The civil rights movement was not a movement of the black community. It was a movement of humanity, for humanity. Calling African Americans a "black community" serves an injustice to the countless individuals with unique stories. It is these generalizations that may lie at the root of America's inability to cease racism.
People have stories. Communities have more than one. And Terrence Roberts, one of the Little Rock Nine, has a story that's important to know.
In 1957, 15-year-old Roberts was one of the first black students to attend the racially segregated Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. Under orders from former state Gov. Orval Faubus, the Arkansas National Guard prevented the Little Rock Nine from entering the school, ignoring the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that segregation in schools was unconstitutional. Mobs protested outside Little Rock, threatening to lynch the nine students if they entered. It wasn't until President Eisenhower called on reinforcements and federalized the Arkansas National Guard -- taking it out of the governor's control -- that the students were finally admitted. But while Eisenhower may have appeared to support racial integration, he was hesitant to get involved.
"When you look at what actually happened, Eisenhower was not all that eager to get involved," Roberts said in a phone interview. "He had to be pushed and persuaded to finally send troops. So we were glad he listened to reason, certainly. But it was no big deal. We didn't see him as someone riding in on a white horse to save us."
Racial tensions in 1957 and racial tensions in modern-day America are the product of centuries of inequality. It was only 47 years ago that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. Previously, there was a time period of 335 years (from 1619 to 1954) during which it was legal to discriminate.
"For the greater part of that 335-year period, white males were preferred. They were part of what I call a 'giant affirmative action program,' and by law they were the only ones who could go school, own property, run for office, or prepare for professions," Roberts said. This vast period of time formed America's philosophies, politics and systems that carries into American society today, Roberts said.
The Trayvon Martin shooting stirred up racial tensions that had long existed, but were often ignored. Although young black men are frequently victims of police brutality, most cases don't get the same national attention as the Martin case.
"We have a tremendous issue of racism in this country, but no one wants to face it," Roberts said. "Most of our elected officials are afraid of it. And people find it hard to have conversations with people in their neighborhood, simply because it seems to be frightening."
In 2011, Miami police killed seven black men in an eight-month time period. A month after the Martin shooting, 19-year-old Kendrec McDade, an unarmed African-American college student, was shot dead by police in Pasadena, Calif. In 2009, 19-year-old Alexander Landau was brutally beaten and mutilated by Denver city police who pulled him over for an illegal left turn. Now Landau, whose face is still scarred, raps about the injustice he faced that January night.
"I want to believe that we're destined for a change," he says in this YouTube video.
But even in a country with an African-American president, these problems are not frequently addressed. Instead, Congress debates issues such as contraception coverage for months, while black men are dying and receiving unfair prison sentences at the hands of racist individuals.
"I think Barack Obama can't really do it," Roberts said. "Our Republicans have aligned themselves against him. He's been truly outspoken about it. Their goal is simply to defeat Obama and they are not really concerned about the real issues that we face."
While Obama's election did not escalate racism, it brought it into the spotlight, making it acceptable for people to publicly criticize the black president, often with racial undertones. Last year, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) said being associated with President Obama would be like touching a "tar baby." The president has also been accused of being Kenyan -- not American -- by birthers. And Tea Party member Marilyn Davenport sent out an image of Obama with chimpanzee parents. The caption? "Now you know why no birth certificate." So although the U.S. has its first black president, the country still has a long way to go. Racism still lies present in the mindsets of many Americans, and Obama's presidency is bringing these issues into the spotlight.
Racial inequality also lies present in America's justice system. A compilation of 40 studies from 1980 to 2005 shows that in 68.2 percent of federal criminal cases and 43.2 percent of state cases, black men received harsher sentences for crimes than white men.
And racist mentalities even linger in prisons themselves. Prisoners tend to form associations on the basis of race, religion or ethnicity. Prisons may be representative of a microcosm of the racial problems that lie dormant in American society.
"Ninety to 95 percent of all U.S. citizens choose to live monoracial and monocultural lives," Roberts said. "That's just a face of who we are, and that's part of what I'm talking about in terms of our willingness to face that reality."
Prisons may be a spectacle into the nature of this mentality whose existence is so often denied: a place where African Americans are locked up with harsher sentences than any other race, and a place that beyond anything proves the existence of racism.
