“Endemic Racism” is Not the Problem

There are several ways history could record racism in this country over the last 20 years. Below is our attempt to summarize that history:

By the year 2000, societal problems associated with racism had greatly diminished in the US due in large part to the lasting effects of the work of Dr. Martin Luther King and others. However, at the same time racism was receding, the percentage of African American babies born out of wedlock and raised by a single mother had risen to 72%. That percentage had more than doubled since the era of MLK and was the highest among all races in the US (and nearly 3 times that of white babies). This fact resulted in a disproportionate percentage of the black population being subject to the problems incurred by any single mother of any race. Financial difficulties and limited employment opportunities were layered on top of known social and behavioral problems associated with fatherless children. Rather than address this core issue of African American family breakdown, it was easier, less embarrassing, and advantageous in some circumstances, to ascribe racism as the cause for continued economic and social inequity of African Americans in the 21^st century.

While there were still pockets of true racism sprinkled around the country, the more general claim of systemic racism in the US in the 21^st century was unsubstantiated. However, for progressive politicians, universities, and the news media, the benefits of maintaining a belief in systemic racism were legion. First and foremost, it allowed the term racist to remain contemporary as a highly charged calumny that could be hurled as a weapon. Any response to such a charge was usually clumsy, attempting simultaneously to deny the charge, yet not deny the existence of true racism. Because of this, progressive politicians who purported to be “friends” of the African American community found benefit in an assumption of systematic racism, without which they would lose political leverage.

African Americans were already voting as a block for the Democrat Party (90%) when Barack Obama became a candidate for President in 2008. The false racism assertion, now having replaced the breakdown of the family structure as the root cause of 21^st century African American socioeconomic circumstances, took center stage. Obama was positioned as the obvious candidate to solve the “endemic” racism problem. During Obama’s campaign for President, racism was used as a devastatingly effective weapon against his detractors. None of his challengers dared even mention other possible reasons for the economic and employment woes of African Americans. Candidate Obama took tremendous advantage of this and spoke about race in calming and unifying terms, capturing legions of voters (both black and white) by voicing exactly what they wanted to hear.

However, during his two terms as President, Obama not only failed to translate those words into action, he made the problem much worse. The national media developed a tremendous affinity for Barack Obama and amplified the racism canard in the belief it would benefit him even further. A powder keg was created instead. That powder keg exploded several times during Obama’s Presidency. The unfortunate events surrounding the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddy Gray were instantly lifted out of their respective unique contexts and used by the media and progressive politicians as “proof” of nationwide endemic police bias against blacks. President Obama chose to insert himself into each of these incidents and exacerbated the problem. He had already set the tone early in his administration when speaking after a minor incident involving a white police officer and a black professor on Harvard’s campus – “…what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately…”.

After numerous charges were filed and jury trials conducted, no police officers were found guilty of misconduct in any of the above cases. It didn’t matter. The notion of embedded racism existing everywhere, particularly in police departments, was now pushed in the media as the “root” problem. The Black Lives Matter movement began in the middle of the Obama administration and accused white police officers of murdering black citizens simply because of their race. The fact that the three decedents named above had committed or were engaged in committing crimes and resisted arrest when they encountered the police was inconsequential. Rioting and looting ensued in each of the three cities where these incidents occurred. In Baltimore, the African American Mayor even gave her imprimatur to the violence and provided “…those who wished to destroy, space to do that as well”.

If there was systemic racism in US police precincts at that time, it was not evident in the nation’s crime statistics, homicide statistics, or in incidents of police killing unarmed victims (source: The Washington Post – Fatal Force database). In fact, if any conclusion at all can be drawn from those statistics, it was the presence of aggression in the opposite direction, with violence being perpetrated upon police. Those facts notwithstanding, no amount of statistical analysis or factual evidence could possibly overcome the strength of division and hatred that had been stealthily installed in many Americans. The reach of social media, a new technology at that time, had quickly latched on to this hatred and spread it rapidly through the younger population. The diminution of the African American family structure and its associated economic hardships had now been entirely jettisoned as the root cause of any inequities. Even though the false premise of existing widespread racism had no real foundation in the 21^st century, it had been given a virtual new life to serve the agendas of an insatiable media, progressive politicians, and a bitter African American President.  

The situation reached a new level of absurdity in the summer of 2016 when quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem before a preseason football game in protest of police bias and black oppression. Kaepernick perfectly embodied the odious impact President Obama had on race relations. As an adopted biracial child, Kaepernick grew up with white parents and white siblings and was not subject to economic hardship. For all of Kaepernick’s adult life (ages 21 – 29), including the moment he kneeled during the national anthem in protest, Barack Obama was President and set the tone in the country.  Obama’s references to racial injustice and police bias against African Americans were clearly embedded in Kaepernick’s “protest”. Kaepernick and the equally witless players that copied him cost the NFL millions of dollars in lost revenue and audience. They also forwarded the false thesis of continuing endemic racism in the USA. The NFL, an organization paying hundreds of millions of dollars to black athletes, became an object of destruction because of the flag protests. Another indication of just how poorly Kaepernick’s actions were viewed by most of the general public came two years later. Nike enlisted Kaepernick for an ad campaign attempting to connect the “bravery” of his protests with Nike’s famous slogan “Just do it”. Almost immediately, hundreds of clever, disparaging memes appeared on the Internet that were comical parodies of Kaepernick, Nike, and the “Just do it” slogan. The original motivational slogan and ad were no longer taken seriously, even by those who remembered them.

