The Case For Racism
Shortly after 8 p.m. on May 25, 2020, four Minneapolis police officers responded to a 911 call from a grocery store employee who had suspected that a black man had presented a counterfeit $20 bill to pay for merchandise. Upon arrival at the store, officers encountered George Floyd, who was sitting in a car with two others, was forcibly removed from the vehicle, after which he was handcuffed and held face down on the ground. At that point, Ofc. Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, held Floyd down by pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck for 9 ½ minutes while witnesses shouted for Chauvin to stop. A video showing the incident documents Floyd crying out, “I can’t breathe,” prior to going limp. Floyd was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
We all watched transfixed for more than nine agonizing minutes as a cell phone video showed George Floyd’s life being extinguished out of existence under the knee of a white police officer. A video uploaded to social media outraged hundreds of thousands of protesters in cities worldwide to voice that outrage against the one nation of immigrants that stood for democratic freedom and equal justice for all. The hearts and minds of ordinary people had been driven into the streets of America as if to cry out, “ENOUGH!”
Suddenly, the global media was awash with images of young, fashionably dressed news monkeys, equipped with convincingly stern facial expressions and microphones in hand, endlessly repeating what we were watching on the split screen. For weeks, Floyd’s agonized face under the knee of a throwback to Nazi stormtroopers would be cued up over and over again. But as the 24-hour news cycle beast tired of the images of George Floyd, he was relegated to the labyrinthine news archives. Floyd’s protesters were replaced by equally angry faces, now calling for defunding the racist police and renewed calls for reparations to be paid for the reborn outrage of slavery. The outrage morphed again into a call for tearing down statues of racist Confederate generals—only to be replaced by calls to tear down statues of our slave-owning racist founding fathers.
The problem with rewriting history is that once it is rewritten, and there are no statues of the founding fathers to be found, we will have eliminated our actual history.
Missing in the graphic news footage, on the hand-held signs, or on the faces of angry crowds, was the outcry when peaceful protests morphed into mobs rioting, looting, vandalizing, and burning down property, and worst of all, the assault and murder of innocents. Why?
We are to blame—the white, black, brown, red, and yellow citizens who comprise America. We failed as citizens by not immediately pouncing on those who defiantly carried the signs the moment they turned violent and destructive. We impulsively scolded those who violated the peace but never used our ultimate power to effect vengeance— the power to remove our elected representatives, who showed themselves to be impotent in a crisis. Amid our shared outrage, hopefully, the title above, supported by our Constitution, prods us sufficiently to wonder how anyone could possibly construct a case for racism.
You see, George Floyd’s death is not a consequence of racism. That is the strawman argument. Racism is equally protected, as is our freedom to assemble, armed with signs and bullhorns. It has existed in the human psyche since we first developed abstract thought. It can never really be eliminated. We are, after all, imperfect beings.
Our Constitution cannot outlaw what is contained in our thoughts—yet. It can only outlaw our actions. Western civilization exists because some brilliant thinkers 2,500 years ago realized it could not exist without the rule of law. Without it, life on our planet would consist entirely of anarchy, barbarism, and, yes—authoritarian governments.
Eliminating racism, like world peace, is an ideal— by definition. Something that, in reality, cannot be achieved. It is what we are meant to strive for.
The officer who caused Floyd’s death cannot truly be prosecuted for any racist beliefs he may have harbored. He can be prosecuted for negligence, murder, and abusive force. But the real question is how the officer could remain on the force so long without being booted out by the officers who worked alongside him. That is our fault as well.
We, the outraged public, should be praising racism as a protected expression of our sanctified First Amendment— not its abolition. Any person or group should be free from any restriction to believe in or, more importantly, voice racist beliefs. A case might even be made for the abolition of racism being declared unconstitutional.
More to the point, monumental stupidity is not a federal offense. It is futile to elevate those who would antagonize, discriminate, or injure others because of their color. They are as knuckleheaded as those who would harm another human because he was left-handed or blue-eyed. We can all rest assured that our already enacted mountain of laws provides sufficient authority for law enforcement and the judiciary to prosecute and punish any violence— whatever its motivation.
Our forefathers, a blazingly brilliant group of outraged colonists, assembled to design a democratic republic that could protect us from most impediments to our pursuit of happiness. They, too, were imperfect beings— frustrated by injustice.
Most people, especially those on the streets waving signs, seem incapable of comprehending why we have the freedom of assembly. We are protected by this right, not so we can shout and demand the elimination of our perceived injustices and outrages. For almost 250 years, communal shouting at our elected representatives has been unsuccessful in eliminating anything.
Our freedom to assemble is intended to protect our right to gather and build consensus so that we may wield the only real power we possess as citizens of America. Unique in this world, America is, by design, a nation ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ This is not merely a clever slogan. As the only culture endowed with inalienable rights, we can collectively vote to remove anyone elected by us to represent our interests. We elect our representatives to voice our collective conscience— not theirs.
As we assemble on our streets, consider the possibility of ceasing shouting for justice. Instead, let us gather a consensus on those who are or are not worthy of our vote. Such is the ultimate power our flawed forefathers imagined we would one day wield. An enlightened constituency of American citizens— raising our ultimate multi-colored fist toward the heavens.
