The article you are about to read depicts suffering beyond my full comprehension,and therefore does not intend to assume or wholistically interpret the experiences of people of color in America, rather it serves as an educational piece promoting justice and understanding. Know that this article does engage heavily with race/minority politics, including discussions about structural violence to oppressed communities. Harsh and possibly offensive language is used but within meaningful context. Also be aware that all the links provided are for the purpose of education, but many contain unsettling information/images depicting events from the past as well as instances of racially charged violence and homicide in the present.
Introduction – America’s Guerilla Lynch Mobs:
This May, a strange and very ugly thing happened in Richmond, Virginia. The picture below may seem like a colorized copy of some lynch mob in the early 20th century, but you would be wrong to assume that. Rather, on May 14, 2017, a group of white protesters wielding lit torches, led by the likes of well-known white nationalist Richard Spencer, marched upon the site of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee that was scheduled to be dismantled and removed. Cities all over the south have been making some efforts to remove monuments depicting the Confederacy in a positive light. At the protest in Virginia, white nationalists chanted slogans such as ‘you will not replace us,’ ‘Russia is our friend,’ ‘you cannot destroy us. we have awoken. we are here. we are never going away.’ Their theory is that by destroying these monuments, we are disappearing (white) American history, trying to erase it.
Rally in Virginia headed by White Nationalist Richard Spencer, protesting the trend of dismantling confederate monuments in the south.
On the contrary, the history books need to include the horrible episodes in our nation’s past and present so we can learn from them, but we don’t need monuments on display in city squares praising the Robert E. Lee. The common pattern here when dealing with white nationalists, is their tendency of running with a fraction of the truth to prove a point. So in this article-turned-essay the Fulda Gap will attempt to curb any arguments in favor of policies, perceptions, or presidents supporting efforts to silence those who feel it is necessary to fight for the rights of African Americans, immigrants, and other people of color. President Trump’s policies and rhetoric of Mexican border walls, Muslim travel bans, and support for BlueLivesMatter policies, likely contribute to the political climate that has led to more frequent racial tension and profiling (both by law officials and civilians).
America has a dark past of race-based violence of which we are all aware, to say otherwise would be a flat-out lie. But in the public sphere there exists a debate as to whether or not widespread, normalized (institutional) racism is prevalent in American society. Therefore a decision to classify an act of violence or murder as racially motivated has become increasingly controversial. We see this on the news, read about it, hear it on the radio. Muslim families are humiliated, unarmed black men are shot by the police, and immigrants of all stripes face harassment in an America where Trump has validated and revitalized a sense of misplaced entitlement within the white community. It is a message that tells white nationalists that something was taken away from them and will continue to be taken from away if something is not done. Thus his slogan: Make America Great Again.
Some believe America did what it could to provide reparations in return for generations of black families under enslavement and segregated society. It follows here that the issue lies within black/minority communities’ dysfunction rather than a culture of oppression and white nationalism prevalent in most of US history. A common stance on racism in America among white Americans is to forgive, forget, and move on as a society. Many others see that the issues relevant in times of more commonplace and unapologetic racially motivated killings are still relevant in the present day. Supporting evidence for this argument lies in America’s history and current incidents of race-related violence, as well as the memories of those who live(d) through these times.
The lynching of black US citizens was a common occurrence in the American South after the Civil War and up until (but not officially ending in) the early 1960s. In the present, the term ’lynching’ usually describes an act of violence existing purely in the past. Meanwhile, many alive for such times are still living today, black and white. This article does not suggest the disappearance of lynching in American society, rather it describes the transformation of the lynch mobs of the past–as groups rallied into a murderous frenzy–into their current state of unpredictable and mainly isolated attackers. Today, the potential organizers and perpetrators of extra-judicial, racially-motivated killings are
Dylan Roof, the young white nationalist who gunned down several black parishioners in a South Carolina church.
comprised of mainly policemen and then “lone-wolves” or small fanatic groups, all usually dismissed by politicians and conservative talking-heads as benign to any greater societal ill. Meanwhile, the same people will bend over backwards to defame unarmed black men like Eric Garner, murdered by unacquitted policemen.