If that episode was not enough to prove that Kaepernick’s oppression message wasn’t resonating, he (and Nike) triggered more pushback a year later. Nike introduced a new line of shoes sporting a Betsy Ross flag to commemorate the 4^th of July holiday. Kaepernick took offense to the presence of the flag on the shoe and complained to Nike, who immediately withdrew the shoe and canceled production. In response, radio host Rush Limbaugh started a counter protest of sorts by selling tee shirts with the Betsy Ross flag on the front. The shirts sold so fast and at such volume, over 100 companies began selling counterfeit versions of these shirts to keep up with the demand. In the estimation of many, Kaepernick lost all credibility both as a racial justice advocate and as a football player.

By the time President Trump came onto the scene, anyone who opposed Black Lives Matter or its companion group Antifa were accused of being “white supremacists”. The outsized pressure of Black Lives Matter, greatly embellished by social media, caused liberal mayors, governors, and educators to become hyper-sensitized to racial injustice. Black Lives Matter took advantage of this and began branding historical figures, including the founding fathers, as racists who should no longer be lionized, but repudiated. A trend of defacing, destroying and removing historical monuments ensued, without much resistance from chastened city officials. It ultimately led to physical confrontations with other groups trying to preserve that history. Police forces, having been labeled by the Obama administration as racist, were now tentative in their response. They did not act quickly or forcefully enough to quell these uprisings which resulted in injuries and on a few occasions, unnecessary deaths. The major media, no longer hiding their cooperation with progressive politicians, accused gangs of white supremacists (whose actual numbers in the US were miniscule, yet greatly exaggerated by media hyperbole) for the violence. As the white supremacist moniker gained traction in the media, it was instantly applied to President Trump.

This false version of racism in the early 21^st century came full circle in the summer of 2019 when the New York Times published a series of articles under the name “The 1619 Project”.  This exposé claimed that the United States was founded on the principles of white supremacy and on the backs of slaves and continues on in the same fashion today. In the liberal media, this was no longer considered a fringe concept. The media trumpeted racism as being inherent throughout American society and culture. The New York Times felt it necessary to re-write US history to be consistent with the new present-day fiction of systemic racism.

In 2020, an incident of obvious police brutality in Minnesota ended in the tragic death of George Floyd and caused another explosion of this powder keg. Violence ensued across the country despite the fact that the murder of George Floyd was universally viewed with horror and anguish by all who learned of it. With emotion now having entirely replaced critical thinking as the behavioral driver on race for many Americans, senseless rioting, looting, and major property destruction took place. By now, Antifa had fully joined with the Black Lives Matter movement, increasing the level of violence and destruction. The actions of several state governors and mayors in response to these riots in their cities defied all logic and consistency. Just one week earlier, the New York mayor made loud and forceful threats of arrest and fines to any citizen who dared to enter a swimming pool within the city or the shore waters on the coast (for fear of spreading coronavirus). Yet, when rioters came into his city to vandalize and rob some of its most iconic establishments, not to mention exacting physical violence on the police, he did nothing. The New York Governor had to threaten the Mayor’s removal (and the activation of National Guardsmen) to force action and protect the city.  There is no rational explanation for the mayor’s calculus that mobs of violent rioters confronting police and destroying property posed a lesser threat to the city than the miniscule chance of a virus spreading in swimming pools or the coastal ocean waters.

We think the historical accounting above is accurate, and we are convinced we aren’t the only ones who see it this way. The fiction of systemic racism in the 21^st century, both in police forces and the general population, has now taken on a life of its own. Despite their public plea to find an end to racism, the entities that could expose today’s false narrative (news media, liberal politicians, Universities, evangelists) all have a strong motivation to keep racism alive.  Democrat politicians have maintained the African American voting block for the last half century by promising and legislating government benefits as just recompense for “pervasive racism”. Yet this has done nothing to provide a pathway out of the need for these benefits, fostering a crippling dependency. Most importantly, leadership within the African American community would have to recognize that 21^st century social and economic inequities stem not from racism, but from destructive conditions such as the high percentage of fatherless families, continued reliance on government assistance, and the media and politician promoted psychology of living as a “victim”. The poor outcomes that follow from these present-day conditions are very like, but not the result of, the racial injustice of the past.

For those who share our mindset, we hold an effective tool to bring change – the vote. There is a lot at stake this fall, much more than just the Presidency. The major perpetrators of the illusion of overarching racism in our time are manipulative Democrat politicians and news media corporations, both of whom who are exploiting, not empowering, African Americans. If this destructive Democrat/Media combo is not greatly diminished, force-feeding this divisive falsehood will continue to bloat the American psyche with crippling animosity and needless fear. We will continue to see poisonous racial hatred spread via social media. The malignant progressive political bias that has taken hold in the US education system will flourish and bear its poisonous fruit. Our sense is that a majority of the country, including a significant portion of African Americans, sees the Democrat/media monster for what it is, and is steadily growing angrier at this lethal deception.