The Protests Aren't (Just) About Racism

The George Floyd murder was no more about racism than Nazism was about Antisemitism. It’s about authoritarianism and institutionalized violence. It’s about the rule of law enforcers rather than the rule of law. It’s about power standing in the place where justice should reign. It’s about placing security above compassion and the interests of class and caste above equality.

It is about a law enforcement system that protects itself first, property rights second, the average person last and the poorest and most disenfranchised not at all.

Racism is but one inevitable aspect of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is necessarily racist because authoritarians are always looking for excuses to rationalize their brutality. Authoritarians always need to divide in order to conquer. Because while they talk tough, they are afraid of an honest and honorable fight. 

Those who wish to dominate others through force will never come right out and admit that that is their motivation. Even Hitler took great pains to paint himself and his supporters as victims who had no choice but to use violence to defend themselves. Whether it was the scheming machinations of the Jews, the violence of the communists, or the injustices perpetrated upon Germany by other European powers, there was always an excuse for violence and thug tactics.

We are told that it is not a matter of systemic brutality but merely a few bad apples in a police force that is composed of mostly heroic police putting their lives on the line to protect the public. But where are the examples of the good cop we are told is the rule rather than exception? Instead we see three officers staring at the bad cop and doing nothing. We see one police officer attempt to check on the elderly man another cop has pushed to the ground and then walk on when urged by yet another officer.

We have seen police officers take a knee with protesters, but that is little different than the kind of lip service Hitler gave to Christianity or peace, a publicity stunt meant to assuage those who questioned his motives. We have seen police officers rise from their knees, and a short time later assault protestors with mace and clubs.

Both protesters and especially those who condemn the rioting that exists at the protests’ edges must come to understand there is more to protest than racist police officers. They need to see that though black people may be the most obvious targets of institutional violence, institutional violence goes far beyond mere racism. Racism isn’t inherently violent, but authoritarian beliefs and systems are inevitably racist AND violent. Authoritarianism places some above accountability so that they become emboldened to use force against anyone they think is not protected by the system they are a part of exist to protect.

Racism is a weed that perhaps can never be utterly eliminated, but it will never come to its rank fruition without the fertilizer that is authoritarianism. Show me a place where racism thrives and it will be a society where not merely people of a different race who will be treated terribly. Women’s rights will count for little, those outside of the religious minority will be looked down upon, and the poor will be blamed for their moral failings rather than given a hand up.

To reduce the problem we now face to racism makes it a fight we can only fight on a single front against a problem that is attacking us from many fronts. To reduce it to nothing more than racism means that those who are not African American have no personal stake in the fight. It takes those who are not black out of the fight insomuch as it takes us out of the crosshairs.

This concerns all of us, and not merely as people with a conscience who feel obliged to do the right thing. Black people have always been at the forefront of this fight but it is one that affects us all. African Americans have been fighting for freedom since the time of the American Revolution and even before. Their entire history has been one unceasing fight for freedom. They fought in the Civil War. They fought in World War I, only to come back to the same lack of freedom at home. They fought in World War II, though they were not allowed to fight next to their white brothers in arms. They have fought in every war every white American has ever fought in, and they have fought in a constant battle for freedom and dignity in a never ending war that few white people have ever fought in and none can ever fully understand.

I hear a lot of people talking about the fight for freedom from people who expect it as their God-given right. I’m sick to death of people talking about freedom who have never sacrificed their privileges in its name nor felt the true bitterness of not possessing it. We, white people, as a whole have never been on the front lines of the fight for liberty and justice. We have always sat one place removed from the edge, believing that should we choose to keep silent we could keep ourselves safe from the harshest effects of an authoritarian system. But in truth, we are merely the next domino in line. It is time, at long last, for us to get to the front of this battle. It is our fight, as well.

P.S. The white man in the picture above is Jim Zwerg. Learn his story and be inspired by it, because the world needs more people like him. 

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