We must excise racism from all our institutions
The stakes just got higher for the presidential election. In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, we have seen an organic uprising among many people in this country. Led primarily by young African Americans, the streets have been filled with demonstrators, many of whom are white, most of whom are young.
The ongoing rallies are forcing many of us, people of good will, to look more carefully at how we have been conditioned to look away from and accept as normal the unrelenting ways in which it is fundamentally different to be Black in America each and every day.
If President Trump wins reelection, this reexamination and subsequent actions will be extinguished. The idea that we must excise racism from our institutions in America will evaporate, and we will lose this opportunity to truly begin a course correction in American society. We cannot let the political debate of this election get sidetracked from the major challenges America is facing today.
Part of the energy of this perpresident iod of protest and awakening has been directed at removing symbols that glorify the racism that has been part of our country since before its founding. Statues of Confederate generals, put up in the 20th century, stand as testimony to the adoration of a time when slavery was present and those who fought to defend it were deemed honorable.
We named our military installations after these same men who betrayed their country to preserve an order that treated human beings as chattel. At long last, those names will be removed; soon we will no longer refer to a Fort Benning or Fort Dix. Think of it; we would be horrified if the Germans erected monuments or military bases honoring Nazi leaders.
This is no different.
On the other hand, we choose to honor others who did many noble things for their country while still behaving shamefully on the matter of race.
We are not ready to see Jefferson’s Monticello or George Washington’s Mount Vernon destroyed. These individuals played a vital role in the creation of our country and while their sins should be made public, they are different than Confederate leaders and to not recognize their contributions can only serve to alienate Americans who otherwise would agree with us.
We need to not play into the hands of the people who support the status quo. Unlike what the has said, it is not insisting on “political correctness” when we look racism in the eye and use that term to describe it. It is not political correctness to insist that racial and ethnic slurs be removed from our daily life. We can, and must, insist that we not lose this moment.
Majority of Americans have come to realize by being forced to encounter the tragedy of George
Floyd and many others that these are not unusual or one-off events. We are sickened by it and want to work to not make this behavior acceptable anywhere in this country.
We are fearful that the president will try to steal this moment and blur the reality most of us see. The only way Democrats can lose this election is by being mired in the abyss of an extreme and foolish definition of political correctness, which a vast majority of Americans of all stripes reject.
We must distinguish the differences between Stonewall Jackson and Ulysses S. Grant.
It is fine to say Winston Churchill was a shameless colonizer but to ignore his valiant rallying of the British people against Nazi Germany is nonsensical historical revisionism.
Democrats cannot fall into the trap that their righteous indignation allows people to cavalierly define others as racists or sexists as the totality of their lives, based on statements that may be taken out of context. If we are forced to self-censor any conversation related to race, sex or physical ability, we may stifle the very conversations meant to elevate our consciousness.
This election is about removing a president who is an existential domestic threat to our country’s fundamental values. The moral arc of our country is ready to selfcorrect.
Don’t let the cost of seeking the perfect become the enemy of the good.