Hopeful Thinking - Saturday, June 24, 2023 - The Civil Rights Movement is Still Working

I read recently that our racial reckoning of 2020 has resulted in nothing, and that it appears as if the reckoning never happened at all. A piece of evidence presented for this, among other points, was that White politicians, family advocacy groups, and teachers are intensely reinvigorated in their efforts toward banning books by Black authors and those that challenge racial inequality. 

I see that point of evidence in the opposite way, frankly. I think the new wave of resistance definitively proves that we’re actually getting somewhere. We have made them afraid of our success. We have gotten under their skin. They are lashing out in an attempt to reassert their now-lost supremacy.

Why would they do that? I’m not saying racism is new, but it’s clear that there is a new, broadsweeping resistance movement (notably stemming now from only a remnant third of our country) who are attempting to put us all back in our place. That is the America they wish to revive.

And despite the way pundits make the numbers appear, when you actually look at it, 70% or more of our population is in favor of racial equality, equal access to our full history as a country, LGBTQIA rights, gender equity, and various other issues which are continuously proving themselves to be on the right side of history. 70% of us are in favor of doing what’s right. That is an American first.

That remaining third of the country is loud and dangerous, however. And they are funded by those who are using them for their own separate financial agendas. But they are not more powerful than we are. If they were, they would have won already. 

Instead, they have been slowly losing ground year after year, to the point where they now panic and attempt to reuse old solutions based on the oppression methods of the past, but now to flimsy avail. 

Few remember that the vast number of Confederate monuments erected throughout the South were not commissioned after the end of the Civil War. They were placed many decades later in response to the civil rights movements of the 20th century. These are not ancient statues depicting a lost history and its heroes. They are explicit societal reminders of who is in charge. They were erected to put Black people and their allies in their place. 

The statues have now come down. Found to be undeserving of their places of honor for the treason their subjects committed as well as the racist motives for which they committed it. That’s new.

Things are different today than in the previous attempts to quash equality. The Black Lives Matter movement has made a lasting impact. It has unleashed a domino effect of new awareness in the White community it never had before. The ongoing civil rights movement is working.

To my fellow White people reading this, take note: We are not being asked to be ashamed of being White. We are just being asked to listen, and to acknowledge and validate the unnecessary suffering of others. We are being asked to see it—all of it—and to cognize it, and to accept that our racial history really happened. 

Slavery was a horrible atrocity that our ancestors perpetrated. Our country was founded upon exploitation. It is a stain that still blots our nation, and holds it back from the greatness which awaits it. Acknowledging the wound openly and seeking in whatever ways to heal from that history is the mission of this age. It is a test of our fitness as a civilization.

There are plenty of ways to do it. Truth and reconciliation commissions, smart restitution programs, forums designed for open dialogue. These are just a few of the methods by which we can more quickly heal from our racial past.

But we will heal from it one way or the other. We will figure it out by hook or by crook. The proof is in the fact that we already are doing it. But we could be working smarter, not harder. 

The racial reckoning has not ended. It is a cornerstone portion of the Great Human Reckoning which is occurring in every facet of our human civilization, all of a piece.

Keep facing in the direction of love. Stand your ground. That’s the only job we have. If we’re not sure what to do, if we don’t know what steps to take next, at least face in the direction of love. The work is ongoing. Be encouraged. Journey forward.