Monday, February 13, 2023

Black History, Multiracial Future

 

Black History: Multiracial Future

As we celebrate Black History Month, it is nearly three years since the Summer of Racial Reckoning inAmerica occasioned by the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Unhappily, we are also mourning the brutal murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis and the police killings of two Black men and one Brown man in Los Angeles right after the New Year.

The miserable state of police-Black community relations was called into question in 2020. But the entire host of inequities between the races was also laid bare in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. These included health care access, and who put themselves at risk to deliver health care and get food from farm to table, along with policing and criminal justice. Across that summer progressive activists and intellectuals condemned our entire set of institutions for “systemic” or “structural” racism.  

The mass street demonstrations of 2020 were the most widespread protest seen in the country since the Black Power rebellions of 1967–68. Racial disparities across a range of issues were openly debated. Liberal politicians began to decry systemic racism. They were joined by institutional leaders, now “woke’” from education, the arts, sports and even the corporate sector. After winning a narrow victory for the presidency that was buttressed by strong turnout from progressives, Joe Biden declared that Americans must “come together” to “root out systemic racism in our criminal justice system.” 

But we live in a divided country, and indeed two nations: one liberal and “progressive,” and the other “traditional” and conservative. Predictably, a traditionalist backlash was mountedWhile many states have passed police reform and oversight laws since 2020, many others have passed laws to increase police funding. And it has proved impossible to move the dial on qualified immunity, the policy shielding police officers from being sued by individuals unless they can show that their rights were violated.

In education, traditionalists reacted to demands for more racial diversity and inclusion in school curriculums, claiming that progressive educators were insinuating critical race theory (CRT) into their classrooms. CRT has origins in Marxism as well as Black nationalism. Any formal presentation of CRT is confined to college classrooms. Even there, it is in contention with other theoretical approaches, and students learn from different professors teaching other theories. This is as it should be. The sizable majority of K-12 teachers concerned with diversifying their syllabi today are not teaching CRT. They’re simply offering a more holistic narrative about American history and contemporary society.

A Brookings Institution report found that by 2021 several red states had passed legislation to “ban the discussion, training, and/or orientation that the U.S. is inherently racist as well as any discussions about conscious and unconscious bias, privilege, discrimination, and oppression.”  At the local level school districts have turned to book banning. In 128 school districts in 32 states, 5,049 schools, with a combined enrollment of nearly 4 million students, have banned 41% of their books because of LGBTQ+ protagonists or themes and banned another 40% that were predominantly about race. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2024, signed three bills into law in 2021 that direct how race and gender will be discussed from kindergarten through college. He stated that his goal was to combat the “woke” agenda. Since the beginning of this year he has banned the new Advanced Placement African American Studies course and announced his intention to terminate “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and Critical Race Theory (CRT) programs within the public school systems and reset scholar’s eyes upon the histories and philosophies of the West.” (The Floridian Jan. 31, 2023) 

            Progressives pushed back on several fronts in 2022. The conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision ending federal protection for the right to an abortion. But voters in blue California, Michigan and Vermont passed initiatives protecting abortion, while voters in red Montana and Kentucky defeated measures calling for greater restriction of abortion. In August red Kansas had rejected a constitutional amendment to end abortion there.

            Over the summer progressive and pragmatic Democrats stuck together to pass the Inflation Reduction Act which includes $369 billion toward climate and clean energy investment and measures to lower prescription drug prices and lower health insurance premiums via the Affordable Care Act. And in the fall with a few Republican votes they passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure act.

            Progressive legislative action bore dividends in the fall midterm elections. The combination of women activated for choice, the anticipated benefits from a Congress that acts to improve our lives, and the wacko candidates Republicans dredged up in some congressional races prevented a Republican landslide in the House, and allowed Democrats to retain control of the Senate.

Those not insignificant legislative victories, however, occurred as cops continue to kill Black people in the streets with impunity! The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act both passed in the House in 2021, but languished in the Senate last year. The women’s movement was re-energized after the loss of Roe. The well-being of middle- and working-class Americans were also advanced by Congressional action ... But cops are still killing Black people! They’re still killing Brown people in the streets!

Issues of race remain central to the long-term viability of a “progressive” multiracial democratic “nation. For me, since our social, economic and political institutions (the system!) have all been erected upon principles of favoring white people (white supremacy!), any efforts to build broad support for economic equity, gender or sexual equity, or comprehensive environmental protection flounder when they fail to examine racial inequity. The white people leading the labor, women’s, LBGTQI and environmental movements have all historically been challenged by people of color when those white led movements have failed to address the specific concerns of communities of color.

 

The progressive nation now must continue its thrust forward by electing more people to Congress who will get the George Floyd and John Lewis bills passed so more of us can get to the polls, and we can get the cops to stop killing us.

References

1.For the Inflation Reduction Act, see https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/inflation-reduction-act-lowers-health-care-costs-millions-americans

2. On the Infrastructure Act, see https://www.customtruck.com/blog/infrastructure-bill-2022-6-things-you-should-know/