The guiding phenomenon for this narrative suggests that, despite progressive shifts in US federal law and the ethics imposed onto the populous by the Civil Rights movement, the socially accepted racist beliefs and institutions fought against 40-50 years ago do in fact continue on today. Not only have they been carried into present day, but since the code of ethics condemns blatant violence against oppressed people, white nationalists are forced to actively explore new avenues for further exploitation in line with their beliefs. While to many much of racially motivated killings today seem blatantly so, there are those who push to deny the existence of popular and unchecked racism in American society. Some would go further to say that those who seek to call out racism and abolish racist institutions really mean to erase American culture, which is almost ironic seeing what their ancestors had done to African slaves and other people of color. However, this article does not attempt to suggest a way to prevent this from happening other than suggesting that those complicit in the actions of the perpetrators attempt to educate themselves on these issues.
Part I: Emancipation from Slavery and Its Aftermath
At its conception, America had sewn the seeds of a future rampant with the repercussions of lawfully racist institutions. The laws put in place to lessen racial discrimination in the workplace etc, cover basic, blatant racist behavior, but in terms of the structures in which certain business owners have to work within. Discrepancies outside of what is legally considered racially biased treatment often show up in pay, relations with coworkers and management, and eligibility for opportunities in leadership. In areas of the US where racial bias is more likely, these discrepancies are more glaring in comparison to ‘less’ racially biased areas. However, ‘less’ racially biased areas do tend to have an overwhelming white majority. This sections reviews the origins and continued prevalence of racial bias, which has stemmed from white reluctance towards the emancipation and growing autonomy of the African Americans.
The emancipation of the enslaved black community brought a bitterness upon the upholders of slavery and those who benefited from the structures within US law enforcing the subjugation of African Americans. When confronting the issue of slavery in America, one of this conversation’s cliches is the argument that slavery has existed in many other societies. In line with such arguments, Irish indentured servants are rebranded as slaves by those who believe that the existence of white servitude in American history quells claims of oppression by minorities. If I remember correctly, I learned in my 4th Grade history class that many Europeans immigrants, including the Irish, came to America in the 17th and 18th centuries as indentured servants, usually as a result of debt or crime. Forced servitude as well as child labor was certainly present, as neither were a social taboo at the time. However, by definition, indentured servants are not bound to lifelong servitude, as their labor is based on a repayable debt. Indentured servants could work their way out of their contract. The enslavement of Africans on the other hand was not based on a mutual understanding since African slaves were considered property and not people (aka ‘chattel slavery’). You can read up on the fallacy of white slaves in America here
18th Century woodblock of the carrying capacity of the slave ship the Brookes. White indentured servants did not experience this level of dehumanization as chattel.
What makes theories of white enslavement in America so interesting, particularly concerning the myth of Irish slaves, is when one realizes who founded the old South. The American Sociological Review released a report entitled ‘The Legacy of Lynching’ (you can download it from the link provided) which has informed much of the article’s historical references to lynchings of African Americans following the Emancipation Proclamation as well as the culture of honor and violence in the traditional American South. Drawing upon findings presented in the works of social scientists Nisbett and Cohen concerning honor and violence in Southern culture, some rather interesting correlations are drawn between the origins of the predominantly Scotch-Irish immigrants who governed and lived in the old South and their positions as upholders of chattel slavery:
Nisbett and Cohen (1996) draw upon previous insights….to formulate what is perhaps the most influential statement of the Southern “code of honor” thesis in the criminological literature. This thesis maintains that the emergence of a Southern culture of honor can be attributed to ecological factors and, more specifically, the settlement of the South by Scotch-Irish immigrants, who largely came from herding economies, and to the pervasiveness of herding economics in the traditional South. According to this argument, a distinguishing feature of herding economies is that they are inherently precarious because “herdsmen constantly face the possibility of loss of their entire wealth–through loss of their herds….As a result of this precariousness, members of herding societies develop a stance of “agressiveness” and “extreme vigilance” to communicate their willingness to protect their animals “at all costs,” and they embrace a value system that places a heavy emphasis on honor. Nisbett and Cohen further propose that socialization into this culture of honor makes Southern white males particularly sensitive to insults and ready to fight and kill to protect their reputations when challenged.
