Some thoughts this morning in the wake of George Floyd's funeral, and more broadly about this painful (but necessary, if it leads to some positive growth) point in our history. Thread:
1/ Yesterday, on our caucus conference call, Bryan Stevenson pointed out in his amazingly eloquent and empathetic way how the sin of slavery wasn't the brutality; it was the narrative of inequality.
2/ To wit, a morally decent human being could not have engaged in the brutality of chattel slavery without first convincing themselves that the people they were brutalizing were somehow lesser than them.
3/ Brian's observation is that while we may have confronted and taken shame in the brutality of slavery, we never confronted the narrative of inequality - and until we do, we will never confront our original sin.
4/ Because that narrative of inequality persists and is used to this day to justify unequal distributions of school funding, redlining of neighborhoods, toleration of wildly disparate arrest and sentencing guidelines.
5/ Ask your average outwardly well-intentioned white person why wealth disparities like this exist and you will inevitably hear someone talk about welfare cheats, or some Bill Cosby-esque story about how black men need to be better role models. washingtonpost.com/business/2020/…
6/ But that whole narrative structure is predicated on the narrative of inequality. The idea that "I would never trade off government money for the dignity of work, but THOSE people might". Or "I wouldn't put my family at risk by committing a crime but THEY might."
7/ Strip away the narrative of inequality and the questions get a little more real. Under what circumstances would you be unemployed and have no wealth to fall back on? What would you do in that circumstance? Not as a white person or a black person. As a person.
8/ Phil Vischer, creator of Veggie Tales (and former Glen Ellyn resident - go #IL06!) has written a really thoughtful piece asking those exact questions. Take the time to read it: holypost.com/post/how-racia…
9/ The WaPo story above is prose to Phil's poetry. Read both to understand how - statistically speaking - to be white in America is to be born into wealth you did not create. To be black in America is be born into poverty you do not deserve. Where you start matters.
10/ And why do we start at such different levels? Well, it turns out that if you forcibly take people from Africa, make them work for free for hundreds of years while the wealth of their labor accrues to others then let them free, we're not at the same starting line
11/ If those freed people then start to have some success only to see their businesses burned (google "black wall street"), their loved ones lynched and their voting rights stripped... we're tipping the scales further in our favor.
12/ But how do we do that? How do decent people, who believe in the value of hard work, who embrace the Horatio Alger myth of America tolerate such a system? By accepting the narrative of inequality. "We didn't hold them down. They just weren't capable of rising up."
13/ It's a load of BS of course. As MLK said, it's a cruel joke to take away a man's boots and ask him to pull himself up by his bootstraps. But sometimes it's easier to tell ourselves a lie than to confront a hard truth.
14/ And don't tell yourself this is the story of a history we outgrew once we elected a black President. Don't tell yourself this is something that only happens in the backwards south. Read this about growing up black in Naperville: chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperv…
15/ I said at the start that this moment is painful, but maybe necessary. It's necessary if we use this moment not to go back to what our country was before Trump was elected, but if we instead use it to go forward to a place we have long aspired to, but never been.
16/ Let's work to empathize. But let's also have hard, honest conversations about our history, warts and all. Let's acknowledge that we are all created equal, but we don't all have equal rights to pursue happiness. Not yet at least.
17/ Let's acknowledge that a country that still erects monuments to genocidal separatists is not truly equal.
18/ Let's acknowledge that a country that treats petty drug offenses in one neighborhood as a criminal sentence and the same offense in a fraternity basement as cocktail party punchline is not truly equal.
19/ Let's acknowledge that a country where the neighborhood you were born in predicts your future wealth is not a country with equal opportunity for all. opportunityatlas.org
20/ Let's acknowledge that a country that mobilizes against terrorism when it's committed by a brown man, but fails to call out the KKK and their descendants as the largest and most deadly agents of terror in our history is not truly equal.
21/ We need to acknowledge these not out of some self-sacrifice that would deny our greatness. We are great! But not because we are perfect. Because we aspire to a more perfect union.
22/ The greatness of our history has always come when we confronted our shortcomings and fixed them by expanding our liberty. From Washington to Lincoln to King. From women's suffrage to #blacklivesmatter.
23/ But to expand that liberty is first to admit where it is absent. So take inspiration from the range of skin tones, genders, religions and gender identities who are peacefully protesting right now. They are angry about where we are - but they are pointing the way forward.
24/ Be safe. Be respectful. Lead with love. But do not settle for the status quo. We have the opportunity to "make 100" as Mavis Staples says. 99 1/2 won't do. Not anymore. /fin
