Opinion: As 2020 is showing us, America only truly loves black people when it’s convenient

Editor’s note: This story is part an ongoing series of journalism produced as part a collaboration between The Sacramento Bee, Sol Collective and other community organizations called the “Community to Newsroom Pipeline.” To learn more or to contribute, email us at voices@sacbee.com.

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“I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., ‘The Other America’ delivered on April 14, 1967 at Stanford University.

These words resonate strongly today as they did over 50 years ago.

The conditions have remained the same, if not worsened. With a backdrop of a global pandemic, it seems world economies can be shut down but not racism. Our nation is nearing a tipping point, and we do not have unified leadership about how to move forward.

One could imagine that protests of police violence, and how these incidents represent a violation of the social contract between citizens, law enforcement and legislators at the core of this country’s foundation, could spark a number of our leaders to speak openly and plainly about racism in our country. Instead, we have a president “glorifying violence” by Twitter’s standards; the Pentagon deploying military police to Minneapolis; and no emergency congressional hearing to address any of the action in a dozen cities nationwide.

Some would say the social contract was always null and void because enslaved peoples weren’t even considered fully human to agree to such terms. Amendments had to be written for Americans to recognize the full humanity of others. Black people have fought in every American war, were the driving force of the Southern economy and even helped ratify the Constitution through Alexander Hamilton’s writing of 51 of the Federalist papers. Yes, he was black and very white passing like some of your favorite celebrities. Even with all the contributions, where is the love now?

Has America ever really loved black people or only when it’s convenient? Can a slave master ever love his slave? This has always been an abusive relationship without honesty or respect.

What respect has the letter of the law given its citizens when post-Civil War Southern prisons profited off of Jim Crow laws and prison labor that replaced “free” slave labor. Or when the FBI and CIA has admitted to infiltrating black political movements assassinating leaders like Fred Hampton or dropping bombs on American cities like in Philadelphia. When a country can boast that one out of three black men will be imprisoned compared to one out of 17 white men, and it has already been scientifically proven that regardless of race, whites and blacks commit crime at the same rate because crime is more about proximity than it is race, how can America be exceptional at anything except racism?

Americans boast that our democracy is the best in the world, yet it comes at great expense to its own citizens and the rest of the world. We’re responsible for the largest military in the world, the world’s most dangerous weapon of mass destruction, and we’re one of the largest contributors to global warming and climate change.

It is no surprise that we have also loopholed our way into videotaping murders and still not having enough evidence to effectively prosecute and convict wrong doing when we see it. We make excuses and stories to cover up how cruel our injustice can be. We want to perpetuate this myth that we are exceptional and the government can never be wrong.

King was right that certain conditions do exist that prove to be divisive and those conditions are not squarely the responsibility of some mythological billionaires at the top of a capitalist pyramid. The responsibility lies on all of us to love each other deeply and compassionately enough to recognize our humanity.

Love is hard and love is radical.

Love allows us to truly see each other for who we are and celebrate our differences.

Love does not lie, and can be painfully honest when it needs to be.

Our privilege and bias and inability to view history through the eyes of anyone except the victors’ doesn’t allow us to empathize with innocent people who are murdered in front of our eyes. We lie to ourselves because we are afraid to admit the truth about America.

We are a good country, just not good for everybody. Racism and inequity are as American as apple pie.

If racism, an imbalance of power, economic, educational and health inequity, poor leadership and a lack of love and compassion could be solved peacefully, it would have happened within the past 600-plus years. In the words of James Baldwin, “How much more time do you want for your ‘progress’?”

With over a dozen murders and irresponsible actions taken by police in the past seven days and 100,000-plus COVID-19 related fatalities, communities across the country feel like they may not have time to wait for an acceptable response.

Paul Willis is a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consultant, hip-hop and spoken word artist, social justice educator and community organizer. Paul also serves as an executive board member at Sol Collective, a CORO trainer and as a Senior Fellow with the Nehemiah Emerging Leaders Program.

This story was originally published May 30, 2020 at 10:03 AM.