This of course does not explain away the origins of a structurally racist society, and by no means do their national origins explain their proclivity to violent behavior, rather it is the effects of herder economic structure and its aggressively possessive mentality that made such a dynamic more likely to occur. Mixed with the American economic structure that normalized human trafficking through racial pseudo-science and appropriation of the Christian faith, it is unlikely slaveholders’ perception of African Americans as chattel changed through some effect of the abolition of slavery.
It seems important to also mention here that, while many know the North/Union Army as the side that fought against slavery in the Civil War, polarizing racial tension and inequality are not strictly southern characteristics. A study on Rhode Island’s relationship with slavery by the University of Iowa also found that “Abolitionists coined the business relationship between northern industrialists and southern planters as the union of “the Lord of the Lash and the Lord of the Loom.” The phrase, in so many words, describes each region’s attitudes towards racism and racist institutions. So while racially motivated violence is more common in the South, racist policies and sentiments also thrive in the North.
It is a widely unknown fact that the port cities of Bristol and Newport in the tiny northeastern state of Rhode Island were hubs of great wealth in the Northeast, owing much of this wealth to the their large investment in the slave trade. In fact, Rhode Island’s full name–The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations–reflects that relationship. (Measures were made in the 1990s and again in 2010 to vote for the state’s name to be revised to just ‘Rhode Island, but were defeated). New England’s textile industry between 1815 and 1865 put many (former) slaves to work. Slaves working on plantations in the south picked the cotton to be made into textiles by horribly underpaid workers in New England living in factory tenement housing.
Bitterness of southern whites at their loss in the bloody Civil War lended to the spilling of more blood and a pursuit for alternative methods of weakening and subjugating the newly freed black community. Also used as a method of subjugation outside of slavery was the prison system. Disguised as institutions practicing criminal correction and community service, jails filled with black bodies deemed to be criminal. Sentences used to jail black offenders were often based on accusations spurious and petty.
The American Sociological Review report also goes on to theorize that the very Southern sense of honor and all-or-nothing attitude did happen to reflect onto the southern black population as well, but in a different form. Just as southern whites’ code of honor was used to justify offenses against the black community, the code of honor adapted by African Americans was used as a method of defense and alternative to (white) dominant systems. A lack of access to legal representation post-emancipation resulted from prejudiced bias against black communities would attempt to live lives that would place them outside of the law’s reach so as to decrease any dependency on a system that was inherently hostile and resentful of black autonomy. Unfortunately, such tactics have proven to be somewhat of a double-edged sword, that remains sharp on both sides to this day. Following the logic of Nesbitt and Cohen, avoiding the auspices of white authority only served to antagonize whites who had grown comfortable with free/cheap labor and a social hierarchy that prioritized their needs.
The divergence in white and black codes of honor stemmed from a long relationship of distrust bred by the master-owner dynamic of slavery that would continue in the form of informal, locally supported suppression of blacks, that was either ignored or condoned on a state and federal level. The tension resulting from this distrust was stretched even thinner by segregation and its aftermath well into the 20th century. As the occupation of slaveholder/slavetrader demanded, slaves had been treated as assets, as valuable property that could be stolen. The emancipation of slaves was perceived as a great robbery of free labor and represented the painfully slow and wavering descent of normalized and overt white supremacy in America. (To be clear, the process of denouncing racism is still ongoing.)
