Recently I was sitting in a restaurant here in Taiwan enjoying my lunch when I saw a video of a man pinned to the ground by a police officer whose knee was on the man’s neck. I then saw some crazy video footage of an auto parts store burning. The sound on the TV was off, and the only information on the screen was in Chinese subtitles so I didn’t actually understand what I was seeing. While it was unnerving to see that the man on the ground seemed to be struggling, I didn’t realize that I was seeing a man in his final breaths. I also didn’t particularly take note of the fact that the man on the ground was black and the cop was white.
Eventually I began to hear what kinds of things were happening in not only the Twin Cities where the event took place, but also in my home state in the capitol city of Madison - the very city where we plan to move upon our return to the US.
Since that time I began to get some kind of collection of what is happening, and I heard the same story told with different undertones and overtones.
One person said that protesting the death of George Floyd was only the tip of the iceberg, that there is someone paying people to riot and to take part in destructive behavior in order to weaken the US with anarchy. That seemed to me a big concept, and it actually provoked further digging. I haven’t heard the same story from any other corner, so far, and at this point I can’t verify whether it has factual or fictional basis.
Another version of the story was pointing out that in Floyd’s autopsy it turned out he tested positive for COVID. This story was further illustrating what the black community has been going through during this pandemic and how, unfortunately, the black community in the US has been in a much more vulnerable state to be hit by the pandemic than the white community. For example, having less accessibility to tests, less access to information about the pandemic, less of a luxury to be able to take off from work or to work from home, as well as a myriad of other things, such as how common close dwelling situations and multi-generation dwellings are. This story, really, had little to do so much with the actual protests, and more with some of the things that might be spilling over into the current protests and riots.
I was talking to a friend today whose summary of the situation is that there needs to be dialogue in order to better address the questions of racial equality. He was saying that it is a very complex situation, and the solutions that will improve the life situations of the black community are equally complex. He also pointed out that while this is clearly an instance of police brutality, he didn’t see anything that specifically painted it a black vs. white issue. I asked him, “do you think police brutality happens against white people as well?” His answer was, definitely it does, we just don’t hear about it as often.
So I have a few questions at this point which aren’t really answered. We know that racial equality has gained support over the last several decades, and I personally believe that it is becoming less of an issue than it was in the past. Does it still exist? Yes, I believe it does. But why? Is it because of racial prejudice on its own? Is it because of problems on the part of the black or the white community? Is it related to the generally higher crime rates in predominantly black areas and the other issues that go alongside of that? While I am not racist, I also have had limited interaction with blacks largely because of where I lived when growing up and the circle of people with whom I spent my time. I have known blacks in a variety of contexts, but at this point I don’t have very many close friends who are black. I have one such friend and she’s lovely. She is married to a white guy, and they have a couple of super cute mixed kids. She is generally my go-to person when I have questions about race (culture, prejudice, whatever) in the US. I say that to point out that I have limited first-hand experience understanding the mentality, culture, family dynamics, etc., of African-Americans. What I do have is first hand experience with a marginalized people group in Romania - the Roma who are more commonly referred to as Gypsies.
For myself, I’m watching this situation from the other side of the world and I feel that it gives me a little more of a distance with which to consider it all. In the last year I’ve also read a few things which shed for me a different light on these events and give me a different perspective than I would have otherwise.
1. The Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
2. The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
4. A podcast about the life story of Ida B. Wells from The History Chicks
While one of these sources is fictional, it gives narrative to deeply racially rooted problems which happened repeatedly in the South - lynchings of blacks and in particular black men. Ida B. Wells was a lady who made continual efforts to expose these lynchings and how unjust they were, and usually unfounded as well. She did this by writing about them and describing them in detail. While the other two books are not actually addressing matters of race, they also are of value in this situation.
In The Hillbilly Elegy, Vance describes the life of not blacks, but rather white, working class people whose roots are in the Appalachia mountains. He describes life in a community that is full of the same crises as much of the black community such as poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic turmoil and violence, family structural issues including single parent homes, and so on. Another issue he describes in these hillbillies is an illusion of their own goodness, their own work ethic, their own noble causes while not actually doing anything to further any of those things. While it is not about the black community, it has helped me to see why the solutions to help communities with these types of problems are actually very complex and in no way straight forward. He also describes the types of insane measures often taken by hillbillies in order to protect the honor of one of their women or to stand up to insults made against your family. Vance describes an instance where an uncle of his was called a son of a b****. The uncle took this as an insult against his mother. His response was to beat the guy up and run an electric saw up and down the man’s body. The guy didn’t die, but came close to it. But the police often don’t step in on matters such as these in Appalachia. In this sense, I feel it also helps me understand a little better the mindset of those who lynched black men on the flimsy accusations of raping one of their women - including the dad and daughter from the hills that Harper Lee introduces us to.
The Coddling of the American Mind is mostly addressing the issue of young people who are in their college years now. They have been raised in an ultra-safe environment where even ideas that challenge their own perspectives are viewed as hostile and unsafe. These young people feel threatened by just about anything because of having lived a life of over-protection from teachers and parents and society at large. Lukianoff and Haidt paint examples of people who essentially became riotous on their campuses in response to some stimuli or another. I remember reading, for example, about a girl who felt like she didn’t fit in on her college campus as a Latino in a predominantly White setting. She wrote a letter to someone, I believe the dean of the school, and received back a very respectful letter from someone who wanted to have open dialogue with her and work to find solutions to make students like this Latino girl feel more at home. But there was one line in the whole letter where the wording turned off this young lady entirely along the lines of “I’m sorry you don’t fit in here...” This resulted in an angry social media post, which resulted in throngs of people ganging up on the dean and even demanding she be fired. This type of scenario is what the authors call a “witch hunt.” The idea is that people get worked up about something, and their response to fix the problem lacks rationale and reason. The response also results in someone becoming a target of the many.
Why do I bring up these two books? While I think protests can be useful in raising awareness of the current issues, I don’t believe the riots serve that purpose at all. The riots and looting don’t correct the wrong that was done, nor do they enhance the lives of those in either the black or white communities. To me, these riots look quite a lot like witch hunts. I do hope for improvement of those whose lives seem to be caught in an ever-downward spiral towards poverty, oppression, and marginalization. I also see from Vance’s description of his hillbilly community that truly there are so many things that need to be improved, but they will take not only the effort of the society as a whole, but also the effort and knowledge on the part of those who are caught in the cycle of poverty. They have to know that what they do does matter, it does have results whether good or bad, and they have to take responsibility for their own actions. If help is offered, but the people don’t take hold of it or don’t know how to use the help offered them, it doesn’t do any good.
So these are my inconclusive thoughts so far on a very deep issue, one which sprung out as a result of an unjust death at the hands of a police officer.
