I am so glad to see my people out in the streets, demonstrating that they have reached the end of their patience. With. This. Bullshit. Perhaps King was right when he said that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. I am much more of a pessimist. In spite of the somber walks, the tears, the bone-deep anger, and the limited, dawning recognition in white folks that white privilege exists, has existed, and will continue to exist, I still have questions. What’s next?
After the burned out buildings are rebuilt and reopened or boarded up and abandoned, what’s next? After people are called back to work in their front line jobs, the rent and utility moratoriums are over, the next wave of COVID deaths starts being reported, what’s next?
After those who thought this was all a political ploy, or at least tried to convince us that it was, stop trying to convince us because they have family members who are dying, what’s next? After those who are angry because they lost the right to a manicure in order to save lives get their nails done, what’s next? After companies write lofty statements, and governments study the problem, and a white male or two gives up or at least shares a tiny portion of his influence while the majority of folks who have been at the bottom of the heap remain there, what’s next?
I believe that without this kind of mass movement, change will not happen. Power hangs on to its place, and isn’t willing relinquished . Absolute power corrupts absolutely. That may not be an accurate quote, but it is a bone deep truth. No white person is willing to allow themselves to, even for a day, experience life as a black or brown person. I remember the book Black Like Me by John Griffin, an account of his life passing for black in the South in the early 1960s. The same things he experienced then can easily be experienced today 60 years later. What’s next?
Where is the substance of change? All of these photo ops, magic moments, demonstrations, kneeling in public and dancing in the street mean little if things continue to happen the way they’ve been happening. How has power shifted? What systemic changes are being put into place? What’s next?
We want justice. What does that look like? Equality of opportunity and the means to take advantage of it. Not being bussed out of our neighborhoods to get a decent education. A restructuring of the role of police so that they stop being 21st-century paddy rollers. Workers who have jobs that allow them the dignity of supporting themselves and their families. Equal treatment not just equality on paper. A society that is not color blind but inclusive. Economic parity.
Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights bills changed the way America did business. Until recently, it was understood that if you served the public, you had to serve all of the public not just special groups based on some distinguishing characteristic. For example, restaurants would have to serve all customers, even though individual customers might not be served because they didn’t qualify for service (so shoes, no service). Hotels had to allow anyone who could afford a room to rent one. Public accommodations became truly public. Public segregation was legally impermissable, even though we know that it still persists today. Redlining, food deserts, college admissions, and more are evidence of the continued prevalence of discrimination.
What changes would we like to see, and how are they to be accomplished?
On June 1, BET founder Robert Johnson argued that “now is the time” for white America to acknowledge damages resulting from slavery, and for the U.S. Government to provide reparations in the sum of a $14 trillion wealth transfer to help prevent the country from splitting into separate and unequal societies. “I’m talking about cash. We are a society based on wealth. That’s the foundation of capitalism,” Johnson said. Read HERE.
Reparations is an idea that has been floated repeatedly but never implemented in relation to slavery. “One form of reparations offers restitution for living victims who suffered in the recent past. The other focuses on descendants many generations removed from the original injury,” writes Thai Jones in the Washington Post.
How does a nation make up for the denied opportunities without discriminating against those who haven’t actively done anything but whose very existence is based on previous discrimination? Is that possible?
Anything is possible, if we make it so.