An Open Letter about Systemic Racism

My Friends,

My time to be silent has passed. I am overwhelmed by the lack of compassionate response to the senseless murders in Charleston that deny the severity of this heinous attack. I am further saddened by these individuals and institutions that deny the racist motivation behind this murder. Hypothetically, a person of color walking into a white church and executing peaceful members of a Christian congregation would be labeled justly: a terrorist. For some reason, the terrorist in Charleston gets a free pass by those people that want to protect this terrorist from any racial implications (I’m assuming due to his white skin). "He’s mentally ill, he’s unbalanced" – people are falling over themselves to explain away this murderer’s overtly racist motivations. WHY?

In the meantime, while the US flag and South Carolina state flag were lowered in deference for the victims of this tragedy, the Confederate flag remained at full mast over the state capitol. The same symbol that the terrorist used as a personal signifier in his every day life remained defiantly in the sky, supported by legislation to exist and immutable to a national outcry for justice and sympathy.

These same people that refuse to acknowledge the racist motivation of this shooting now champion the Confederate battle flag as a symbol of Southern heritage. They paint this flag as “not racist” – you have seen these blog posts and articles that wish to reconstruct the history of the Confederate flag as we know it into a commodified, digestible narrative about Southern heritage and pride. They support the Confederate flag as a state-sanctioned symbol flying over public property and land.

Oppressive and racist symbols have a history of being removed from society and placed where they belong: in museums and history books. In my formal education, I was required to watch Birth of A Nation – an important film in terms of technique and storytelling, but ideologically despicable. It was deemed “historically significant” and preserved, but I would never encourage someone to watch this film without a lesson in its significance. The film is difficult to watch and needs proper education to process – in the wrong hands, it supports dangerous myths about African Americans and elevates the Ku Klux Klan as the hero of the story and the saviors of the Old South.

Symbols are emotionally charged. The swastika means so many different things to us – it is a symbol that signifies evil, tyranny, oppression, and murder. People that wear, champion, or brandish a swastika are shunned; the swastika is rightfully taboo. We have much to learn about the evolution of racism in the United States, and to forget about the Confederate flag as a significant historical symbol would be unproductive (those that forget history are doomed to repeat it); that being said, the Confederate flag is a pervasive reminder of a permanent and divisive scar of racial oppression in our history books, and a scar that divides PEOPLE by skin color in our country to this day – “Us” from “Other.”  It is a scar that continues to manifests itself as a system of privilege.

SYSTEMIC RACISM is what I’m referring to – if you have never been confronted with it, chances are you have benefited from its victims.  If you can deny the existence of such a system – Congratulations! You are living in a social ecosystem that encourages blindness to your privileged status. Your privilege is your birthright and uncomfortable to examine and digest (let alone deconstruct, question, and change) so why bother? Right?

Systemic racism is both subtle and overt. Even in its overtness, it can be manipulated, reimagined, and explained away (“This isn’t a calculated, racist execution of peaceful Christians, it is the deranged actions of a crazy lunatic”). In its subtleties, you will notice that there is a majority of Americans represented by like-skinned people in their local, state, and federal governments; this majority has entertainment, advertising, children’s toys, etc. catering to it, in which people with matching skin color are depicted living life, enjoying products, and unremarkably existing – their presence is never called into question or treated as niche, the presence of their bodies is not a political statement. This majority (and its children) is rarely in an environment where it is made to feel “Other” or where it has to navigate and edit its identity – it can retreat to comfortable physical, economic, and spiritual spaces. This majority has access to a social system that caters to it based on skin color – its members do not typically (or historically) worry about being unlawfully stopped, harassed, detained, falsely imprisoned, or put to death without a trial by the police; being denied a loan, education, or job due to quotas; or fear for the justice of its people when they are slaughtered out of prejudice and hate.

To the supporters of the Confederate flag, I have this to say: if the possibility of the removal of the Confederate flag has placed you in a position where you FINALLY have to confront your privileged status in our country (and the rest of the free world) – refraining from brushing your shoulders off is the least you could do. Nobody other than like-minded, uncompassionate, and privileged individuals (read: PREJUDICED WHITES) are bothered by your plight. This disregard for your thoughts/arguments on what the Confederate flag “means to you” is probably something you’re not used to experiencing. Before you go so far as to claim that this disregard is “reverse racism,” let’s remember that you are not experiencing institutionalized oppression – just basic, everyday boredom with your petulant moaning about being held accountable for promoting racist symbols and ideology.

My hope is that this letter could lead to a thoughtful discussion on the many facets of racism that exist today and to confront my/our privilege and how we benefit and contribute to it systematically. As a Southerner, I have an almost compulsive urge to remain unoffensive despite being surrounded by hate and offensive rhetoric against people that have very little voice for themselves. Hopefully, that urge ends today -- in terms of dismantling systemic racism, we have a long way to go.