Perhaps the cruel methods practiced within the institution of slavery, contrasted with black autonomy, (however limited that autonomy was) contributed to a fear of backlash and therefore distrust. After all, black communities’ distrust of white authority stems from generations of terror and abuse. Thankfully, southern whites’ cynicism in expecting a revolt as a result of emancipation did not come to fruition. W. E. B. Du Bois, a prominent black
intellectual around the turn of the 20th century, wrote many articles and essays on the conditions of free African Americans in a heavily segregated society, depicting intense interracial competition for paid labor. The codes of honor upheld by each
Prominent turn-of-the-20th-century black writer and thinker W.E.B. Du Bois.
group correlates with a social hierarchy based on the value of ones’ labor. But for many, emancipation from slavery gave freed blacks two options among few others: underpaid work in a segregated society or unpaid work in jail. If a black person was accused of a crime independent of the law, such as a white perceiving paid black labor as a theft of his ability to work, there was a possibility of a lynching taking place.
White crowds would gather in wooded areas or even public places, in some cases jeering and applauding, to witness the demise of a black life. The so-called justifications for these killings varied. Alleged crimes committed against a whites by blacks had disturbing disparages in levels of lawful offense. Petty theft and eye-contact with a married white woman have been reasons for southern whites to suddenly rally for justice. Given that lynchings were so readily resorted to, it implies the perpetrators’ regard for their victims as less than human. Of course more serious offenses such as murder and rape were bound to occur (and as likely to be committed by a white man), but with such a low level of justification for extra-judicial killings, anything goes. Below is an excerpt of a description of the 1921 lynchings in Tulsa, Oklahoma:
Many participants of lynchings were not sought out to be brought to justice. The perpetrators of the murders themselves, as their status as white men granted them certain immunities in interracial disputes, could often assume anonymity or seek protection from the law. This of course depended on whether or not an alleged lynching case was even investigated in the first place. In 1998 for the British Journal of Political Science, James Clark addressed the fact that, “fewer than 1 percent of the lynchings before 1940 were ever followed by a conviction of those responsible [and as a result, the new, post-slavery] generation of blacks grew to hate policemen, just as their parents and grandparents had hated Klansmen.”
A lynching in the early 20th century. The white perpetrators smile and pose with their victims and fellow Klansmen.
Part II: Progress Meets Regression
In an era where lynch mobs became less socially acceptable, liberal progress against discrimination towards blacks and other minorities cornered violent, vengeful bigots. The Civil Rights era of the mid-20th century was a major shift towards anti-discrimination through a process of desegregating public services and spaces, as well as the federal system. Anti-discrimination laws and laws pertaining to hate crimes were passed, as well as an (admittedly tepid) imposed set of ethics that aimed to hold the perpetrators of racially motivated violence accountable for their actions. Of course none of this came without mass public demonstrations which, in the case of the marches in Selma and Birmingham were met with batons, attack dogs, fire hoses, and even lynchings. This was only 53 years ago, an event possible for one’s grandparents could recall.
Little by little, Civil Rights activists have chipped away at symbols and remnants of the institutions of slavery, racism, and the Confederacy. In 1939 and 1965, the voices of Billie Holiday and Nina Simone recorded their own musical renditions of Abel Meeropal’s poem Strange Fruit [link to song contains disturbing
Billir Holiday singing Strange Fruit on a live broadcast.
images]. The song describes the horror and sadness felt by the black community towards America’s continued practice of extra-judicial killings. In the 1950s and 60s, sit-ins paved the way for desegregated businesses and public services and transportation. Brown v. Board of Education desegregated schools in 1954. In the 1960s affirmative action “was used to refer to policies and initiatives aimed at compensating for past discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion or national origin.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a powerful force behind peaceful resistance to race-based hatred and discrimination. After one of his most famous addresses in 1968, Dr. King was murdered. He was not hanged by a lynch mob as a symbol of peoples’ justice, but shot by a lone gunman on a motel balcony. Whatever his exact motives were, James Earl Ray certainly felt threatened by Dr. King’s message of equality. Rather than rallying up a troop of spectators and capturing Dr. King, the murderer took the task upon himself, a one-man lynch mob. Police departments and white nationalist civilians alike attacked the Civil Rights movement and sought to uphold states’ rights, or rather, local government’s ability to legalize discriminating policies.
