March 20 2018
While we watch Trump lash out, flailing and descending further into chaos as Mueller seemingly closes in, we experience a weariness borne of familiarity. The playbook is the same —baseless attacks, boneheaded policy moves likely to tank our economy (Chinese tariffs anyone?), the addition of TV pundits/conspiracy theorists to the White House staff, and most consistently, a default to vindictive cruelty. In a speech in New Hampshire on Monday, Trump suggested that a solution to the opioid crisis was to execute drug dealers! He has justified the proposal to scrap Obama era rules designed to lessen the racial disparity in School discipline with the claim that it would prevent school shootings, despite the fact that the majority of mass shooters are white men. Trump’s solution for every problem plaguing this country is to punish as many people of color as possible.
It is against this backdrop of an openly racist president that a story in Monday’s news was a punch to the gut. The New York Times reported on a study detailing how much racism stacks the deck against Black boys, even when they come from wealthy families. In a longitudinal study of 20 million young men born between 1978 and 1983, researchers from Stanford, Harvard and the Census Bureau found that black boys fare worse than white boys in 99% of census tracts, including those characterized by affluent, educated, stable families (Source: “Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys,” by Emily Badger, Claire Cain Miller, Adam Pearce and Kevin Quealy, The New York Times, 3/19/18).
This heartbreaking article provides metrics for what we already know anecdotally—persistent racism is a pernicious force crippling the least among us and seriously handicapping even the most privileged. This data detonates any claim that Black people enjoy an “unfair advantage” in our society. It reveals white resentment for what it is—anger that civil rights laws robbed them of a permanent underclass. The existence of that underclass served to shore up the self esteem of mediocre white racists who abhorred the thought of sharing power and competing with everyone. This same viewpoint feeds anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant fervor in equal measure and is profoundly antithetical to this country’s professed ideals.
The data uncovered in this study pre-dates Trump’s election and lays bare the hidden biases that Trump exploited to secure power. Data like this, along with the 57% spike in anti-Semitic incidents since Trump’s election prove that it will not be enough to get rid of Trump. We all bear a responsibility to repair what is broken among us if the country is to have any hope of surviving this presidency. It is not enough for those of us who are not Jewish to eschew anti-Semitic language or stereotypes. We cannot sit silently by while those who profess to lead our community traffic in hateful rhetoric (whether it is D.C. Councilman Trayon White or Minister Farrakhan). We must forcefully rebuke it, lest we make common cause with Nazis, who would gladly exterminate us all. Those of you who are not Black must interrogate your unconscious bias. Examine the tacit assumptions you make about the intellectual ability of Black people. Question your reluctance to consider the possibility that the best lawyer or doctor or professor might be the Black one.
It is certainly true that we must win the midterms. There is no doubt that we will need to rebuild the foundation of the Rule of Law and trust in our institutions. The truth is, though, all of that work will be for nought if we don’t do the hard work of rebuilding our “beloved community.” Otherwise, we’ll just be sitting ducks when a smarter demagogue comes along.
#Nohate
#itsonus