be happy with my own kind

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“My belief is that people prefer their own species – same color, same nationality, same politician, same age, etc. Why do we call racism when whites prefer whites? Why this white privilege? Blacks prefer Blacks, Democrats prefer Democrats, teenagers prefer teenagers. No name for that! Why do I reject a yellow tomato or an orange pepper? Am I the only one who doesn’t like foods of an unusual color? Is it a prejudice?

The preceding paragraph is from a letter, referring to a recent column of mine, which was recently offered to me for publication in a newspaper and was sent to me by a resident of New Hampshire. Although I have advocated for its publication, the editors have informed me that they do not intend to publish such an inflammatory and ignorant screed.

I was disappointed. There are days when it is both perversely comforting and institutionally necessary to witness outright manifestations of racism. Racism visible through veneers of respectability, racism not colored by jargon, racism woven into fallacious tropes about “all people being equal”.

Tropes deliberately mis-contextualized an ambitious quote from the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. from 1963: “I await a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. “

The sun had not yet risen that day, MLK longed for our children to see it.

Indeed, just four years later, in a speech never cited by deniers of systemic racism, MLK said: “… There can be no doubt that racism is still alive all over America. Racial injustice is still the negro’s burden and America’s shame. And we have to face the fact that many Americans would like to have a nation that is a democracy for white Americans but at the same time a dictatorship over black Americans… ”

It is an America that many still face – racism, poverty and an ongoing war against the humanity of even communities of color.

An America where some days I believe in the racist porn of Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson and others, people who are clearly enemies of human rights and democracy, more than me hypocrites who deny the existence of systemic racism by working to deny frankness and equal rights to communities of color and minorities.

Unfettered, they continue: “… Our country is improving all the time. Think back to the days of Jim Crow and how badly black people were treated in the South. Compare that with modern times… ”

Better?

Ask black veterans who only received 60% of the GI Bill benefits that white veterans received, which widened the wealth disparity gap between white and black Americans.

Ask better of the survivors of Tulsa, Watts, Charlottesville, Charlotte, El Paso, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis.

Ask Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, George Floyd, about better.

“Racism,” suggests the author of the letter, “is non-existent among a large portion of successful blacks who have become professional athletes, popular musicians, broadcasters, business leaders and many other fields … “

Ask Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, John Carlos. Tommie Smith and Colin Kaepernick on nonexistent racism.

Ask company boss Kamau Witherspoon, senior vice president of operations at Target, about when the police came to his house with guns, after being called by a neighbor saying there was a black man suspect who crossed his upscale neighborhood, about a non-existent racism.

Ask the non-profit National Community Reinvestment Coalition about non-existent racism. As the Washington Post reports, the NCRC found “that black people seeking small business loans under coronavirus relief programs were treated less favorably than whites – even when they had more financial profiles. solid ”.

“A lot of people lead happy lives among their own,” they continued. “So what? Why should aliens tag them? Do these aliens want to come in? I recommend aliens find their own kind and not complain about others.

I am so grateful to have received this letter.

Racism survives both because too few people are willing to do the hard work of confronting their own privileges and advantages, to question the relationships and dynamics that structure our society, and because some people, like the author of the letter, are too blind to recognize its reality. .

While I believe, as academics like Derrick Bell and Kimberlé Crenshaw argued in Critical Race Theory, that systemic racism runs deep in the institutional character and psyche of America, we cannot let individuals, like this writer, get away with it.

Racism survives because too many people would rather educate their children in superficiality and ignorance than to understand that America, 400 years after the first slaves arrived in these lands, has yet to fully face its sins. origins of racism and genocide of indigenous peoples. peoples.

Racism survives because rather than doing the hard work of confronting the inequalities in our communities, too many people, white or non-white seduced by their closeness to whiteness, would rather people like me just didn’t exist.

Racism survives because racists fail to understand that it is not about preferring their own species. Racism is about those with power and privilege limiting the choices and opportunities of Americans devoid of power and privilege.

It survives because of the institutional failure to recognize that by fully facing our history, we would be a stronger nation.

“… Why are your opinions so narrow?” They ask at the end. “… But since you are who you are, why are you trying to impose your views on your readers? You would be happier to interact with your own species, not the wide range of readers of [a New Hampshire newspaper]. “

They would rather, like all racists, prefer that I submit, on my knees, to white privilege and express gratitude for their tolerance allowing me to express my constitutionally protected opinions, as long as I do not offend them!

Today I prefer Americans of the same family, those who believe in equality, justice, diversity, inclusion and fairness for all Americans, who believe in welcoming the traveler, who believe in in the humanity of all peoples.

They are Americans from the same family.

My own kind.

(Robert Azzi is a photographer and writer living in Exeter. He won the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications First Amendment Award in 2018. His columns are archived at theotherazzi.wordpress.com and can be reached at theother .azzi @ gmail.com.)

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