Popular black artists of this generation such as Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce Knowles do their own part to normalize confronting issues of racial violence and inequality. MIA writes songs to raise awareness of refugee and minority perspectives from Sri Lanka, to the Middle East and other war-torn regions. A whole new generation of empowered black and brown men and women are making strides to abolish the symbols and institutions of white supremacy. The removal of the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina state capital grounds was another sign that the beliefs that the flag symbolizes will no longer be tolerated.
Kendrick Lamar’s controversial performance at the 2016 Grammies depicting the continued oppression and segregation of the black community.
Efforts in New Orleans are currently taking place to dismantle and remove “four monuments of the Confederate and Jim Crow eras.” The Associated Press reported that workers on the four sites in New Orleans were heavily guarded due to death threats. Here, white nationalists feel their very existence is threatened. Many southern whites condemn these actions as erasure of Southern history and culture, some calling it the beginnings of a ‘white genocide.’ However, the last thing America needs is for this part of our history to be erased. Confederate symbols and America’s history of brutal treatment of African slaves would serve a better purpose as components to a cautionary to future generations in museums and history books.
Claims of reverse racism, which go back as far as the Bakke Decision. This case revolved around a contention over Allan Bakke, a white male, who was refused assistance through affirmative action into the University of California. The case argued for the white working American in the heartland, who have also seen their fair share of disadvantage and poverty. But by its original design, the allocation of funds to cases concerning affirmative action do not apply to individual cases of populations who have fallen through the cracks of bureaucracy. Bakke’s accusations of “reverse discrimination” do not apply here, because the object of affirmative action was to even the playing field for those affected by discrimination based on race, gender, religion etc.
The difference lies in the fact that the financial woes of various poverty stricken white communities are not a result of centuries of slavery, segregation, and discrimination. Despite this simple fact, voices coalesced in support of the Bakke Decision to erase race from the criterion for assistance through affirmative action. This was caused by a growing movement of white/white nationalist resentment towards government assistance to minorities. The movement includes those who believe reparations for oppressed minorities had already been made by simply loosening up the legal framework for their full participation as American citizens. To many low-to-middle-class whites, they perceive(d) their own experience of poverty as no different from those who were initially targeted for assistance through affirmative action. Such a conclusion is based on the belief that, technically, the same laws and liberties that apply to whites also apply to blacks and other disadvantaged communities.
Part III: Tension and Release
Someone once told me in a very matter-of-fact way, that “a n***** is a black person who thinks white people owe them something.” This didn’t come from a known KKK member or an affiliate of any other white nationalist group, but a successful, middle aged businessman born and raised in New Orleans. He just so happens to hold the opinion that the rightful end to reparations came with the legal transformation of citizenship for women and people of color (POC) which the Civil Rights movement set into motion. However, this opinion becomes more harmful than harmless as oppressed communities make their voices louder in an age of hyper-connectedness through the internet.
The issue presented here is that each step towards social justice for oppressed minorities simultaneously serves as an affront to whites who believe further reparations are not reparations at all, but special treatment. Not demands for equal rights, but demands for supra-citizenship. Misconceptions like these lead to much social regression in poor and working-class white communities, as they perceive liberal academics promoting the ascension of black and brown people ‘above’ the white man. As recent race/minority relations in America have seen popular support for progress towards social equality for all, we have also seen the countermovements of white nationalists and their less overt (if-at-all conscious) supporters.
