“We have to agree to disagree” is NOT the answer! We are talking about LIFE & Death, prescription Justice and Equal Protection Under the Law. We cannot agree to disagree where that is concerned.
It disturbs me that so many white people cannot see that what we are dealing with in Ferguson, cheap Missouri or Staten Island, NY or Sanford, Florida or Los Angeles County, California has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing! When white people are determined to avoid the recognition that what we have in the U.S.A. is a systemic and institutionalized racism embedded and entangled throughout our nation’s governmental, civic, educational and social institutions, the privileges that white skin and complicit oblivion affords white America become something that is not only intensely frustrating but deeply disappointing. This neo-Apartheid infects and affects every part of life in America whether or not one wants to acknowledge it.
I have friends, who are white, and though we have had intimate conversations throughout the decades, we have worshipped together, broken bread together, raised children together and even wept together, they cannot understand why I am so disappointed in the “same old rhetoric” they spout out almost as a reflex that always comes down on the side of absolute oblivion with regard to the TWO Americas in which we live. It is painful to realize that if I were to become a victim of abusive policing or my son or nephew were victimized, would they EVER recognize it as an injustice or only a tragic event? They would not have my back because they would not recognize the need nor would they have the moral conviction to do so. It is not their battle to fight, and they do not recognize the loss of liberty and freedom for some as a threat to the freedom and liberty of all. For them we live in a country of laws and all you have to do is follow the law and justice shall, miraculously, be served. That type of magical thinking is a function of the privilege of having white skin in America.
Injustice is not something most white people have to live with as a part of their daily lives, nor do they have to teach their children survival tactics for when they encounter law enforcement. Our young people have to be educated concerning the “nature” of being Black in America when they come face to face with an historic legacy that required America’s Black citizens to go to jail, suffer for decades, get beaten, bitten by dogs, and even die just to be considered citizens of a nation which their blood and sweat built. There has never been equal justice in America.
Of course, there are whites who do “get it” and have dedicated their lives to the struggle for justice and equality for All people, and they would be the first to say there should be no “special” accolades given to them for that. Many of the whites that I know do not SEE the chasm that exists in this nation. They are not willing to recognize the deep and abiding problem that is the color-line that divides us. The SILENCE in the work place, the church house, schoolhouse, the neighborhoods and communities across this nation is extremely disheartening. Some of the anonymous blogs and social media commentary is frightening. The ignorance, hatred, and even disdain for Black people are rampant throughout white America. The “good” white folks I know are mostly silent and that is a painful silence to hear.
Dr.T
Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, Ph.D.
Founder and Artistic Director
The Conciliation Project and
Associate Professor
Virginia Commonwealth University
DrT@Margins2theCenter.com
www.theconciliationproject.org
Up Next Week: Fall Classes Begin: A Teaching Moment
