The senseless killing of Trayvon Martin, and the subsequent release without charge of the man responsible, has cast a glaring spotlight on the stark reality of continuing racial inequality in the justice system. But the callous lynch mob mentality of those attempting to assassinate Martin’s character and disparage black culture (by way of a justification for Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman) illuminates something even more insidious than institutionalized racism: The obstinate and oblivious intolerance of an “American” culture that publicly prides itself on equal opportunity and acceptance, while enshrining the toxic legacy of white privilege.
Those flocking to Zimmerman’s defense—the ones who don’t openly harbor white supremacist political views—insist we live in a “post-racial” society. In their world, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 instantly granted equal opportunity to all, and closed the book on any discussion of race as a factor in social injustice. And anyone who would question this self-evident truth, they believe, could only be doing so cynically for political gain.
This worldview completely overlooks the reality of what it means and has meant historically to be a racial minority, particularly a black man, in the U.S.
From the outright atrocities of the slave trade and the crushing indignity of the Jim Crow era, to the community-shattering social Darwinism of the “Reagan Revolution” and the continuing fallout of its failed promise, few groups in this nation’s history have faced such naked hostility from the cultural establishment as the black community.
We are all familiar with the imagery of those fighting for equality during the “Civil Rights Era”—the brave faces of those who endured the blast of fire hoses, were beaten with truncheons, bitten by dogs and shot with non-lethal and lethal rounds by a system that said “no” to equality and human dignity—but what about those who fought against it? What happened to all of the angry, white faces from those not-so-old photographs? Where did they all go, and how did they raise their children to view their non-white peers?
It isn’t fashionable for white people to acknowledge their own cultural existence these days, but the fact that it took an act of military force to integrate our public schools suggests that an awful lot of them did not so long ago.
Perhaps 1965 was a kind of revelation, a profound shift in white culture’s attitudes toward minorities, as the post-racial narrative would have us believe. For a white person, it is not necessarily a difficult proposition to grasp; after all, we elected a black president.
But then how to account for protest signs depicting Obama with a bone through his nose, wearing stereotypical “gangsta” clothing or political cartoons depicting watermelon patches at the White House?
One telling incident concerned an email distributed by an Orange County Republican official that included a picture of Obama’s head superimposed onto the body of a baby chimpanzee. The woman responsible claimed she never even thought about the President being half black (probably because she “doesn’t see color”), maintaining instead that it was legitimate commentary on the President’s “character” and the “questions surrounding his origin of birth.”
How do post-racialists explain this? How do they explain Trayvon Martin?
While claiming to not see black or white people—just people—many post-racialists insist that suspicion of black people is rationally defensible, citing race-based crime statistics to justify profiling young, black men.
They have criminalized non-white (but particularly black) culture, as evident in the case of Martin. The attempt to lynch this young man’s character is rooted in an ugly double standard on behavior.
Actual criticisms of Martin made by people attempting to justify Zimmerman’s actions on internet comment boards include: he listened to rap music and emulated the fashions and proclivities of those associated with it; he used the word “nigga” in his Twitter handle; he probably smoked weed and was perhaps not a model student. For all of these reasons, coupled with race-based crime statistics (inexplicably cited by those who claim to be colorblind), we are meant to distrust the notion of Martin as a victim and view him as a real threat that Zimmerman had to “neutralize.”
Not getting straight As, skipping school and dabbling in marijuana are not generally considered capital offenses, and the fact that so many people would present them as such in Martin’s case because of their personal distaste, mistrust and fear of his people’s culture as a whole, reveals a lot about this supposedly post-racial country.
And at this point, the Zimmerman apologists have washed their hands of it. They claim they are not against the color, but the culture, of black people, and a common (and deeply paternalistic) dismissal of Martin’s death goes something like, “the real tragedy is the way they are killing each other.”
The census bureau predicts that by 2050, 62 percent of children will be ethnic minorities. The people who naïvely cling to, or worse, cynically perpetuate the myth of post-racialism are only going to make this transition more painful for everyone involved.
What is needed, now more than ever, is a frank and evenhanded discussion about race as it pertains not only to the past and present, but to the future of this country.
It’s impossible not to notice skin color or the appearance of people who are different than us; our brains by their very nature categorize the world and everything in it, and that includes people. When different cultures comingle, there is bound to be some friction—people say and think racist things—but while we can’t completely control our thoughts and feelings, we can take responsibility for our actions and try to counteract and challenge our own cultural prejudices.
A society where people are judged by “the content of their character and not the color of their skin” is a worthy ideal to work towards, but we don’t make it there by pretending there’s no such thing as race and no such thing as racial privilege. On the contrary, only by confronting the insidious culture of privilege that still divides our society along racial lines can we fully embrace an egalitarian future.