Complicity has much to do with tacit (‘neutral/moderate’) white nationalism, or rather a lack of understanding the nature of tacit connection. For example, it is less confrontational to deny supporting racist beliefs let alone flat out being accused of being a racist. Your average white man or woman wouldn’t like to imagine themselves to be capable of such petty prejudice. But it is possible, unknowingly or not, to participate in oppressive behaviors despite lacking displays of overt bigotry. Disengaging from such issues only strengthens and opens doors for oppressive policies’ and attitudes’ plausible deniability through lack of public interest. In other words, as South African anti-aparthied activist Desmond Tutu once said:
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
In today’s political theater, some politicians as well as some average working class folk have taken on the argument of whether or not that mouse’s life is truly compromised by the elephant’s excessive weight; whether the elephant is indebted for its injury to the mouse; whether it was the elephant’s intention to harm the mouse. Activists who raise awareness about social injustice have started a cultural shift where in the struggle for social justice does not question the experience of African Americans and other marginalized PoC.
In the past, (white) action (in support of black and brown people) was predominantly in reaction to physical violence, the backlash of long-lived tensions that were dealt with less blatantly when racial violence wasn’t spiking. Although not much has changed in this sense, activists seek to confront the tensions between oppressed groups and white nationalists by defining the problems and seeking to rectify them through exposing their roots in a still prevalent sense of white superiority and a belief that minorities thrive off the welfare system through some vividly imagined willful ineptitude.
A few glaring examples of this divide comes to mind:
Black Lives Matter started their loosely managed, but extremely popular organization in reaction to US police forces’ unprofessional use of firearms resulting in the murder of hundreds of unarmed black men across the country annually. When one looks into these killings, we usually find disturbingly short reaction times between the arrival of police personnel, confrontation of the situation, and the death of yet another unarmed black man. Questions of complicity in and intent of racially motivated actions by police officers have helped muddy the details known to the public about these killings. Many arguments defending the officers who abused their power to a lethal limit omit this unprofessionalism and blatant disregard for conduct.
Black Lives Matter protest makes a statement by interrupting Toronto Pride to convey sentiments of intersectionality and implore queer allies to think about their complicity with a society that rewards whiteness over all else.
Conflict between the police and minorities, especially the black community, is nothing new. Our inability as a country to recognize and correlate this behavior to that of the police officers who brutalized blacks in the streets and in their homes less than a century ago, normalizes the idea that extra-judicial killings are something that is ethically up for debate. Simply reviewing US citizens’ rights within the legal system, even the phrase ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ should silence all attempts to justify, simply put, state-sanctioned lynchings.
Michael Brown’s parents weep in his memory.
But those who support the All Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter movements will often find common, stereotypical justifications for these murders, citing marijuana use, gun ownership, and in some cases even photos of the deceased holding the former items as props in what looks more like a theatrical display of hip-hop and street culture than a slideshow of a dangerous gangster. In other cases, such as that of Michael Brown, some of efforts to incriminate him posthumously have been completely fabricated. Over 100 black people have been killed by the police in the first four months of 2017, and meanwhile white America is arguing over whether the police, Tutu’s proverbial elephant, are murdering unarmed black men based on their race or based on substantial evidence worthy of bloodshed. The authority structure of the so-called free world is an enormous and powerful institution, which with all its resources and support should be capable of hiring and training quality officers instead of reactionary, poorly trained officers who kill hundreds of unarmed civilians.
Here are some sources that have documented these murders [contains graphic images/concepts]
Shocking new video shows unarmed Utah man was listening to headphones when killed by police
Mappingpoliceviolence.org [list of unarmed victims]
White Nationalist violence has hidden behind plausible deniability for decades by those who support the kinds of people and policies that end up contributing to the popularization of white nationalism. For example, those who tacitly harbor similar, usually less blatant and overt, racial/social biases are easily persuaded by arguments for national security.
