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This is who we are

I've been thinking about how to write about the execution by white racists of Ahmaud Arbery.

This is a piece I've written many times before on TPV and here. I get tired of writing this piece. I write it and nothing changes.

But the reason I write it is to bear witness. We must all bear witness to what this country is.

Well-meaning people say: This is not who we are.

Maybe I'm not. Maybe no one on this blog is. But make no mistake: As a culture, this is who we are.

As an example, I present this recent incident:
Let's not put too fine a point on it. This woman—who has been revealed to be Amy Cooper, a vice president with Franklin Templeton—was basically threatening to have the NYPD execute this man. And as a white person screaming into a phone about a black ruffian, she wasn't wrong in thinking she'd get away with it.

American culture is glorious. It's also filled with darkness, a darkness we have yet to come to grips with as a society.

This country was built, partly, on the back of black chattel slavery.

To do so, the dominant race had to turn other human beings into something other than human. Something less.

Make no mistake: I believe that white people in this country knew that the black slaves were fully human. But they had to excuse how one group of human beings could condemn another group of human beings to bondage.

It's no different than what genocidiers have done throughout our recent history. Nazis to Jews. Turks to Armenians. Hutus to Tutsis. White people to black slaves.

The thing is: Once you go down that path, it's a long, hard slog to rectify it. A culture built partly on one race dominating another is not going to turn on a dime and accord that oppressed race full human rights. Not in ten years. Not in a hundred.

Yes. Black people have it much better off today than they did even in 1960. But that's relative. And as the examples of Ahmaud Arbery and the gentleman filming this racist white filth show, it's very relative. Mr. Arbery lost his life. The man in the video could have easily been killed by the NYPD on the word of this person.

This is who we are. Perhaps not individually; but as a broader society, we most certainly are. And to tut tut and say "No we're not" is to deny the evidence of our eyes and our souls.

As ever, I have no solution. If I had a solution to four centuries of racial oppression, the Nobel Peace Prize would be renamed for me. All I and the rest of us can do is bear witness. We must face the truth. And we must work to bend the arc of justice.

UPDATE

The more things change, etc.
This is why you don't threaten to call the police and say that you'll say a black man is threatening you for no good cause.



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