Who is the Protagonist in the American Story?
In every story, there is the protagonist, in which people will naturally relate to, sympathize with, and root for. American history is no exception. Who has been the protagonist in the story so far? It has been a white, wealthy man. At the beginning of this country, only white, wealthy men were allowed to vote, own land, and be considered full citizens. Even after black people and women were allowed to vote, the country’s laws and policies have been written from the perspective of the white man, with everyone else seen as antagonistic to the American story.
The police have acted as enforcers of the policies and laws that benefit white men. “The basic nature of the law and the police, since its earliest origins, is to be a tool for managing inequality and maintaining the status quo” (Vitale, 2018). Given that police have been militarized and use a warrior mentality, it’s easy to see how they apply the law to protect one side of the socio-economic structure. Managing inequality instead of creating a more equitable society is nothing more than racist social planning.
While police have protected the protagonist, while other subversive policies have created a country that is riddled with systematic racism. Even after slavery and Jim Crow laws, redlining has been used to keep black and white neighborhoods divided. As long as these communities are kept separate, it becomes inherently easier to treat people differently. For America to truly become more just and fair, the protagonist of the American story will have to change. Like individuals who have Stockholm, many Americans fail to demand change because they sympathize with traditional American protagonist.
The criminal justice system is another prime example, revealing the protagonist the American story. The law is not indiscriminately enforced. It is enforced heavily in black communities and against black people. Black people are disproportionately stopped and frisked, abused, and killed by police officers. The only reason we know this is because of media reports about deaths by police officers and police department self reporting.
Let’s think about that. They have to report their own abuses. This directly undermines any faith that we can have in the police and their ability to enforce the law justly. Putting poorly educated, militant men in black neighborhoods is not by mistake. It is by design. “Broken windows policing is at the root of a deeply conservative attempt to shift the burden of responsibility for declining conditions onto the poor themselves and to argue that the solution to all social ills is increasingly aggressive, invasive, and restrictive forms of policing that involves more arrests, more harassment, and ultimately more violence” (Vitale, 2018). Enforcing the will of the protagonists, poor, largely black communities have been over-policed. This has led to declining social conditions for black people.
History has been written by the winners and in their stories, we can find out who the protagonist is. The presence of Confederate statues, in the South, represent the protagonist as white men who fought against America. Traitors who did not historically respect women, black people, aboriginals, and marginalized groups have become the heroes in the story of America. Taking down these symbols has been an exercise in restructuring our story. Going forward, the protagonist has and must change. During the Civil Rights movement, many Americans began to see those opposing Civil Rights as the antagonists. Yet, this only made a dent in the long history of America who has always valued white men above everyone else in society.
What can we do to change the narrative?
- Takedown confederate statues
- Teach black history
- Accept the dark history of America as disgraceful
- Agree on new heroes that embody American excellence
- Stop providing racists with plausible deniability
These are not all of the ways we can change the narrative. However, all of us need to start considering how to do this effectively. History is watching and the young people who are often characterized as radical will be the ones who judge the actions of people in this era.
Vitale, A. S. (2018). The end of policing. London, UK: Verso.