Within the first 100 days of Trump’s so-called anti-establishment presidency, the Republican administration’s proposed travel ban on those who are either residents of or have travelled to 7 specified countries with Muslim majorities was shot down twice by resisting cities/states. The policy was justified by the administration as a measure of national security in reaction to the frequent terrorist attacks in Europe since the rise of Daesh/ISIS and al-Qaeda. On the morning the travel ban went into effect, thousands showed up to support those being detained in airports across America. Some of those detained were American citizens of varying ethnicities.
Backlash to predominantly leftist outrage by those who supported the ban and other domestic issues derived from foreign policy took two forms. First, the condemnation of opposition news outlets by Trump-approved media influenced the opinions of their readers/viewers, creating a very convicted nationalist sentiment. Second, the climate of heightened defense against a foreign enemy excites and enriches the convictions of those who would seek to do harm to the demographic(s) presented as a threat(s).
In the case of Trump’s policies and rhetoric concerning Muslims and the Middle East, it aided in white nationalists’ targeted public relations foothold: creating rising trends in anger and fear towards Muslims, often presented as inherently violent and immoral, therefore in opposition to Western/Christian values. A little over a month after Trump’s inauguration, several attacks on PoC started with the white attacker yelling some nationalist sentiment, perceiving the victims’ skin color as indicative of their immigrant status.
On February 24, a white man in Kansas who screamed “Get out of my country!” before he shot two Indian men, killing one. The Washington Post reported that, based on the slurs the man used against the men before he shot them, witnesses suggested that he may have assumed the two victims were Middle Eastern. In another rather chilling episode in Portland, Oregon on May 26th, a white ex-convict stabbed three men in the neck (killing two), who tried to get in between the ex-con and the two teenage Muslim girls he was yelling at. One of the girls told KPTV-TV, “He told us to go back to Saudi Arabia, and he told us we shouldn’t be here, to get out of his country.” Other similar attacks can be easily looked up online. The 35 yr old assailant shouted in his court hearing a few lines justifying the attacks, such as, “You call it terrorism. I call it patriotism….Death to the enemies of America….[and] Leave this country if you hate our freedom–death to antifa.”
The two men who died last weekend defending two young Muslim girls from a violent Islamophobe in Portland.
Even before the current administration, we saw violence against Muslims and people of Middle Eastern heritage. In 2015 we saw the murder of three Muslim students attending University of South Carolina. Their murderer, a man who lived in their apartment complex, claimed the murders were warranted due to a history of parking disputes. Once again, a white man resorting to extra-judicial killings against PoC for illogical reasons. But for some, these instances are not enough supporting evidence of America’s innate, violently nationalist and xenophobic tendencies.
In Conclusion
Lynching has transformed from an overtly socially acceptable method of local extra-judicial justice, to an even more decentralized and unpredictable movement within the more militantly white-nationalist-minded, who are usually ostracized from, but incited by, the rhetoric of conservative politics and media. It has also continued to be an institutional method of racial control in the form of killings carried out by law enforcement, killing thousands of largely unarmed black and brown people. However, in a society that has the ability to disperse mass media 24/7, narratives are easily commandeered, violence against black and brown bodies can be explained away, and the perpetrators of such violence, especially public servants such as the police and ICE, can often walk away with their careers and reputations still untarnished. White America has much baggage to remove from the shoulders of those who have been oppressed by the painfully slow realization that we have been the perpetual source of their undoing, and that their voices and demands should be respected, heeded, and deeply considered.
This article-turned-essay was at first intended to be a short dip into the intricacies of racial tensions and race-based violence in America. However, it soon turned into a deeper and more involved endeavor as it was realized that many of the anecdotes and assertions made in this article are easily subject to strawman arguments that seek to drown out the narratives of black and brown people, whether they be citizens, refugees, undocumented, or just visiting the US. In an effort to engage with such arguments, this piece has curated examples of historical cultural trends and instances of irrefutable instances of race-based violence and prejudiced structures against black and brown people in the US. It is utterly important that we listen to and boost the voices, stories, and histories of those who are most prone to social struggle and oppression based on their nationalities, skin color, or religious beliefs.
