{"id":8994,"date":"2014-12-15T10:51:52","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T18:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/?p=8994"},"modified":"2020-12-16T17:08:36","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T01:08:36","slug":"we-cant-breathe-why-we-need-to-give-racism-a-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/2014\/12\/15\/we-cant-breathe-why-we-need-to-give-racism-a-chance\/","title":{"rendered":"We Can’t Breathe: Why We Need to Give Racism a Chance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"we<\/a><\/p>\n

In the wake of the Mike Brown and Eric Garner decisions, of the excessive additional unarmed youth who have been killed in the short weeks following the injustice, and in the face of vast disparities facing our country at every level, I believe that there is an important discussion that we need to be having, but one being generally avoided.\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

In our society, we’ve demonized the “R Word” so much so, that people pretend it doesn’t exist in our communities, and certainly not in our government, legal system, or other public spaces. That word, and problem, is racism.<\/p>\n

A recent public poll<\/a> found that only 6 percent of whites in the United States believe racism to be a very serious problem. On the other hand, most of people of color report experiencing racial discrimination in their lives.<\/p>\n

A similar Gallup Survey<\/a> on black-white relations revealed that seven of 10 whites believe that blacks are treated equally in their communities; eight in 10 say blacks receive equal educational opportunities, and 83 percent say blacks receive equal housing opportunities. Only a third of whites believe blacks face racial bias from police in their areas. That means two out of three whites believe that black Americans are treated exactly the same as white Americans.<\/p>\n

But when you look at the data, it’s appallingly clear that this isn’t the case.<\/p>\n

A major national study revealed that people with “white sounding names” are 50 percent more likely<\/a> to be called back for a job interview than those with “black sounding” names, even when all other credentials are the same. First-time arrests for black youth have an incarceration rate that is 48 times higher<\/a> than white youth, even when all other factors of the crime are identical. Black Americans are 2,100 percent more likely to be fatally shot by police<\/a> than white Americans. In fact, the average black male has a one-in-three chance<\/a> of going to prison in their lifetime.<\/p>\n

To explain these staggering statistics either you believe that people of color are naturally criminally inclined, have a poor work ethic and are predisposed to engage self-endangering behaviors, or you believe that we have a systemic wide problem across our political, legal, education, financial and health sectors. Either way, it confirms the existence of prevalent racism.<\/p>\n

The civil unrest that is occurring now is only one battle in a long war. Black Americans have been fighting for air since they were dragged here as slaves and treated as property. Think about it: Eric Garner’s murder would have been punished in the 1800s for destroying property but our “justice” system ruled that his life was not even worth that. Native Americans have been dealt with unjustly since immigrants arrived to steal land and commit genocide without retribution. They’re expected to be grateful that they can build casinos while our system continues to hack away at their rights, while major sports teams still see them as savages and mascots. We still have a state (Florida) that has a law embedded into its constitution<\/a> designed to prevent Asians from owning property. When it was on the ballot, voters elected to keep it there!<\/p>\n

People of color have been drowning, struggling for air in a “justice” system that is anything but just to those most affected by its oppression. Racism did not end with the march on Washington, Dr. King’s “dream” seems like a far reality when those who enforce our laws are not held accountable to live by them. It did not end when Obama was elected president. The end of racism could not be captured by a single moment because justice is a process, not an event.<\/p>\n

Garner and Brown were just two names published in the media but every 28 hours<\/a>, an unarmed black man is killed by police. There is a heartbreaking story of racial disparity, of murder, of injustice every single day. I say that these are small battles in a larger war because we aren’t dealing with rogue incidents — we need an overhaul of a system that is unjust, unfair, that is militaristic and upholds racism. If these events of police brutality and murder were occurring in another country, such as China or Afghanistan, you would hear an uproar from our elected officials instead of that indifference that they are showing here. This is why it matters to be informed, to vote, to protest. There is no social change unless people change their behaviors and their attitudes towards society and the system at large.<\/p>\n

We need to stop treating the everyday experiences of millions of people like a relic of a bygone era. Racism as a major problem does not live in the past, like polio or smallpox. It permeates nearly every aspect of our society. We need to give it a chance to exist so that we can treat it like the disease it is.<\/p>\n

Like any disease, we need to treat the root causes and bring more awareness. As a society, we’ve been so worried about accusations of racism, that we’ve been ignoring the actual realities of it. The symptoms are there, we can’t go on ignoring them.<\/p>\n

We can change this pattern, we have an opportunity to develop equity and justice into a practice rather than an afterthought. Begin by having an uncomfortable conversation about race, begin by giving racism a chance to exist. Only then can we begin to work on its root cause.<\/p>\n

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In the wake of the Mike Brown and Eric Garner decisions, of the excessive additional unarmed youth who have been killed in the short weeks following the injustice, and in the face of vast disparities facing our country at every level, I believe that there is an important discussion that we need to be having, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,829],"tags":[382,1243,1224,1248,1276,47],"coauthors":[1420],"class_list":["post-8994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-guest-bloggers","tag-anti-black-racism","tag-eric-garner","tag-michael-brown","tag-police-brutality","tag-simon-tam","tag-white-supremacy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8994"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11275,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8994\/revisions\/11275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8994"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}