Monday, January 15, 2018

Racial Injustice Today? A Series in Honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

Today it’s his actual birthday, the man who refused to take ‘no’ for an answer. The man who spoke and kept on speaking until white America was listening, too. The man who would not be content until there was truly “liberty and justice for all” within our borders.
And he achieved it, didn’t he?
They got what they wanted, didn’t they?
Today there may be Americans who wonder about the value of yearly reliving our storied and painful past, about the emotions that it stirs.
Slavery was over a long time ago.
People should just get over it and move on.
If African Americans want to make something of themselves, then they should just work hard, the way we did.
Nobody has handed me anything free. I’ve had to work for everything I’ve got.
Inequality? What inequality? Everyone in America has the same opportunities.
I wish someone could give an example of prejudice today. How exactly are Blacks being mistreated?
I’ve heard these words often enough from the mouths of people who look like me that I went looking for answers. The claim from the African American community that injustice lives on sounds strange to fair-skinned Americans whose personal experience offers no pertinent examples. Sure, life’s not fair. We all get a raw deal sometimes. No need to get so bent out of shape over it. Of course black lives matter. All lives do. 

America is still so segregated that it’s possible to live one’s whole life without a friend of another color. As a result, we can be puzzled by public protests or cries for justice.

I wanted to understand. I wanted to see the world through the eyes of someone who grew up wearing different skin. In my quest for answers over the past year or two, I've done some reading:
Ta-Nahesi Coates, Between the World and Me 
John M. Perkins, Let Justice Roll Down 
Sharon Draper, Stella by Starlight
Mildred D. Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree
Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy
Daniel Hill, White Awake
These books gave me answers – loud and clear – a whole legacy of injustice that is far from over, a monstrosity that has been codified in law (in some cases) and petrified in our systems of criminal “justice.”  Racial inequality is not a thing of the past. It is heart-sickeningly present today. In the coming weeks, I’d like to share what I learned. If you’re looking for examples, you are invited to start right here.

It’s not enough to celebrate what was accomplished in the 1960’s. Let’s take a hard look at 2018 and see what remains to be done.

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