By Gary Olson
May 09, 2021 "Information
Clearing House" - - "Dissident
Voice"
- On April 21, police in Elizabeth
City, North Carolina executed Andrew Brown.
According to a private autopsy, he was shot five
times, including the “kill shot” to the back of his
head whil;e his hands were on the steering wheel of
his car. Seven officers equipped with body cameras
were at the scene but only a 20-second snippet was
provided to the family. Based on what we know so
far, the official story has zero credibility.
This unfolding story, along with many others,
prompts me to once again pause and think about the
metaphor, “The Arc of the Moral Universe is Long,
But Bends Toward Justice.” Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. frequently employed the above phrase as did
Barack Obama. King was paraphrasing a portion of a
sermon delivered by the abolitionist minister
Theodore Parker who said in 1853 “I do not pretend
to understand the moral universe. … a long one. My
eye reacts but little ways; I cannot calculate and
complete the figure by experience of sight; I can
divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am
sure it bends toward justice.”
Given this context, I think we can read the
longer statement as more nuanced, more equivocal
than the abbreviated more popular version. And here
it’s worth remembering that Rev. Parker was a
Transcendentalist who believed there was a natural
morality in the universe that would eventually
triumph. Because slavery was such a terrible evil,
that would happen sooner rather than later and, if
necessary, God himself, would intervene.
King’s version, with its historical determinism
and preordained justice undoubtedly provides comfort
to many people, including those harboring the belief
in American exceptionalism, that we are on an
odyssey of continual progress. Barack Obama liked
King’s version so much that he had it woven into a
rug in the Oval Office. Cynically, I suspect he did
so because looking at it allowed him to abdicate
responsibility for doing anything.
However, the unrelenting trajectory of racial
animus and white supremacy, going back 250 years,
suggests the statement is magical thinking and even
dangerously naive. And to those lacking the
certainty of religious belief, it’s even more
problematic.
I want to think it’s possible that white people
can be anti-racist, that racism is not an
unchangeable character deficiency, that Americans
can divest themselves of white supremacy. Despite
all the evidence to the contrary, I want to take
issue with the Afro pessimistic claim that most
white people (not only cops) see Blacks as not fully
human subjects. I want to believe that UC-Irvine
Prof. Frank Wilderson errors in positing a structure
of anti-Black violence in this country that lies
under the surface of leftist dreams of a universal
humanity and intersectional solidarity.
I want to dismiss out of hand that whites are
incapable of seeing that this country was built on
genocide, stolen land, violence and Black slave
labor. And along with activist Bette Lee, I want to
think it’s possible that white Americans will
eventually agree that “Only an honest reckoning with
its history of settler colonialism and its toxic
legacy of systemic racism, white supremacy and
grinding poverty will lead to real social change and
the transformation of America to where justice can
prevail.” I want to think it’s possible that whites
will grasp that this responsibility is entirely on
us.
To this last point, the editors at Black Agenda
report (April 21, 2021) remind us that “Black people
cannot change white people’s warped perception of
the world, although, Lord know, we’ve tried.” As
such, housing and school segregation are more
entrenched than ever; incarceration functions as a
“Black-erasure machine;” White people continue to
believe they are the “primary victims of racial
discrimination;” and white supremacy is “impervious
to any legal recourse.”
I think it’s important to see things as they
really are before proceeding to respond. And that
means that it will take more than reforms because,
as the saying goes, “culture eats policy.” And that
begs questions about the origins of our culture and
who benefits from it?
Finally, given all of the above, there are days
when it feels like our legacy of ghettoization,
marginalization, the entire criminal justice system,
mass incarceration, warrior cops, massive structural
violence and rest means that pessimism and feelings
of hopelessness can’t be dismissed. It remains an
open question whether most white people are
committed to lending their weight toward bending the
moral arc of the universe toward justice. That said,
in the spirit of Gramci’s pessimism of the intellect
but optimism of the will, I’ll conclude with a quote
from Edward Said: “Where cruelty and injustice are
involved, hopelessness is submission, which I
believe is immoral.” For me, assuming this
responsibility is tantamount to saving our secular
souls.
Gary Olson is Professor Emeritus of Political
Science at Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA. He can
be reached at:
olsong@moravian.edu.
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