Aug. 30, 2014
Racism - Re-Emerging and Unashamed
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - It used to be that any egregious or heinous racially motivated action or statement immediately became the subject of public scorn and ridicule. I know that not everyone agreed with the resulting condemnation, but it was typically condemned from much of society. In my opinion, the reason for this condemnation was PUBLIC EXPOSURE and GUILT!
Since I’ll speak about RACISM this week, a brief restatement of what racism is seems to be in order. RACISM is an act to disadvantage another based upon racial designation--combined with the POWER to enforce that disadvantaged position. Racism is not to be confused with Prejudice which is merely an attitude or belief system. Of course, racial prejudice gives fuel to the fire of racism, but it takes an action to create racism.
Now that I've cleared that up, let's get down to the meat on this bone. What's happened to the national shame and outrage against obvious acts of racism?
During the 50's and 60's when the organized demand for racial justice and civil rights was peaking, it seemed that the American Conscience was in the throes of dissonance. After all, there was no way to justify the brutality inflicted on citizens seeking the full-measure of their rights or to reconcile the conflict between stated national ethics and the realities of racism. Americans could not explain away the reason for the killing, beating and maiming of people of color - much of it seen on television as it happened.
The whole world was watching! The brightness of the moral superiority projected across the world by the US became increasingly tarnished by home-grown acts of violence against dark people living here. The result: Americans felt guilty and from that guilt came change. Any vestige of racism became unacceptable in polite society.
Knowledge of that part of our history begs us to answer another, question regarding racism. If public exposure and guilt led to the reduction of overt acts of racism in the past, why now are so many acts of racism accomplished in the light of day without a hint of guilt or remorse?
One only has to examine the number of Black people gunned-down by police and others to see the reality of our current circumstance. These assassins operate with a cavalier approach to the elimination of Black life and, in no uncertain terms, tell our community that their actions have reached the level of normalcy. Rather than remorse, they explain to us and to the world how deserving their latest victim was of fatal justice. Delinquent child support, wearing a hood, playing loud music, selling loose cigarettes, playing with a toy gun on a playground, holding a display air rifle in a Wal-Mart store, and an alleged improper lane change have all risen from minor infractions to capital crimes! We easily hear voices from society's conservative fringe attempting to justify these acts.
From the mouths of Republican presidential candidates, we see their justification for vilification of immigrants and Brown people. They speak of mass deportation, including native-born US babies, subverting portions of the the Constitution they don't like, and building an impenetrable wall between a neighbor state and us. As they have done with our Blackness, they’ve now criminalized the Brownness of certain immigrants and distorted their image into something entirely antithetical to "The American Way." They've changed their mantra, but the euphemistic "Make Our Nation Great Again" plays the same tune as "Let's Take Our Country Back."
Racism never went away. Many have recognized it festering under the surface of social interaction. Our greatest concern should now be how to combat its unremorseful public re-emergence and its unrepentant willingness to take us back to an age of hatred, intolerance and injustice.
(Dr. E. Faye Williams is President of the National Congress of Black Women. www.nationalcongressbw.org. 202/678-6788)