Riots | Author Sean T. Smith

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Martin Luther King, Jr

Baltimore burns and the nation cringes. We see the non-stop coverage on CNN, the same inflammatory images repeating on an endless loop. Hate is like that, too. It doesn’t stop until we turn it off; unfortunately many people are turning it up, until rhetoric is a scream which drowns out any sort of hope to solve the underlying problems. The racial problems in this country, from economic disparities and police violence, to political disenfranchisement must be addressed. The nation is hurting and the rage seethes just beneath the surface, spilling out into the streets with increasing ferocity.

I’ve seen a staggering number of internet posts claiming that our current racial tensions are President Obama’s fault. The people who believe that are deluded. When Obama was elected the racists kicked into high gear, really putting their backs into it, finding ways to sow fear and cruelty and divisiveness. Hate-mongers with microphones and laptops have done their best to frame issues in the meanest, most lopsided ways possible, worsening a greater problem.

So the cycle continues something like this: poverty, lack of opportunity, and a toxic environment lead to a feeling of powerless, gut-wrenching anger. When racial profiling and police brutality are not only systemic, but systematically denied by governments, those same people get even angrier. They protest. Most of them are peaceful, but violence erupts, gasoline on the fire. While the news spends 90% of its time playing the inflammatory images of police getting hit by bricks or of stores burning, the media misses the greater story. The country misses the truth, and the truth is not black and white. The greater story, the real one, is more complicated… it’s more than one story. The one where blacks and whites are working together for positive change. The story of children handing out water bottles to police officers, cops risking their lives to save teenagers, grandmothers and fathers marching for justice that has thus far been elusive. The story that black teenagers know all too well, of the conversation their parents had with them when they first got their driver’s license. “If you get pulled over, keep your hands in sight at all time. Say ‘yes, sir,’ and don’t make any sudden moves.” White kids don’t get that talk.

White people and black people alike are appalled by this violence in Baltimore. It’s counter-productive. It only serves to confirm racist suspicions coiled around the back of many people’s minds, triggering otherwise sane and seemingly decent people to spout bile like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Rather than stepping back for a moment and asking why these people are so angry, it’s easier to say “what kind of people burn their own city?”

And there it is, couched in what passes for discourse and news coverage. Words like us and them…Those people. There is an “otherness” about the dialogue, rather than a togetherness. Hate, rather than love.

Racism and bigotry are a choice. If this nation is to heal, each of us must do some collective soul-searching. We’ve got to choose love over hate. We must place a priority on our nation’s future, and that means creating more jobs and educational opportunities, putting an end to the bloodbath taking place every day in our inner cities. It means voting for leaders who recognize the severity of the problem and who offer realistic ways to address it, regardless of what party they happen to be affiliated with.

Rather than be outraged at the violence we’re seeing on the news, we should be shocked for the reasons it is happening. We must come together as one people in the spirit of unity and love, for that is the only way to end this cycle of hate.

We can deny a thing, but this does not make it any less true. Racism exists and continues to shape America, and while some still dispute this, it remains a fact. Can we, as a people, overcome this legacy, or is the nation doomed to repeat the same mistakes repeatedly, inventing new tragedies along the way?

Racism is more than one thing.

There are different kinds of racism, but at it’s core is a generalization, a stereotype, which is used to define an entire group of people based upon ethnicity. It is limiting, reducing the content of a person’s character to the color of their skin.

Institutional Racism

When racism is codified, when the promise of equal protection under the law is broken, the country itself is undermined.Police officers shoot and kill unarmed kids without consequence. Racial profiling. Gerrymandering in minority areas to split up districts so that the vote is diluted. The inequities in our Criminal Justice system in which black offenders are far more likely than Anglos to receive harsh sentences. The disparity in funding for schools and education between affluent areas and inner cities. Institutional racism dates back to the origins of our country, when slaves were deemed to be less than human. The Emancipation Proclamation began to address this, and the Jim Crow laws were finally repealed, and the Voting Rights Act was a great step toward dismantling institutional racism. It lingers, still, though, and all you have to do is flip through cable news to see it.

This is directly linked to economics. Poverty perpetuates racism. Lack of jobs, education, and opportunity creates an endless cycle. A war on poverty is also a war on racism; this is the battle we need to be fighting, not a war against eachother.

Cultural Racism

Racism is part of the American psyche, woven into our collective history. It thrives in the South, but is by no means limited by geography. Stereotypes, played out again and again on television and movies, in music and the stories that the news decides to focus on, reinforce this kind of racism. This works both ways, too. In many black communities, there is a distrust of white people, of the police, and the feeling that not only is their voice not heard, but that it does not matter. This distrust, distaste, this sense of unfairness spills into the streets, simmering in the shadows until it explodes with violence.

Individual Racism

Each person must make the choice to be color-blind. It starts with us. If collectively we choose to see a person for who they are, not by the color of their skin or the clothes they wear or the car they drive, then racism will cease to plague the nation.

Closet racists are the worst. They fill a pew on Sunday morning and spew hatred on Sunday night. They choose sides, rather than choosing a person. They don’t consider themselves to be racist, yet their actions prove otherwise, their veiled condescension, the hypocrisy they wear like a coat. When the media seizes upon cases like Trayvon Martin or the killing in Ferguson, these are the people who assume that a kid deserved to die, rather than question their own beliefs or the facts of the case. They call in to talk shows like Rush Limbaugh, hide behind anonymity on social media, and broadcast hatred and division with snarky memes and mean headlines.

If this continues…

The country is becoming increasingly diverse. America has always been a melting pot, but it’s been the rich white folks who have made policy decisions since our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. As time goes on, the balance of power will shift. It’s already happening, and there is much screaming and gnashing of teeth over this fact. It’s inevitable, though. Within two generations, white folks are going to be in the minority.

There have been calls for civil war, revolt, secession, assassination and violence from extremists who are terrified of the changes coming to America. Rather than work within the system, they seem to want to break it entirely. This kind of thinking is seditious, dangerous, and gaining traction. As we move into the next election cycle, it’s going to get even worse.

We need to vote for responsible leaders, and do it in every single election.

But people are decent and good, for the most part...

The next generation will be better than mine. My kids don’t really see race. I think each subsequent generation will improve upon the one before, and that with time, the lingering vestiges of racism can be stamped out. It takes time, effort, and teaching our children. It takes honest dialogue and love for one another.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Check out my books on Amazon! Next year, The Tears of Abraham will be published, a novel about the coming American Civil War.