Racism is So Ingrained in America that Protesting Racism is Seen as Anti-American

This is what we mean when we say “systemic racism.”

What do you think of when you hear “Black Lives Matter”? Do you think of the movement for racial equity in America? Do you think of the organization that is beleaguered by scandal? Or do you think of a bunch of rabble-rousers who aren’t happy with what they have and want an unfair advantage that they don’t deserve?

If you picked that last one, hi Ron DeSantis, thanks for reading my work! I hope you stub your toe every day for the rest of your life!

When people who are protesting systemic racism are seen as anti-American thugs who think that they should have more than they deserve, that’s pretty telling. Racism permeates American culture from its very beginnings and is just as much a part of the country’s heritage as apple pie.

Early America was built on the back of mostly Black slaves who created much of the country we know with their sweat and blood. The American West was created in no small part thanks to Chinese immigrants who were taken advantage of and treated, if not like slaves, then close enough to be nearly indistinguishable. Indigenous Americans were brutally murdered and stripped of their homeland in favor of Manifest Destiny.

There are countless examples of this — these are merely some of the bigger ones. And yet, they are often minimized by America’s steadfast defenders, treated as though they are long done and in the past. They are ignorant of the echoes of racism that continue to reverberate to this day — from Jim Crow laws to “separate but equal” to modern sundown towns, which still exist.

These defenders of systemic racism try to deny the harsh realities of what things were like, arguing that slaves received “skills training” that helped them in their lives. They conveniently ignore other facts of slavery, like the beatings and lashings, sexual assaults, splitting up families at slave auctions, and oh yeah, the fact that owning people is morally reprehensible and undefendable.

In the early days of America, whites owned slaves. Then the slaves were freed in the Civil War, so they formed the KKK and lynched Black people left and right for mostly imagined slights. That was seen as reprehensible, so they enacted Jim Crow laws. Those laws were stripped away, so they enacted segregation. Segregation was struck down in the Civil Rights movement, so they started the War on Drugs to criminalize Blackness. That led to brutal and racist policing, which killed numerous Black men and women and led to the protests that have continued to this day.

But darn it, those Black folks are never happy with what they have! How dare they demand fair and equitable treatment!

(That was some heavy sarcasm, and it made me cringe just to write it.)

Black folks have never been equal in America and have always been targeted by the establishment, whether it be racist laws, racist policing, or racist citizen organizations like the KKK. Racists abound in American society, permeating our police forces and government bodies. And now, organizations like Moms for Liberty (aka Klanned Karenhood) are pushing their racist and bigoted candidates onto school and library boards to strip away anti-racist policies and encourage book banning, among other things.

And yet, racism is part of every fiber of the American system — its laws, its policies, the rules that govern its law enforcement, the unspoken and unwritten rules everywhere you go. It is such a part of the system that if you took every single individual racist out of every American system — every government body, every police force, every school board — the system would still be racist. Racism is a feature, not a bug, and it has been that way since the beginning.

This is why those who protest racism are seen as anti-American — because America is built on a foundation of racism and bigotry that permeates everything in our culture. And yet, those who protest are likely more American than those who defend the status quo because they want to change things and keep us moving forward as a country.

America is built upon a racist foundation, but the bones of our structure also include the notion of continuous progress and forward movement. The idea of progress, of a country that is constantly improving itself, is literally in the preamble to the Constitution:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union…”

This country was designed to keep moving forward, forever progressing and improving, to make life better for its citizens. Things change and progress is inevitable, which is why those who built America included that phrase in the preamble. America, in its beginnings, was not perfect, and those who founded it understood that, while it would never be perfect, we could always move forward toward a more perfect country than we were yesterday, last month, or last year.

On a related note, the whole notion of “love it or leave it” baffles me. It’s as though people think that we aren’t dedicated to fixing and improving the place where we live. When my house’s foundation was a wreck last year, I didn’t just abandon my home and move somewhere else, I fixed it. It cost me a lot of money and stress, sure, but it’s my home, dammit, and I’m not about to abandon it because something is broken or wrong with it.

People protest racism in America because they know that we can do better, can be better. We are not trapped in the present state forever, just as we weren’t trapped in a place where slavery was legal in half the country. We are constantly making progress, and although we are not an equitable society — whether in terms of race, sex, gender identity, LGBTQIA+ status, or any other identity that isn’t straight white cis man — we believe that America can be better.

We are not beholden to our forefathers any more than they were beholden to theirs. Just because we owe our elders common decency doesn’t mean we have to do everything they say. They’ve had their time in the spotlight, and now it’s our time to improve America further.

Many founders of and participants in the Civil Rights movement are still alive, and they deserve to see their work continued. People who were at the forefront of the movement in the 60s may be grandparents now, but their work continues with us as we try to further reform our country’s racist systems and create a more perfect union.

It’s not easy — the system is large and imposing, and the gears of progress and justice turn slowly. They do turn, however, and even though progress is often made by inches and often faces backslides, I do feel like we are moving forward, slowly but surely.

This is why we can’t stop protesting the racist systems that make up America, no matter how much the opponents of progress try to criticize and intimidate us. They may call us anti-American, but our goal is to improve life for everyone and keep us moving forward as a country. Those who try to fight progress will not be viewed kindly by history — they rarely are, and that lack of self-awareness is a hallmark of many conservatives.

We must keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other, to build our more perfect union. Always remember: none of us is free until all of us are free.

Be well out there.

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