How many of these names sound familiar to you? All of them? Some of them? None of them?
The answer to the first question depends on how closely you are following race relations in the United States. No one expects every American to know about every single incident of racism in the news; however, it is important that Americans follow the overall trends. The events of the last few years suggest that race relations are on a sharp downward spiral; in fact, a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that a fairly strong majority of Americans -- 63% -- feels that race relations in America are deteriorating. That figure is up 15 points from a similar Pew Research poll conducted just this past spring.
Sadly, the poll also shows that there is little agreement on how to mend race relations. The most troublesome trend we are seeing -- as exemplified by the names at the beginning of this article -- is the rising number of incidents where police are shooting and killing black suspects accused of fairly minor infractions. In virtually every instance, the officers in question are let off without penalty. And now, after years of this type of injustice, we have witnessed two recent massacres of police officers, first in Dallas and earlier this week in Baton Rouge.
Such instances are the most extreme form of racism in the United States. But this past week, Saturday Night Live and Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones showed us the more common, everyday racism still so prevalent in American society. Jones signed onto Twitter only to find herself besieged by a myriad of racist and misogynistic attacks, apparently over her role in the recent Ghostbusters remake. Jones began retweeting the attacks to shine a light on not only the problems with abuse on the Twitter platform, but also on the fact that people in America are still racist and sexist. Allegedly, a faction of the group known as GamerGate -- itself widely known for a number of attacks on women in the gaming industry, including doxing (the revealing of all of their personal information, as well as that of friends and family, on-line) -- helped to coordinate the attacks on Jones.
One can arguably cite the recent political climate for the increase in attacks on blacks and other minority groups in America. Donald Trump has become a champion of the anti-Muslim movement in America and is well on his way to possibly becoming our president in November. Religious freedom laws, such as those enacted in Indiana, Mississippi and North Carolina, serve to strengthen the rights of businesses to openly refuse to serve homosexuals without fear of prosecution, under the guise of strengthening First Amendment protections on freedom of religion. With his selection of Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate, Trump has now effectively embraced the anti-LGBT movement, as well.
But Trump is not directly to blame for the backlash against minorities in the United States; rather, Trump has simply managed to tap into the animosity and anger felt by most of the white population in America, fueling and nurturing it to his political advantage so that he is now within striking distance of being able to actually pursue an agenda of banning Muslims from the U.S. and retrogressing all the progress we had supposedly made over the last several decades.
But has America actually made in progress with respect to race relations, and relations with minority cultures in general? Back in 2008, when Barack Obama was elected as the first black man to ever hold the office of President of the United States, a part of me thought that maybe, just maybe, America was about to turn the corner on racism and move towards finally putting such ugliness into the past where it belongs. But the increasing onslaught of police killings of black suspects over minor offenses, the refusal of our justice system to recognize these murders for what they are, and the despicable attacks against people like Leslie Jones present us with an unmistakable reality: When it comes to race relations in the United States, our society has not advanced whatsoever. Until we begin punishing the abusers and murderers among us and truly show that the status quo is not okay, these trends will continue. Blacks, Muslims and other minorities in the United States should be very fearful, especially if the political and judicial climates in America do not change.