The way in which white commentators have responded to recent events has proven, in my opinion, that their culture has a serious problem.
It’s still enormously racist.
In his book “Racist America,” Harvard-educated sociologist Joe Feagin says, “Whites often combine the notion of declining overt racism with the idea that blacks are now making illegitimate demands for societal changes.”
You might think Feagin made that claim in response to a few of our current national events.
After all, in a recent episode of “The O’Reilly Factor,” Bill O’Reilly spoke about NFL player Brandon Marshall’s decision to kneel during the playing of the national anthem.
O’Reilly said, “To be fair, bad things do happen in this country ... and they must be confronted. But to disrespect our entire system, when you have reaped so much benefit from it, is fallacious in the extreme.”
But you might be surprised to learn that Feagin’s book was published 16 years ago.
Ever since white culture agreed belonging to the Ku Klux Klan was morally wrong, they evolved to what Feagin calls “symbolic” or “laissez-faire” racism.
As you can see, white culture has harbored these same attitudes for decades.
In July, black people were told not to protest police brutality and the shooting of unarmed black men by blocking an interstate in Virginia.
They were told not to riot in Milwaukee. Instead, they were told to protest in more peaceful, less destructive, safer ways.
So, in response, several athletes began sitting or kneeling when the national anthem was played at their sporting events — harming nobody, putting no one in danger.
And, as it turns out, that wasn’t okay, either.
I’m starting to think some white people just don’t want to talk about racism.
Then, when efforts were being made to construct the Dakota Access Pipeline through tribal lands in North Dakota, white people chose to say nothing.
IDS opinion columnist Anna Groover detailed the media blackout of this conflict in a column last week, noting how the media silence represents our apathy, as a nation, toward Native American populations and their lands.
In a suit against the federal government, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said the pipeline will “damage and destroy sites of great historic, religious and cultural significance to the Tribe.”
Fortunately, President Obama temporarily halted construction of the pipeline to ensure that the concerns of the Tribe are heard at the federal level.
So, thanks, Obama.
Comparisons have been drawn on social media between allowing a pipeline through Arlington National Cemetery and allowing a pipeline through Native American gravesites.
If you would be less outraged by the latter, that too is a form of racism.
To even think about justifying the destruction of a culture’s heritage in the name of oil production is preposterous and disgraceful.
Yet, white culture remains silent, thereby implicating itself in the destruction while it attempts to silence minority groups from protesting against systemic and institutional racism — regardless of the form of protest.
Now, before you take to the comments section in anger and offense, please understand I am not condemning every single white person living in America.
My critique of “white culture” represents the predominantly white voices condemning these national anthem protests and allowing the destruction of Native American lands to take place.
I’m merely observing the ways in which a vast majority of white people are treating those of other races.
And it’s still pretty racist.
thshowal@indiana.edu
@TherinShowalter
