We are living in a time when issues of race, and racism, are on the table. For many racial minorities, African Americans in particular, issues of race, and racism, have probably always been frequent issues in their lives. The same probably cannot be said for many in mainstream America because issues of race and racism may not have been part of their daily walk, or if they were, some in the mainstream may have pushed the issues aside, or placed them under the table. Perhaps the way a person could sweep dust and dirt under a throw rug: out of mind; out of sight.
Journalist Antwan Herron reflected the rationale for the dismissal of racial issues by some Americans when he wrote, “Racism, we’re told, breathed its last breath 52 years ago with the official fall of de jure racial segregation, or Jim Crow, in the American South.” Herron goes on to say that racists were passing away with old age, or were “undergoing a dramatic shift in perspective on race relations in the “free world.”
Herron utilizes the former governor of Alabama, George C. Wallace, who passed away nearly 20 years ago, as racism’s last relic. Consider that Wallace declared in early 1963, “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!” and five months later would follow up the decree by standing in the doorway of Foster Auditorium blocking Vivian Malone and James A. Hood from integrating the University of Alabama. Although Wallace would claim later in his life that he was not racist, but rather was acting out what people at the time desired.
“When I first ran for governor” Wallace recalled in 1991, “I had to stand up for segregation or be defeated, but I never insulted Black people by calling them inferior.” Hence Herron’s acknowledgment that issues of race had shifted, and for some Americans they did, no doubt helping in the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States in 2008. National politics, the alt-right, and those associated with the alt-right have, for some, provided evidence to expose what some Black people have known all along: issues of race and racism have been present throughout our society. Wallace, the symbolic relic of racism, had not died off.
Issues of race, for many Blacks is a frequent, or daily encounter. Resulting in the opposite effect of out of mind out of sight experience. For Black men in particular, issues of race and racism are paramount. There are too many examples within the American historical continuum of “blaming the Black guy.” With the most recent example of blaming the Black guy, perhaps being what transpired last week in St. Paul, Minnesota on a college campus.
A 25-year-old St. Catherine University security guard, accidently shot himself in the shoulder with his own weapon. Security guards at the all women’s undergraduate college are not issued service guns. The security guard, Brent P. Ahlers, told investigators that the culprit was a Black man with a short afro wearing a navy blue sweatshirt and black jeans.
Ahlers’ account resulted in protective measures that included the women’s college going on “lock down,” as one news account supplied, along with “55 police officers, four K-9 [dog] units and Minnesota State Patrol aircraft searched for the alleged suspect.” While Ahlers was fired from his job and charged with making a false police report, the local chapter of the NAACP and others came to the defense of the community.
