I intended to get this out yesterday, but as so often happens, at least with me, life interferred. It was ten years ago yesterday that Trayvon Martin, walking back towards his father’s fiancé’s home in Sanford Florida was accosted by a neighborhood, wanna-be cop. We all know how the story ends. Like millions of Americans, 10 years later I still can’t even begin to wrap my head around how an unarmed 17-year-old boy can be walking home in the neighborhood that he has every right to be in and be confronted by a much older and larger armed man who objects to him being in his neighborhood, struggles with the teen who fights to protect himself, shoots the teen point-blank in the chest, and somehow the teen is found to be responsible for his own death while the assailant, influenced and confident from Florida’s “stand your ground” law is found to be guilty of… nothing. Trying to understand how the jury came to that conclusion makes my brain hurt.
In 1955 Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black American, after having been accused of insulting a white woman by flirting with her, was kidnapped, pistol whipped, murdered, and his mutilated body tossed into the Tallahatchie River in Money Mississippi.
Emmett’s brutal murder touched off this country’s first civil rights movement. Trevon’s murder touched off the second. It’s valid to ponder what has changed in the intervening 67 years that cost two kids their lives to initiate and encompassed two dramatic civil rights movements. Life is undeniably better and safer for black Americans. When Emmett was murdered, whites could murder blacks with impunity. The jury in Emmett’s murder trial of two white men, composed of an all-white jury, took less than an hour to return a verdict of not guilty.
The three men who murdered Amaud Arbery in Georgia stood trial recently. A slightly mixed race jury returned a verdict of guilty for all three. Two of the three are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. The third is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole but only after 20 years. Much of America is celebrating this successful prosecution as progress. And it is. The three men who murdered him are going to spend the rest of their lives paying a terrible price. Yay! But 65 years after Emmett’s death with no repercussions, and eight years after Trevon’s murder with no repercussions, these three men felt like they could chase down and lynch a Black American with no repercussions. Why did they think that? Is America still sending the message that Black Lives (don’t really) Matter?
I grew up in an all-white town in all-white NH. When I headed off to Marine Corps training in northern Florida in 1968, I had just barely started dating. But my Mom, looking worried, and probably with Emmett in mind from just 13 years prior, said to me, “You know, you can date Black girls down there.” I was embarrassed and wondered why she was even saying that to me. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that my Mom was worried that, having kinda grown up white, that I’d pursue white girls. And get lynched.
Inter-racial couples don’t warrant a second glance these days. Lynchings are rare, and when they happen, are pursued by law enforcement. I can drive across the country without the need for the Green Book, although I would certainly exercise care in certain areas. I’ve been able to easily vote in all of the northern states I’ve lived in and I’ve received a mortgage every time I’ve applied. So yeah, things have improved. But ever so slowly.
When I was young a common refrain that I’d hear was, “These things take time.” To my amazement I still occasionally hear that although far less often. It’s common for white folks to point to 3 or 4 very successful Black Americans as proof that all is well and all that is needed now is for Black folks to work harder, take personal responsibility, and make better decisions. They will point to the conviction of Derek Chauvin as proof that we’ve turned the corner, just as they did with the election of a Black president. But both George Floyd and Amaud Arbery are still dead. As are hundreds of others…7 year old Aiyana Stanley-Jones, 12 year old Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Freddie Grey, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Sam DuBos, Laquan McDonald, Philando Castille, John Crawford, Frank Jude…
“These things take time.” That sticks in my craw. 403 years of being together on the same soil; 157 years since the Civil War; 154 years after the 14th amendment guaranteeing citizenship and equal civil rights to formerly enslaved Americans; 152 years after the 15th amendment guaranteed that the right to vote could not be denied based on race or color; 68 years after Brown v Board of Education; 58 years after the Civil Rights Act; 57 years after the Voting Rights Act; and 54 years since the Fair Housing Act here we still are. Fighting for the rights that our founding fathers, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution all guaranteed all Americans .
What’s with this glacial pace? Forgive me if I wonder about the sincerity of the purported values of my country: Liberty and justice for all…a country where all men are created equal and have the inalienable right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Forgive me again if I question the sincerity of America’s commitment to racial justice and equality. Or even living up to what our founding fathers wrote down. Because if we were sincere, if we really cared, would it honestly take generation after generation after generation? If we really cared, would it take decades longer to achieve racial parity than it took to put an American on the moon? Longer than it took to develop a vaccine against covid? To connect both coast with a railroad? To eradicate, or nearly so, polio, Smallpox, Tetanus, and Measles? To reduce infant mortality in 1900 from 157 deaths per 1,000 to less than 6 in 2021 (11 if you’re Black), or expand life expectancy from 46 to 79 (75 if you’re Black)?
If you listen carefully you can still hear people ask. “You’ve had a Black president! What else do you want?” It’s simple. We want what the founding fathers wrote down. We want America to live up to its promise.
And there’s this: I co-founded the Civil Conversations Project along with Joe Neuhof. Apparently I have to have a title. I lobbied to have it be ”The Man!” But settled for Executive Director. And the law requires that we have some organizational structure, so I report to a board of directors. The board ‘encourages’ me to ask for financial support in everything I do. I resist. They’ve told me that an ask for your donation should be the very first thing I write and the very first thing that you read. I’ve told them that people will stop reading. Every week I get an email from Substack telling me how wealthy Civil Conversations would be if we only just charged for these posts. I’ve resisted. I’ve wanted these posts to remain free and to focus on imparting knowledge and creating community. I’m tired of racism and I intend to end it. But I’m going to break my self-imposed rule today of combining this post with asking for your help. The truth is that with or without your support, I’m going to continue to do this work. But with your support, we’ll move faster and achieve more. So please - if you can, please support us. Our country is in real danger. There’s a ‘donate’ button wandering around somewhere on this page. Press it.
My sincere thanks,