From the Desk of Supervisor Carson:
My Thoughts on George Floyd and Racism in America
George Floyd. Photo credit to the New York Times
A video, once again, has exposed law enforcement killing yet another Black person; one who was unarmed, handcuffed, and surrounded by other members of law enforcement, A Black man who was already under police control with no apparent threat to anyone’s life. George Floyd is the latest name, but he was preceded by Michael Brown, Terrance Crutcher, Breonna Taylor, Freddie Gray, and our own Oscar Grant, to name only a few. Within the last two weeks, another video surfaced showing three white males following an unarmed Black male jogger, Ahmaud Arbery, not far from his own home, innocently running in a middle/upper-class community. The video captured these white men jumping out of their truck and instantly becoming judge, jury, and executioner.
Video has captured hundreds, if not thousands, of these types of occurrences, where Black people, unarmed and not in the process of causing anyone bodily harm, die at the hands of whites, many times by those who have taken a public oath to “serve and protect.” These images have been chronicled in the minds of the families directly affected by these actions and viewed by the general public millions of times.
There are images prior to the advent of video – photos, paintings, and sketches - that illustrate Black people’s history in the United States; a history replete with images of thousands of Blacks being hung to death, in many cases surrounded by a mob of whites, including children and members of local law enforcement, who, again, without going through any formal judicial process, allowed themselves to be judge, jury, and executioner.
Other images show Blacks overseen by whites used as free labor to harvest food, raise commodities, and build houses and towns for the nation, all the while living on plantations as slaves, unpaid labor, treated as anything but human and depicted in plain view as animals!. Mothers divided from children and fathers from families. Images of Black slaves searching for freedom, being run down by white vigilantes. Black Africans in the bowels of European ships packed into extreme quarters with no fresh air, food, or bathroom facilities – millions dying under these conditions before arriving to the shores of “America.” These depictions show, without question, how Blacks have been mistreated by whites since being forcibly brought into this country.
What has not been captured by videos or pictures are the systemic and structural conditions that have been, and continue to be, a fundamental part of the American fabric. In my opinion, Blacks today are no closer to having real equality than when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by James Earl Ray in 1968.
Today, across the United States, educational institutions in most communities where there are large numbers of African Americans remain as communities unequally equipped to educate Black students compared to predominately white communities. Redlining is more prevalent today in efforts to accessing loans and capital, there is greater rent verses home ownership, and unfair hiring practices remain institutionalized.
These systems and structures have been consistent since the passing of the 13th Amendment in 1865 and continue despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968; and, they become even more evident when there are downturns in the economy, highlighted by the loss of Black home ownership. Whether during the 2008 housing crisis or during the war on drugs, systemic, institutional racism has been and remains ever present and persistent.
These structures are kept in place by laws and policies passed by elected officials at every level of government, including boards of directors in the private sector who make structural decisions under the guise of a democratic process. The number of Blacks who serve on these bodies, whether government or private, is extremely small compared to whites who have dominated the democratic process and controlled the levers of power since the inception of our country.
Almost daily, we see videos like that of the killing of George Floyd by white police officers. Historically, we have been presented images of the discarded bodies of Black Africans thrown over the sides of European ships during the four hundred years of the Transatlantic slave trade, and pictures of all of the elements of Black slavery in this country. The fact that institutional and structural racism continues to permeate every facet of Black life in America begs the question: Will there ever be a time in this country where Blacks will be treated as equal to whites?
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