New era for discussing race
Talking about racism is hard when people — in particular, white people — don’t think it exists. But in the span of a year, many white Americans seem to have changed their mind. According to a series of polls released last week, a majority of whites say that more change is needed to “give blacks equal rights with whites.” This is a drastic change from last year, when a Pew Research Center poll suggested that most believed the country had already done enough.
The Internet, and social media in particular, has played a crucial role in America’s changing attitudes. On the anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, at the hands of a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., here is a look at some indelible cultural moments in that national transformation.
1. When the NBA invaded our living rooms with “political” T-shirts
In early December 2014, Kobe Bryant appeared on our television sets wearing an “I Can’t Breathe” shirt, referencing the last words of Eric Garner, who died after being placed in what looked to be a police chokehold on New York’s Staten Island. Bryant wasn’t alone — athletes from LeBron James to Jeremy Lin were sporting the shirts during pregame warmups.
This launched a national conversation about the place of racial politics in our daily lives. Street protesters across the country were intent on disrupting “business as usual” in America, and athletes were beginning to join in, interrupting our evening entertainment with a show of solidarity for a political movement.
Many people were angry with this intrusion, and when the death of Freddie Gray, another unarmed black man, while in police custody spread unrest in Baltimore, the conversation began anew. After the Orioles played a home game before an empty stadium for security reasons, team officials responded more seriously: Orioles executive John Angelos took to Twitter to publish, in a series of tweets, an extended essay in support of the protesters, arguing that “inconvenience at a ballgame [is] irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.”
2. When #IfTheyGunnedMeDown blasted the media
After Michael Brown was killed last August, socially active members of Twitter began to notice that the images of Brown that the media used were generally ones that made him look scary. In response, black users of social media asked: If I were killed by police, which photo of me would the media use?
#BlackLivesMatter was a force on social media long before this, but #IfTheyGunnedMeDown turned the focus back to the media. It was a moment in which black Twitter users began to accuse the media of not only ignoring African Americans, but also of actively harming them. Even for nonblack audiences, the side-byside comparisons were too compelling to ignore.
Since then, Twitter users have become even more vigilant, pointing out images that could sway the public’s opinion against shooting victims.
“Citizen journalists” urging mainstream media to “do better” has become commonplace.
3. When almost nobody read “The Case for Reparations”
There’s a popular saying about proto-punk band the Velvet Underground: They may have sold only a few thousand copies in their early years, but every person who bought their record started a band. Underappreciated by fans at the time, they turned out to be highly influential.
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Case for Reparations” may well be the political equivalent of that in the Internet age. Coates shifted the conversation from the time-worn topics of slavery and affirmative action to a methodical exposition of how blacks in America were stripped of their land assets in the century after the Civil War and categorically excluded, through housing policy, bank regulations and forced segregation, from the explosion of middle-class wealthbuilding that occurred after World War II.
At 16,000 words, the landmark piece, published by the Atlantic, might have been too long for many Internet-age readers to digest. Some thinkers suspect that most of the people arguing about it on the Internet haven’t even read it. But it made a deep impression on the news media, and may well have influenced a generation of policymakers. As NYMag.com put it, “The figure of the lonely radical writer is a common one. A writer who radicalizes the Establishment is more rare.”
At any rate, the public can no longer feign ignorance. Coates’ work is the elephant in the room. If we want to know the truth about the history of discrimination in the U.S., it’s right there waiting for us.
4. When the tanks rolled into Ferguson
Michael Brown was not the first young black man to be killed under questionable circumstances by a police officer, and he wasn’t the last. But when protesters arrived, the military might with which the Ferguson Police Department responded was unprecedented. As the U.S. Justice Department concluded, it was a failure.
For some, the protests were proof that activists were getting out of hand, and needed to be controlled. For others, the armed response was a chilling example of the state brutally oppressing its own people.
But no matter where you stood on racism, the sight of heavily armed troops with high-powered rifles and armored cars facing off against ordinary protesters was a clear sign that something was wrong. The conversation about race in America would never be the same.
5. When President Obama said, “Trayvon could have been me”
During his first term, President Obama was relatively quiet on the topic of race. But when the neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida who killed Trayvon Martin in 2012 was acquitted the next year, that reticence began to crumble. In the speech that followed George Zimmerman’s acquittal, the president got personal, talking about his own experience of being followed in a department store because of his race. This angered some on the right, who accused him of being divisive or “playing the race card.” But it encouraged others. Since then, Obama has commented more proactively on race and other social justice issues. So by the time Obama sang “Amazing Grace” at the funeral of the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, one of nine black worshipers gunned down in a Charleston, S.C., church, it seemed natural.
6. When Dylann Roof ’s website was revealed
When Dylann Roof, a white 21-yard-old, was charged with murder in the Charleston church massacre, mainstream America began to wonder if he shouldn’t be labeled a “terrorist,” a word often reserved for radical Islamists.
Then Roof ’s Internet presence forced many Americans to begin to question the foundation of our country’s heritage, especially in the South. Before the shooting, Roof had taken pictures of himself posing with the Confederate flag, a symbol many white Southerners insisted had nothing to do with racism. That argument got turned on its head overnight, and not long after, in a moment many thought they’d never see, the Stars and Bars was pulled down from the South Carolina Statehouse grounds.
7. When America asked whether cameras are enough
Before the release of the video showing Eric Garner’s fatal struggle with police, many who had followed the events in Ferguson believed that surveillance of police via dashboard camera, body camera and citizen cellphone would bring about change.
They may have been partially right. After a grand jury decided against indicting the officer involved in Garner’s death, a federal investigation was opened, with then-Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. citing the video specifically. For some people, this was proof that video was leading the push for change.
But for others, the fact that the officers were not indicted despite the video was proof that things were not changing. Since then, we’ve seen video of Walter Scott in South Carolina being shot as he ran, unarmed, from a police officer who then dropped what looked like a Taser near his dead body; many believe it was an attempt to make it look like Scott had grabbed the officer’s weapon. We’ve also seen body cam video of an officer shooting Sam DuBose in the face during the traffic stop in Cincinnati. For some, the discrepancies between the police’s stories and the video evidence point to a deeper question: Do we need something more than cameras to combat police brutality?
In the meantime, the Internet is watching, and the names of the deceased have been added to a list that has been circulating for some time.
8. When Ezell Ford’s death brought the struggle home
The events of Ferguson were brought to Los Angeles with the death of Ezell Ford, an unarmed, mentally ill man who was shot by L.A. police just days after Michael Brown was shot, bringing a sense of urgency to the community.
Protests have continued into this summer, and the Black Lives Matter movement has also been active. An investigation is ongoing, and the LAPD has begun an extensive training program focused on interacting with the mentally ill. Ford’s case has reminded us here in Los Angeles that race is not a Southern or a rural problem — every city has a story.
9. Just about every time Iggy Azalea opened her mouth
The question of white appropriation of black music is even older than Elvis, but a public feud on the subject between two rappers — the white Australian Iggy Azalea and black Harlem-raised Azealia Banks — brought the conversation to a younger generation, and showed America once again that everything is political, even pop music.
Unlike Macklemore, who awkwardly apologized to Kendrick Lamar for “robbing” him of a Grammy, Azalea never really addressed black hip-hop fans who wondered why she was so involved in black pop culture but not black political issues. Protesters staged a “die-in” at an Azalea concert at USC, and countless think pieces on white privilege were aimed at her ability to affect a “black” accent in her raps but distance herself from black protests and the Black Lives Matter movement.
This year, Azalea’s stock has plummeted, and a tradition of social media users holding artists accountable for perceived bias has become even stronger.