Charleston is a beautiful city with its own disturbing history when it comes to slavery. You can almost not see it when you walk from excellent restaurant to tea shop to leafy lane to the battery. Oh wait, there’s Fort Sumter! As writer Reynolds Price (and others) have pointed out, slavery (and the killing of native Americans) is our original sin. Will we ever get past it? The shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston exposes racism against African Americans at the level of a mad individual, but also at the level of a society in turmoil. Who is a terrorist? Who is a person of color? White people have been terrorizing people of color since they landed on these shores, but rarely are they called terrorists. And with the white Spokane NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal identifying as African American, we wonder, who is passing for what and why?
Broad Street, Charleston SC. Photo credit: Khanrak (Wikimedia Commons license)
The shootings of so many African Americans by the police reveals the racism of society and the state (not to mention the absurd militarization of the police). Although we have an African American president and even an African American senator from South Carolina (although he is a conservative Republican), these are only symbols, not evidence that racism has been erased in this country. Indeed, they are used as false signposts. Racism has transformed itself into something less obvious, but still insidious. Of course, the murder of these nine people is about as loud a shout as you can hear, but the response from the Republican candidates about race, victimhood, gun control, and the Confederate flag reminds us that behind suits, ties, mod spectacles, and great wealth lies racism—straight up.
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama attend a church service at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. Photo credit: Pete Souza (Wikimedia Commons license)
And what about the issue of Ms. Dolezal and her alleged race identity? Why has one person’s claim struck such a nerve that she has gotten more coverage than any single individual murdered by the state or in the church in Charleston? Of course, somehow it gets linked to sexual abuse and transgender identity, which also seem to be on everybody’s mind these days. As we used to say, “it sells papers.” Now it sells clicks.
But I am asking, how does all this fit into a larger narrative? Why now, when we have an African American president, are we finally seeing what police are up to in every city in America every single day? It is not because we have an African American president. It is not because we have a Hispanic woman on the Supreme Court. It is not because a talented gay Hispanic poet penned the inaugural poem. It is not because we have Al-Jazeera USA.
It is because we have of all of them. America is no longer going to be a country run by white heterosexual men. Indeed, the country is supposed to be a majority minority country by 2042. Obama was reelected in large part by nonwhite people. In other words, some folks see the sand shifting beneath their feet.
Social justice activists affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement gathered at the Dupont Circle fountain for a vigil with speeches to honor the lives of the nine African Americans slain at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Photo credit: Stephen Melkisethian (Flickr Creative Commons license)
I think the Republican-leaning one percent knows this. And its strategy has been twofold (at least). On the one hand, point the finger at immigrants, people of color, and the poor and tell middle-class white folks that it is those “others” who are taking their jobs away (when it is in fact the corporate class shifting jobs overseas). And on the other hand, be sure to promote a few people of color just in case—people like Clarence Thomas, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, and Tim Scott. Throw in the NRA, and you have a toxic mess. People like Dylann Roof are not just crazy, they are crazy in a context. It is unlikely that I will live until 2042, but maybe then the foundation for atonement will be laid.