When people view the black community as a whole, they stop themselves from getting to know the individuals and they separate themselves from this community. The end of a racist nation cannot just come from an integration of races in schools, the workplace and politics. It must come from a very personal change in perception. And to do that, one cannot simply deny the existence of a problem. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 changed the law. But it's the people that change a culture.
In her book, Talking with Strangers, Danielle Allen talks about the difference between oneness and wholeness. Rather than striving for an impossible "oneness" that relates to a society's desire for an impossible homogeneity (causing people to segregate themselves in search for this uniformity), we should instead search for "wholeness" -- a metaphor representing the acceptance of diversity, while harmoniously collaborating as a society.
"My goal for all of us is to see each other as peers in a universe where nobody is looked up to, nobody is looked down on, but everyone is eyeball to eyeball," Roberts said.
And in such an America, Trayvon Martin may not have seemed "suspicious" -- and he, along with countless other victims of race-based police brutality, may have still been alive today.
Follow Nicole Glass on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NicoleSGlass
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Martin would be alive today had he simply kept his hands to himself.
Is the recipe for survival that unarmed people submit graciously to armed people?
Young woman, I applaud you for your curiosity about racial dynamics in America. Don't listen to all these complainers.
His heart is full of hatred.
"The poster here talks of "all the good things that have been
achieved for black people in this country", as if those who
have borne the brunt of institutionalized racism should be
thankful for their lot; despite the fact that just about every
social index one cares to cite will show that social equality
is still but a mirage. One wonders which positive statistics
the poster is referring to? *inchings* are down..what
else...? It's usually the case that, when forced to study
their own reactions, racists are quick to adopt the defense
mechanism of trashing those who would point out their
deficiencies...anything that prevents them from having to face
up to their own inadequacies. It's called psychotic projection
and is usually displayed by those in deep denial
you tell em, pj
whats more is these people are bias about who they will look up to even to people who are invested into similar things as they only more so.
Translation: Beam? What beam? All I see is the mote in yours.
Also, African American is the presumptive term. If you are Black and an immigrant from a country other than Africa, or are born of parents who are non-African immigrants, then you are reluctant to refer to yourself as African American.
Black Community refers to shared experiences that Black people have in the U.S. As Nicole Glass states, "People have stories. Communities have more than one." Nobody is implying that to be Black is one specific thing... What the term Black Community speaks to is 1 or 2 commonalities in regards to race based treatment.
The cause of the increasingly overt racial tensions in America is not the terms that Black people have chosen for themselves.
The truth is that real conversations about race never happen. Every accusation of racism in this country is met with defensiveness and anger(It's not fun to feel accused or unheard). One side is screaming, and the other side is plugging their ears.
There also seems to be a denial of the existence of White privilege, and the role it plays in policy, media, and the public's perception of race.
White privilege is a term that has historically been used to identify the privileges, opportunities, and gratuities offered by the American society to anyone who is Caucasian and not a member of an ethnic group. This has manifested itself in a number of ways, such as, better housing, education, economic opportunities, and higher wages, etc. for Caucasians.
It is a Eurocentric attitude of superiority that is perpetuated in America by the so-called "Good Ole Boy" system of covert racism that prevents non-whites from recieving equal, fair and just treatment.
The real reason that there is no real conversation about race is that it's impossible. The outcome is predetermined, and there is only ONE set of acceptable opinions about any racial issue. Stray too far from those opinions, and you run the risk of losing your job or worse.
So it's a "conversation" that only one side gets to participate in. Which is not really much of a conversation. When someone tells you that we need to have a "conversation on race", what they really mean is that they want yet another chance to LECTURE you on the issue of race. And, quite frankly, haven't we sat through enough of those already? Do we really need to spend the rest of our lives in some kind of Freshman-orientation-style diversity awareness lecture? If they had had diversity awareness lectures when Sartre or Beckett were alive, I'm sure that's the image they would have used as a metaphor for Hell.
Thanx for proving my point. Of course he has other options, the Bill of Rights spell out a few, just for an example. Oh, and while you're patting yourself on the back, go and actually read the blog.