owners kept the poor white working class busy, and subservient, by engaging them in enforcing Jim Crow laws, starting immediately after the abolition of chattel slavery. This model had worked well previously, as all US territorial land was systematically stolen from the original inhabitants, who were portrayed as “savages” that needed to be “tamed”, and white settlers and soldiers where willing to get the job done, in exchange for a small piece of paradise.
Today, a sophisticated, modern, James Crow III, Esq., and his brother, Rupert M. Fox, have bamboozled white Americans into thinking that our many social and economic problems are caused by people of color. The behind the curtain reality, is that the corporations moved manufacturing out of the country, corrupted and co-oped our political system, stopped paying most taxes, requested and received large scale financial aid packages, and shifted the weight of service provision “for the greater good” back to individual taxpayers.
The sad truth is, that this well-defined system of intentional inequality incarcerates African Americans at more than 5 times the rate of whites. While African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32% of the US population, they comprise 56% of all incarcerated people. Median income levels are 40% lower for Blacks than their white counterparts, and median wealth is 90% lower. Black people are more than three times as likely to live below the poverty line as white people, and so the saga continues.
They can't “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”, my dear, sad, disgruntled and confused white neighbors and friends, because so many don't have any damn boots! And if that’s not bad enough, 400 years of inter-generational, systemic racism, fueled by white supremacy, and supported by white complacency, stole their shoes too, then sold them back, on credit, at the annual payday lending rate of 400%.
Black Lives Matter
Jeffrey Michael Bowen
Image Credit: Civil Rights Movement photo from Bettmann Archive/Getty Images