In his March 2012 TED talk, We Need to Talk About an Injustice, civil rights attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson, describes conversations he had in Germany about the death penalty. Germans he spoke with expressed the impossibility of applying the death penalty as a form of punishment after the horror of the Holocaust. A scholar spoke up and shared: "We can never have the death penalty in Germany. There's no way, with our history, that we could ever engage in the systematic killing of human beings. It would be unconscionable." Stevenson then asks his TED audience, "What would it feel like to be living in a world where the nation-state of Germany was executing people, especially if they were disproportionately Jewish?" In the United States, "in states of the Old South," in the same towns where black people were terrorized with the threat of bombings and lynching, black people are more likely to be sentenced to death and disproportionately live their lives in incarceration.
In our current political moment, we are being asked to "'unify" with a candidate endorsed by the KKK, who ran a platform of outright hatred and bigotry, whose victory was secured not through popular vote, but through the antiquated Electoral College, itself a product of white supremacy and oppression. While his opponent's views on race have evolved and her presidency promised to be less of a threat to non-white American citizens, Hillary Clinton, as a Democrat, also offered little promise of racial justice. As president, her husband drove a record number of African Americans into prison cells and poverty with his disastrous crime bill and dismantling of welfare--both of which Secretary Clinton supported. We have long lacked the spiritual courage, across the political spectrum, to redress the ways in which, from the very founding of our nation, citizenship is equated with whiteness. The maintenance of the status quo relies upon willful ignorance of our anti-Blackness.
In our current political moment, we are being asked to "'unify" with a candidate endorsed by the KKK, who ran a platform of outright hatred and bigotry, whose victory was secured not through popular vote, but through the antiquated Electoral College, itself a product of white supremacy and oppression. While his opponent's views on race have evolved and her presidency promised to be less of a threat to non-white American citizens, Hillary Clinton, as a Democrat, also offered little promise of racial justice. As president, her husband drove a record number of African Americans into prison cells and poverty with his disastrous crime bill and dismantling of welfare--both of which Secretary Clinton supported. We have long lacked the spiritual courage, across the political spectrum, to redress the ways in which, from the very founding of our nation, citizenship is equated with whiteness. The maintenance of the status quo relies upon willful ignorance of our anti-Blackness.
"We have this dynamic in this country where we really don't like to talk about our problems. We don't like to talk about our history."
Dan Nanamkin of the Yakima Nation of Washington state, arrested while praying--photographed by Camille Seaman
An unwillingness to have difficult national conversations about our past and its legacy leads us to repeat many of the same patterns, causing harm in our dynamics with historically oppressed communities, and compromising our own fulfillment of the democratic identity we claim. The case of the indigenous-led NoDAPL coalition of water protectors highlights the cognitive dissonance that our collective ignorance fosters. The Cleveland baseball team, whose name--a marginalized ethnic group--and mascot--a caricature with exaggerated features--are both racist and insensitive. Those who defend these team symbols--and others like them, do so with claims that they are meant as a tribute and to honor American Indians. Yet, as Sterling HolyWhiteMountain calls attention to on the Politically Reactive podcast, this nostalgia and reverence for white-invented logos exists alongside a continual violation by the United States of every treaty with Indian nations, including the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline through Lakota-owned land. Imagine if fans of their sports teams' logos were as passionate about defending indigenous rights to have treaties upheld and land protected as they are their logos. The gap between claims of respect and disrespectful behaviors represents an incongruity between values and action, between a false sense of self and who we actually are as a nation.
References
Alexander, Michelle. (2016, February 10). "Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve the Black Vote." The Nation. Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/
Kamau Bell, W., Kondabolu, H. Comedian Hasan Minhaj on New Brown America and His Superpowers. Politically Reactive. Podcast retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/politically-re-active-w.-kamau/id1125018164?mt=2
Seaman, C. (2016, November 9). Dan Nanamkin of the Yakima Nation of Washington State. [digital image]. Gallery: Portraits from the Standing Rock Protests. Retrieved from http://ideas.ted.com/gallery-portraits-from-the-standing-rock-protests/
Stevenson, Bryan. (2012, March). We Need to Talk about an Injustice. TED Talk. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice
Alexander, Michelle. (2016, February 10). "Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve the Black Vote." The Nation. Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/
Kamau Bell, W., Kondabolu, H. Comedian Hasan Minhaj on New Brown America and His Superpowers. Politically Reactive. Podcast retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/politically-re-active-w.-kamau/id1125018164?mt=2
Seaman, C. (2016, November 9). Dan Nanamkin of the Yakima Nation of Washington State. [digital image]. Gallery: Portraits from the Standing Rock Protests. Retrieved from http://ideas.ted.com/gallery-portraits-from-the-standing-rock-protests/
Stevenson, Bryan. (2012, March). We Need to Talk about an Injustice. TED Talk. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice