First is to state, in simplest terms, solidarity with all those who are threatened by white nationalists.
And to state in the simple, decent and humane phrase, Black. Lives. Matter.
It should be utterly uncontroversial to say so. That people manage to take offense to it, shows how successful and pervasive white supremacy continues to be. The young men with their Tiki torches in Charlottesville didn’t look “marginal”; and they’re not, any more than the Klansmen who wore clownish costumes and went back to normal lives after committing horrific violence, were marginal.
And now, they have an ally in the most powerful office in the world. We knew who Trump was, who he’s always been: An unrepentant, raw racists. That was the very core of his appeal to the GOP base — the thing that separated him from the GOP pack. That so many fellow Americans voted for him continues to be a shock that I can’t live down. A gut-punch, every single day.
I will somewhat awkwardly — but, I think, appropriately — bring this back home to Massachusetts. We also live in a white supremacist-ordered society. It is impossible to deny. If you were a torch-wielding Nazi, you would:
- Demand that African-Americans/people of color be segregated from whites in housing. You would keep them away even in homeownership, and certainly try to zone them out of your neighborhood.
- Infiltrate law enforcement so that policing reflects your vicious agenda. (More … etc.)
- You would make your hostility clear through vandalism.
- You would use the prison system to keep people vulnerable and poor, for generations. While they’re there you’d charge them outrageous rates for using the phone, and make them drink unsafe water.
- You would demand that even doctors treat people of color worse than whites. You might try to take away their health care altogether.
- And yeah, you might shout some epithets at a Red Sox game, or on the street.
(Yes, I’ve referred back to this post, a bitter list of particulars.)
I’d like to suggest that we use this moment to envision “positive peace, which is the presence of justice“. There are substantial steps we could take, right now, this year, to start to degrade this setup. For example, we could pass a raft of criminal justice reforms: Sentencing, diversion from prison, eliminating de facto “debtor’s prison”, etc (all here, many thanks to ProgressiveMass). These bills are in this legislative session; and in context of the whole, it would be a very modest start indeed.
What would a non-white-supremacist Massachusetts look like? live like?
fredrichlariccia says
” There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
ELIE WIESEL, holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner
jconway says
For starters fully desegregated schools, classes, and housing. The first one already happens with controlled choice in Cambridge and making that either regional through expanded METCO or mandatory busing or at least adopting it in Boston proper would go a long way to bringing people together. I wouldn’t be the person I am today in a multicultural family and teaching at a majority non white school if I hadn’t attended multicultural classrooms as a kid.
Second is integrated classes. To a person-my incoming teacher certification cohort (Boston, Milton, Cambridge and two from out of state) talked about having mixed groups or friends in K-8 and seeing fewer and fewer of them in the AP and Honors classes. The two African Americans in our cohort felt isolated and alone as the only women of color in their AP classes or their majority white undergraduate courses.
Dr. King in a fantastic interview with Robert Penn Warren identified integrated schools as the single most important policy change to end racism. And the reality is Brown v Board is a theory and not much of a practice throughout most of America-our own Commonwealth is no exception.
The third is integrated housing since so much of a child’s education journey depends on their zip code and so many communities out of Boston and the adjacenf suburbs are 90-95% white. Bringing those numbers down should be a policy priority, not a fact of life we throw our hands up at.
Christopher says
AP and honors enrollment should be strictly by an objective measure of ability with NO REGARD WHATSOEVER for one’s race. All it takes is to say you must have earned at least a B in the previous year in the same subject area and there’s no possibility of active discrimination either. As someone who loaded up on such courses in high school I cannot accept any weakening of standards for the sake of demographics.
How in the world do you deliberately integrate the residential population of communities without basically telling people where they live? “Sorry, we can’t let you move to Dracut – already too many white people”?
jconway says
Our existing zoning laws increasing tell people where they can and can’t live, so let’s not pretend we can choose where we live to begin with. I am arguing that if we expand housing vouchers, expand housing density, and force more communities to adopt a truly mixed income ethos when it comes to housing policy that this problem will be solved. Housing policy is not natural, the free market does not exist, it is based on policy choices. We already subsidize income and housing segregation in our policies incidentally whether it is offering the MID and not offering rent control, or allowing communities broad deference to zone out people they deem to be undesirable.. It was intentionally done by the FHA until the 1968 Equal Housing Act, which aided and abetted red lining and block busting.
As for AP and honors the issue isn’t whether they are merit based, the issue is that too often by the time they reach high school students of color have not been given the same opportunities as white students to take advances courses and get the encouragement they need to apply to them. Nor are teachers and other students in those classes always welcoming. So by changing the academic culture we can encourage more students to take those classes, as CRLS did try and do to preserve the demographics of the district as best they can.
Christopher says
I’m legitimately confused by your comments regarding lack of opportunities before reaching high school. At least in the district I grew up and teach in its the same curriculum across four elementary schools, though I do wish they would go back to levelling like we did when I was growing up. I assumed the law would require that within one district the offerings be the same.
SomervilleTom says
A good first step would be to fire the Springfield cop who applauded the terrorist attack in Charlottesville, VA.
When we make excuses for Massachusetts cops who celebrate white supremacist terror attacks, we strengthen white supremacy in Massachusetts.
Charley on the MTA says
Real question here … the Springfield cop apologized, said something like he’s a good guy who said something dumb. The Boston cop who made a racist video made a full apology that was witnessed, and apparently accepted, by some community leaders. Is an apology enough? Ever? If so, why? If not, why not? Etc.
I’m a little torn on that because on one hand, I believe in lettting people repent and change their minds. That’s how progress is made. And I don’t like internet mob justice as a rule. On the other … a cop is the *very very last* person who should be expressing racism or callousness like that; that maybe we can’t afford to give people in that position a second chance. Anyway …
SomervilleTom says
My immediate response is to fire him.
Let his apology and repentance be part of the record when he applies to be a cop somewhere else.
Trickle up says
Easier said than done, but.
Open up those prison doors and let those men and women out. Give them jobs and housing and help.. Tear those prisons down.
Knit the safety net back together and give us all a floor to stand on together. It would lift us all up. Lots more housing. Jobs good enough, at least, so that everyone can live a decent life and send their kids to decent schools. Less grasping stuff. Less fear. More quality and security.
The vision is beyond any single state to achieve. We are at the mercy of market forces bigger than the Commonwealth. Nonetheless it matters very much what we do about it.
Easier said than done, then, but without vision the people perish.
Christopher says
I assume your first paragraph is a bit hyperbolic. There are of course some who deserve to be in prison, possibly for life.
Trickle up says
Yes Christopher, and a just society would keep them locked away someplace (though not in those jails).
The hard part is not telling the predators from the victims, it’s being a society just enough to care to do so.
AmberPaw says
DCF and the child welfare system do to women of color and poor women [whether African American, Latino, Asian, Native American, all of them] what the prison and criminal justice system does to men of color. The child welfare system is vastly disproportionate and skewed towards removal of children from women of color and the poor. This in depth article in the New Yorker depicts the world where as a non-employee court-appointed attorney , I spend my working hours. [and yes, it is a white suprematist, elitist system] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/07/when-should-a-child-be-taken-from-his-parents