America, Your Klan Robe Is Showing

Personal attacks on minorities and extrajudicial murders of people of color reveal the white supremacist framework American society was built on

When he grabbed her by the throat, I intervened. All of my neighbors were standing down the street and two of them began to head over. I pointed at them and said, “don’t”. I then tackled the off-duty plainclothes officer off of my wife forcing him to the end of my driveway. I yelled at my neighbor, “call DPS!”

DPS is the Department of Public Safety. State Troopers. At this point, we didn’t feel safe with responding county police and within minutes DPS showed up with a Texas Ranger and they ordered the county cops to leave. They took statements, photos, and interviewed our neighbors. And despite the obvious evidence against the officer, he never faced any disciplinary action.

Which made us targets.

At one point, it had gotten so bad that trucks full of rednecks would drive down our street at night and creep by our house. Until one day I waited for them and chased them down straight to their house. After informing them that I now know where they lived, I grabbed the license plate number and the address for the Texas Ranger. After looking it up, we found out that the truck belonged to the son of a police officer and the address was the officer’s house.

We never saw them again and they too only received a warning.

We eventually had to move due to the constant pressure of being pulled over by police, having our neighbors regularly call the cops, and we suspect, one of them called Child Protective Services claiming we were dealing drugs. This, despite all of my neighbors knowing I ran a business out of my home. Most of them did too. I never thought that would happen with them. We all hung out and helped each other all the time. I’m still taken aback by the thought.

But after the cop incident, it was as if we betrayed their white trust.

They begged me and tried to coax my wife into not pursuing pressing charges or following-up with the Texas Ranger. To just drop it. A couple of them even warned us about what we were about to get into suggesting the cops and their families would come after us. Which, as it turns out, they did. Did they exact revenge? I would say no. But I’m certain we’re on a list somewhere.

There are other police brutality incidents in my life, which, like that one, we don’t talk about. They occurred prior to me having kids or being married and both times I had the shit beat out of me while handcuffed. The trauma from these incidents is why we don’t talk about them. In fact, this is the most I’ve ever publicly said about either incident and it likely won’t happen again.

When I see police brutality, these are the incidents that take up space in my mind. Seeing white supremacy at work as we did in Ahmaud Arbery’s murder reminds me of the incident with my wife. The structure of white power kicked in to protect Arbery’s attackers just as they did in my wife’s case. It’s a pervasive problem that exists nationwide and it can no longer be ignored.

For me, Arbery’s death conjures up memories of the lynching of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas over 20 years ago. I am close friends with one of Byrd’s cousins and we often reflect on what it was like in Jasper at the time. Confederate flags scattered around town in what felt like a celebration of what occurred. I never imagined people would celebrate such horror, but here they were. Doing just that.

Making Excuses

Let’s not mince words, it’s not just right-wing rednecks and Trumpistas that make excuses for police brutality and extrajudicial murder. Those excuses are built-in. Preprogrammed responses that kick-in as soon as the victim is identified as a person of color. The cops who killed George Floyd in Minneapolis participated in a state-sponsored lynching and a lot of people are excusing it for that reason alone. Because he was a Black man.

“What happened before the video started?”

“What did he say?”

“Maybe if he complied he wouldn’t be dead.”

“He shouldn’t have talked shit.”

This is the nonsense we hear even after the video showed an officer seemingly getting off on watching a Black man slowly die under the pressure of his knee on a critical part of Floyd’s neck. He looked down at him like he was putting down a dog and seemed thrilled with himself afterward. He strolled back to his car an accomplished man. A murderer.

Yes, there are people excusing Floyd’s death. They’re the same All Lives Matter people who argue that police brutality isn’t a problem and racism doesn’t exist. They’re the same people who scream at us calling us sheep and weak and race-baiters for talking about these very problematic issues. They will do anything just to avoid having an uncomfortable conversation and to avoid any introspection that would have them admit to their prejudices.

They also don’t care if some white people die at the hands of police as long as Black and Brown people are disproportionately killed. As long as their race soldiers keep doing the bidding of white supremacy, a large portion of American society can’t be bothered to care. Let’s face it, if you’re a person of color in America, your life is valued less than the lives of white people. It’s built into the fabric of American society. Into the psyche of the American people.

If white folks don’t address their individual biases, this will never change.

Indifference is how lawmakers slowly led us down a path that would allow any president the authority to house immigrants in cages — children or otherwise. Complacency is why America allowed for the militarization of police. Willful ignorance allowed America to relax the requirements to become a cop; why we don’t screen cops to find out if they have ties to hate groups; why anyone with a white supremacist tattoo can be a cop and no one says anything.

We’ve smugly allowed police unions to wield so much political power that they limit the prosecutorial power of cities through their contracts. The same contracts put victims’ lives at risk by requiring the sharing of victim information with offending officers. We’ve handed police officers accused of misconduct privileges not afforded to citizens. Protections that allow them to get their affairs in order prior to charges being filed. Unprecedented legal help with connections to prosecutors that help frame a narrative for the defense — as we saw after Arbery’s murder; Botham Jean’s murder; Sandra Bland’s murder; and so many others.

We are where we are because too many Americans are happy with the system as long as it targets minorities more than others and as long they aren’t impacted by it.

America’s Klan Robe

The indifference that is so popular in America leads to counter-movements that turn real issues into culture wars. A scenario that has plagued American society for centuries because of systemic and concentrated white power. Benjamin Franklin’s xenophobic rants against the Germanization of the colonies have been adopted through the centuries. They have since become racist tropes that are used against all migrants of color today.

