It’s Becoming Harder to Hide American Racism
I once came across a quote that said something along the lines of “When you squeeze an orange, you’ll always get orange juice. Likewise when you squeeze a person, you’ll always get what’s inside of them.” The idea was that if you were filled with anger and bitterness, those emotions would come out if you were stressed or “squeezed” by life. If you were filled with joy or forgiveness instead, then those emotions would flow out.
American society is being squeezed like never before. And unfortunately, what’s coming out is a whole lot of pent up racism.
The World is Watching
I currently have the rare privilege of seeing America from a foreigner’s point of view. But I’m not technically a foreigner (even though my family is of Hispanic heritage). I just happen to be stuck in Spain due to Covid-19, and have been watching with horror, not only the American mismanagement of a global health crisis, but also the potential collapse of social order in American society.
Just this past week, Americans and people around the globe have watched two separate racial incidents that show different stages of racism in America. One instance shows a woman calling the police on a black man for having the audacity to request that she follow park rules. Her specific use of the phrase “I’m going to call the cops, and I’m going to tell them an African American man is threatening my life,” when it’s clear to both of them that this is not the case, highlights the deeply ingrained knowledge of how white privilege and police bias play against racial minority groups.
Another instance shows the police using lethal force on a handcuffed and unarmed suspect already on the ground. And even though the man repeatedly told the officers “I can’t breathe,” this was not enough to stop the officer from putting his entire weight on the man’s neck, until he lay motionless for several minutes, and was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
I get that a global pandemic and a looming economic depression are putting a lot of us on edge. It’s “squeezing” people, so to speak. The trouble is that deeply rooted problems in American society are now coming to the forefront, and things like racism, extreme wealth inequality, and other structural American weaknesses are becoming harder to hide. We see it, and so does the rest of the world.
Unconscious Bias: Unleashed
Nobody has time to work on their unconscious biases when they’re worried about their next paycheck. Nobody has the energy to address social and racial injustice when they’re worried about family members being at risk of catching a deadly disease. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that when you add desperation to unconscious biases, it makes them way worse.
A few weeks ago we had armed domestic terrorists storm a state capitol, and yell in officers’ faces about how stay-at-home orders were tyranny and about the essential need for haircuts (or something along those ultra-privileged lines). In the last couple of days, as people have gathered to peacefully protest the unjust death of an unarmed black man, we’ve seen those efforts met with tear gas and riot gear. American racism, bias, and white privilege is getting harder to hide.
The problem is that when people lose faith in justice, the police, and social institutions, they either deflate into resignation, or inflate into violence. Racial healing would require a collective and sobering dive into disgraceful territory. America has never truly faced the reality and shame of its racial history. Until that day comes, these tensions will live under the surface, and they will continue to spill out anytime the people, and American society itself, is squeezed.
