America Has a Race Problem It Won’t Recognize

Not only is America incapable of admitting to its race problems. It has developed a whole new language for discussing race in a kinder, gentler way. We wouldn’t want to offend those who would prefer not to think of themselves as racist. America used to at least recognize it had a horrible history regarding race. That, too, is changing as history books, in some cases, refer to “immigrant labor” as opposed to slavery. We now know that enslaved people built the White House, so historians talk about how “well-fed” they were. Slavery itself is being rewritten as a mere labor arrangement where the “workers” were provided free housing, food, and health care. America is finding it harder to admit it even had a race problem.

For those willing to concede that America “had” a race problem. They consider it a thing of the past. It was solved by the Emancipation Proclamation, Brown vs The Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act, or the Voting Rights Act. America has never solved its race problem or rid itself of systemic racism. It has only given it different names. Slavery was replaced by “The Black Codes,” which was replaced by “Jim Crow,” which was replaced by redistricting gerrymandering and voter suppression.

History, meanwhile, has ignored or forgotten the most heinous acts committed against people of color. We all know about “Custer’s Last Stand”.How many know about the “Devil’s Punch Bowl” in Natchez, MS, where 2,000 Black men, women, and children died after being held by Union troops in a refugee camp after the Civil War?

History doesn’t often mention “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a thriving community was attacked on the ground and from the air. Over 35 blocks of property were burned and destroyed. Over 300 Black citizens were killed, and 800 were hospitalized. 10,000 Black people were left homeless. Over 6,000 were arrested for up to 8 days. Despite the carnage, the official death toll was listed as “39” by the Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics.

Orange County, Florida, including Orlando, was claimed to have suffered the “largest mass shooting in American history” at the Pulse Nightclub shooting, with 49 innocent people killed. As horrible as that was, it wasn’t even the worst mass shooting in the County as hundreds of Black people were killed and the rest of the Black population driven out of Ocoee, FL, when some tried to vote in the 1920 Presidential Election. Ocoee stayed all-white for over 40 years afterward.

America omits the inconvenient mass shootings in Elaine, Arkansas, or E. St. Louis, or Mountain Meadows, Utah, was where Mormons dressed as Indians and killed 140 unarmed men and women. This is the history America doesn’t teach you when the victims are of color. It has redefined mass shootings to exclude more than a couple of shooters or, apparently, race-motivated murder. It allows them to forget it had a race problem.

The problem that continues today stems from demographics. Those who wish to “Make America Great Again” really mean to re-establish white control, which is quickly fading. The reason they forcefully claim “Barack Obama was the worst President in history” is not based on empirical data. They ignore that he saved an economy that was hemorrhaging jobs when he took office. He saved the auto industry. He served in grace despite the hate leveled against him. He established health care benefits for over 20 Million additional Americans. They conspired against him on his first day in office. For those who hate him, he has one inherent flaw. He is Black.

The secret to maintaining White control, even as whites will soon be a minority in this country, is to control the vote. The tactics now closely resemble those used after reconstruction. Impose voter restrictions and enact poll taxes (although we now give them another name). Position polling places where it will be harder for some to vote than others. Provide limited access to minority voters, hoping to dissuade them with long lines. America can deny the inherent racism in policies designed to disparately affect minorities as long as we can claim it’s for another reason. We all know that almost non-existent voter fraud isn’t the real reason for these laws. What America can’t acknowledge is that it’s all about race.

The list of things America won’t address because it can’t acknowledge its race problem is prolonged. Unequal funding for schools. Disproportionate suspensions and expulsions of minority students. Voter suppression. Mass incarceration. Inequitable policing. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America, you have a race problem, and it’s time you acknowledge it.

—

This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

***

You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:

Escape the Act Like a Man Box

What We Talk About When We Talk About Men

Why I Don’t Want to Talk About Race

The First Myth of the Patriarchy: The Acorn on the Pillow

—

Photo credit: iStock.com