A system cannot fail those it was never meant to protect

On May 30th 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York tweeted:

Why are black people dying from #COVID at higher rates than white people? Why are health outcomes worse in communities of color? Why did George Floyd die? Why does this happen again and again? It’s all related.

The tweet ends abruptly with nothing more than “it’s all related.” How Governor Cuomo? How are they all related? Here is how: structural racism. But you already know that — the protests in Minneapolis are not the first time we have seen such visceral public outcries in response to violence. My question to you is: will this time be different?

Black and minority communities are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 all around the U.S., and the reason for this is the country’s long-standing structural inequalities. Not only are Black Americans more likely to be essential workers who cannot work from home and to have pre-existing health conditions, but they are also less likely to have health insurance. And when receiving medical care, Black Americans are more likely to face racial bias that prevents proper treatment. Whether we like it or not, these issues of structural inequalities and race are intertwined with the disease.

These inequalities exist every day but unless you are experiencing it yourself or are in circles privileged enough to recognize, study, and discuss these issues, all of them may go unseen — unseen until an act of police brutality becomes well-known. Tamir Rice. Freddie Gray. Eric Garner. Sandra Bland. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. When this happens, there is an explosion of the general public’s outcry about “what has gone wrong with the world?” There are often almost immediately uprisings, protests, and/or “riots” that follow this cry.

The truth is these uprisings are not random or simply a result of a single event; rather, they are the reaction to decades and centuries-long oppression on Black Americans in this country. While it is great that folks in power like Governor Cuomo are acknowledging these apparent inequalities, it is even more important to realize that their inaction shows complicity in upholding structural racism.

What is structural racism?

Structural racism is a deceivingly complex system in which public policies and practices work to reinforce barriers to opportunity and perpetuates racial group inequity. Examples include the placement of government-funded low-income housing in poorly supported neighborhoods and discrimination in lending or hiring. This is different than the normalized conscious and unconscious racism and bias in each of us. Instead, it makes use of political structures, such as laws, to enforce the continual and often conspicuous oppression of minority groups. Systems like these, do not form overnight or randomly. Rather, they take decades of intentional enforcement.

When we look at Minneapolis, structural racism is clear and present. According to The Washington Post, Minneapolis has one of the highest economic racial disparities in the country. From the 44 percent gap in income between white and black families to the 50 percent gap in homeownership between these groups. These differences are important because they influence the disparities in key areas including education and criminal justice.

Historian Keisha Bain describes how policing itself has a racist history in America starting with slave patrols in the early 1700s to the Black Codes following the Civil War. Specifically in Minneapolis, racial tensions and relationships with the police have been present since the 1960s when similar protests broke out. Since 2009, Black Americans accounted for more than 60% of victims in Minneapolis police shootings, even though they only account for 20% of the city’s population. It did not start with George Floyd.

In the ensuing uprising and protests in Minneapolis following the police killing of George Floyd, President Trump tweeted “When the looting starts, the shooting starts”, a saying with its own racist history, painting this image of “thugs” that needed to be controlled. Why would people destroy a local Target and protest so violently against the police and the city? Are people really that upset about George Floyd? Surely his murder alone did not bring on all these protests, right?

The Black citizens of Minneapolis and much of America have been systematically battered and oppressed their entire history. These facts and statistics are not simply “the way things are”, rather they are the result of a racist history of the last hundred years. Racially restrictive housing policies like discriminatory home lending policies and neighborhood “covenants” led to the creation of “bad neighborhoods” we often call the “hood” or “projects” which experience both heavy poverty and policing. The consequences are powerful because it not only physically segregated black from white, but it also made it easy for local and state governments to take advantage of them through subsequent policies and practices, like gerrymandering which dilutes black political power. The spotlight on these communities contributes to racist beliefs and discourses on the culture of poverty that suggest that black residents are unmotivated, have a poor work ethic, and abuse drugs and alcohol.

This is the system that directly led to the death of George Floyd.

Now let us take where I wrote “Minneapolis” and replace it with “Baltimore.” Let us replace George Floyd with Freddie Gray. Replace the MPD with the BPD. Let us just copy and paste the paragraph on racist policing while sprinkling it with some “zero-tolerance policies,” and we have the exact same situation. We can also do this for Ferguson, MO. Rinse and Repeat.

Ferguson, Baltimore, and now Minneapolis and cities across the country. The symptoms of structural racism that led to protests are present in every major city in the United States. What do we call a disease that has spread over an entire country? That is right: a pandemic.

We live in daily fear

On top of the structural oppression we face, being black in America is terrifying, especially when everyday white Americans have the power to change your life. For example, take the white dog walker Amy Cooper. She weaponized the tense racial relationship between Black Americans and the police for her false sense of security. Or take Ahmaud Arbery, who was murdered because white Americans took some racist interpretation of the law into their own hands. It feels like our screams are into an empty void. It feels like we are constantly suffocating. It is heartbreaking to realize that we must constantly plea to White Americans to hear us make a change. I understand that race is difficult to talk about, but especially for non-black people of color and white Americans, “if you are neutral in the face of oppression, you have chosen the side of the aggressor.”

Governor Cuomo asked questions that make me think he is not ignorant of the fact that structural racism is the reason all those issues are related. And yet, I wonder if it is the racist beliefs that influence the oppressive policies or the policies that perpetuate and reinforce racist beliefs? Now, I realize that this relationship exists regardless while those in power have consistently offered platitudes without policy. Instead of just asking these questions, why not use the democratically elected offices to make a difference, specifically to change policies and break this perpetual cycle of racism.

I am writing not only to explain how these are all related, but also to plead to you, non-Black people of color, and privileged white Americans. Change the conversation wherever you are. Take a stand against implicit racism by calling it out at the dinner table or with friends. Take a stand against structural racism by defunding police departments, which currently use close to 30% of Minneapolis’ city budget, and supporting community-led health and safety initiatives instead. Influencers and institutions (like my alma mater, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore) must bend their privilege in the direction of justice because failure to do so will not only result in the continued systemic oppression of the black community but the continued persecution of all minority groups. As MLK Jr. says in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

What will you do differently this time?

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