Racism is a form of violence and it isn’t going away until we repudiate violence itself. We demand that our political leaders be “tough on crime,” but forget to ask ourselves, where are the candidates who are “tough on hatred, tough on violence”?The authors begin their essay with a brief recounting of the murder of an innocent bystander who was selected solely based on the color of his skin. As CNN reported,
One needn’t look far, then, to see one critical reason why racism doesn’t die — a reason that we ignore only because so many of us are numbed into insensitivity by its sheer familiarity. We ourselves saw a shocking example the other day on the main street of liberal Berkeley: a graphic poster for a popular television program with the bold message, “LET’S GO KILL SOMETHING.”
Coming as it did right after the very real murder in Mississippi, the echo was sickening. It isn’t just the message that violence is fun, but the enabling denial that makes violence possible, which is dehumanization: you cannot kill something, of course, but someone, some form of life.
~ from Why Racism Doesn't Die by Michael Nagler and Stephanie Van Hook ~
On a recent Sunday morning just before dawn, two carloads of white teenagers drove to Jackson, Mississippi, on what the county district attorney says was a mission of hate: to find and hurt a black person.What made this killing so easy was that the youth didn't view Anderson as a fellow human being -- the very essence of dehumanization. He simply was a target like a tin can or a spot drawn on a board.
In a parking lot on the western side of town they found their victim.
James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old auto plant worker, was standing in a parking lot, near his car. The teens allegedly beat Anderson repeatedly, yelled racial epithets, including "White Power!" according to witnesses.
Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith says a group of the teens then climbed into their large Ford F250 green pickup truck, floored the gas, and drove the truck right over Anderson, killing him instantly.
Except in the throes of passionate jealousy, convulsive anger and/or nationalistic/religious fervor, it is hard to kill someone. When a person is thinking clearly and rationally, we see that the other person is a lot like us. They have hopes and dreams. They have people who love and depend upon them. They laugh, cry, smile and frown just like everybody else we know.
So, while violence is a scourge upon society, it is only a symptom of the deeper problem of dehumanization.
Humans are racist by our nature. We tend to distrust those who aren't like us, sometimes to the point of acting out violently against them. Like that song from Avenue Q, "Everyones a little bit racist" we all feel a little uncomfortable around people who are different as much as we try to deny it, the difference is that civilized people don't act out on it.
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