We just marked the 50th Anniversary of the march on Selma, Alabama, and we reflect at a good time. We've heard from pundits and commentators lately on how racism is "no longer a problem" in the United States. Many choose to believe that we live in a "post-racial" society. To bolster this theory, the Supreme Court repealed part of the Voting Rights Act of 1964. Apparently, we as country have moved on.
Well that was proven wrong.
As the President marked the anniversary of Selma by marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the Department of Justice released a report on the Ferguson, Missouri police department. It turns out the Ferguson PD has been engaged in blatant race based practices for years. In fact, they treated their African American community as a source of revenue rather than citizens. The African American community makes up 67% of the Ferguson population, but accounted for 93% of arrests from 2012-2014. The DOJ report included stories of black citizens routinely charged with petty crimes and subsequent fines. Often these started out as "mere" $100 dollar fines but soon escalated into thousands of dollars, jail time, or both. In addition, FPD officers spoke down to and/or hassled African American citizens it would seem "just because".
On top of the Ferguson report yet another unarmed black male was shot and killed by police in Madison, Wisconsin, and finally, a short video emerged of an Oklahoma University fraternity singing a disgusting racial slur laced song on a bus trip. Perhaps the post-racial society theory is a bunch of B.S.
Despite what some choose to believe, we still have a LOT of race issues in this country. In the wake of the Michael Brown shooting, grand statements were made like "This is not Birmingham in 1965". Based on the DOJ report, it actually is. When a municipality treats a populace of its citizens like objects and not as humans, that's a problem. In addition to the racially based fines and/or arrests, the DOJ report also showed racist emails amongst the Ferguson police and town officials. Megyn Kelly on Fox News defended this by saying "There are very few companies in America [where]...you won't find racist emails". Mind you, she didn't follow that up by saying "...and that's a problem" or "...this shows that racism is not exclusive to one police department." Nope. She chose to essentially defend the problem.
Frankly I find it shameful that we still need to have these discussions. I don't understand how and why people look within our urban and/or inner-city communities and see the residents as them. I teach at an alternative High School whose population is made up of at risk inner-city kids. My students are around 60% African-American, 40% Hispanic/Latino. They look at themselves as separate from everyone else. I don't think this is a coincidence. I feel terrible for many of them because I know they're going to graduate high school and enter the world - be it as a college student, in the military, or in a job - at a disadvantage. I say this not in a hyperbolic sense but as fact. Too many of my students live in poverty, are coming from dysfunctional communities or both. Their lives are dominated less by regular living and more by survival.
As the marchers came across the bridge that day in Selma they were greeted as an "enemy" and not as citizens. We need to end this separation between "us" and "them" and look at each other as who we are: Americans.
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