The lynch mobs that Americans like to think are extinct aren’t even endangered. These mobs still exist. They are right in front of you. You don’t see them because you choose not to. The same people you see online using inflammatory and hateful rhetoric are the same people who would likely participate in a lynch mob — with little persuasion — if they were surrounded by others willing to do so as well. It’s never been easier to radicalize and recruit young white men.

The cop who murdered George Floyd is being celebrated on far-right websites. Just as Gregory and Travis McMichael, the father-son duo who murdered Arbery, are celebrated. Those who have been pining for a race war believe this is the beginning of that war. They are armed and ready. The war they seek may never come, but that doesn’t mean they won’t commit some heinous act in the name of their civil war. We’ve seen it happen all too often.

Many of us have been reporting on multiple white supremacist and neo-Nazi Telegram channels along with users of websites like 4Chan and 8Chan celebrating the killing of Floyd. Praising the actions of Travis and Gregory McMichael and the four officers in Minneapolis is something most Americans think couldn’t happen in America. But it does. Some users have been documented encouraging additional violence against Black people and told to act alone when doing so.

Polarizing news events such as those involving race or ethnicity present white supremacists an opportunity to recruit and spread their message. They glorify the actions of the perpetrators and defame the character and the lives of the victims with memes and disparaging racist jokes. This is not something that only happens online either. Many of you have friends or family that may talk and act like this in their daily lives. And if you’re not calling it out, you’re part of the problem.

America’s Klan robe is veiled only by the indifference shared by the vast majority of America.

Escalation of Hate

When white people verbally or physically attack us in public or threaten to call the cops and lie about why they’re calling, they are feeding the hate that breeds across the country. They are using the police department as their own personal lynch mob. Again, this is not new. We’ve seen numerous cases throughout history where the police were used to murder Black folks and Latinos.

Using the system to oppress minorities is as American as apple pie. White people know this yet they constantly call the police on us for trivial reasons because they use law enforcement as their own personal enforcers. White people know that cops will believe them over a minority any time they call. People of color know this too. Most of America knows it but remains silent.

Sure, people call them out on social media. But that does nothing to address the problem. We need people to address how law enforcement has historically been used as a tool of oppression against people of color. The original lynch mobs were enforcers of the law of the land — whether right or wrong — and not much has changed. Based on its history, the term “law enforcement” itself is racially charged because people refuse to acknowledge or address the prejudicial history of American policing.

As we witness what most Americans perceive as an escalation of hate and while many would like to put the blame squarely on the shoulders of Donald Trump, the reality is that none of this is new. Yes, his rhetoric drives hate, but we’ve had people like him speaking from their pulpit for centuries doing precisely what he does. Before him, there was Karl Rove. Before Rove there was Lee Atwater, and David Duke, and many other prominent politicians and provocateurs in positions of power.

This is how America has always operated.

To plead ignorance while knowing that this has been happening throughout all of our lives is disingenuous at best. Claiming we live in a post-racial America after watching people just a few years ago with effigies of Obama on a noose is dishonest. So excuse us if we dismiss your pearl-clutching as you criticize the uprisings happening all over the country because of constant extrajudicial murders coupled with the silence of complacent Americans.

The escalation of hate can not be blamed on any one person. It is a societal problem that begins with people who refuse to speak up. Who refuse to call out the racist behavior of their friends and family members that gleefully spread their hate to trigger the libs or because they think it’s funny. You may think they are harmless racists in that they won’t act on their words. But allowing them to spread their hate without contesting it helps normalize it— making it more and more acceptable across all aspects of society.

From public schools to financial institutions to law enforcement to the bigots who attack us on the street; America’s systemic racism continues to live on due to American silence.

Lifting the Veil

The only way to end this is by taking action. By making your voice heard and your presence felt. Speaking up needs to be followed by action. We need allies to speak to the injustices of our society. Americans know what needs to be done. Our ancestors laid the groundwork for us and the strategies planned out for us to follow.

Claiming ignorance of the issues is no longer acceptable. We all know what needs to happen because we’ve been offering solutions for decades. The problem lies again with Americans who refuse to listen, refuse to act, and dismiss these issues as simply victim mentality. These are the same people who cried victimhood over wearing a mask for the benefit of public health. These are the same people who cried tyranny when their president abandoned them in favor of giving his corporate buddies trillions of dollars.

We live in a time where the disparities in how police operate couldn’t be more telling. Hate groups invaded statehouses all over the country, armed like terrorists, and cops did nothing. Yet, when a state-sponsored murder is committed against Black and Brown folks and they peacefully protest, police provoke the crowd with flash-bang grenades, tear gas, and rubber bullets. If you’re not seeing what is happening at this point, it’s because you choose not to.

Remember, the same people demeaning Black and Brown folks and their allies for rising up across the country are the same people who get their rocks off watching people of color die at the hands of the state. They believe the state speaks for them and they are not entirely wrong — as evidenced by the disparities in how the enforcers on our streets operate.

Criticizing protests across the country while failing to address the underlying problems that caused them helps validate the unjust policing of minority communities. That’s what the far-right does; what white nationalists do; what neo-Nazis do; what the Klan normalized decades ago.

Uprisings don’t detract from addressing systemic racism. They bring attention to it. Criticizing revolts after being silent about the systemic oppression that leads up to them is how you change the conversation. It shifts the focus away from the underlying issues that justify rebellion against a suffocating system.

Yeah, America’s Klan robe is definitely showing.

Arturo is an anti-racist political nerd who started his career in writing after suffering a stroke at the age of 40. He is an upcoming author, journalist, advocate for social justice, and a married father of three young men. He is a regular contributor to Latino Rebels. If you’d like to learn more about the issues covered here, see the links below or follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.