Blacking out the truth

It should always be shocking when an unarmed teenager is shot dead. On numerous occasions throughout the country, however, unarmed children have been shot and killed by various forms of “authority.”

But there’s one other constant in these horrific tragedies. These kids are more than predominantly black.

Most recently, a young man named Michael Brown was shot — not once, but more than six times — inciting riots and violence in the town of Ferguson, Missouri. While the details of this case are not abundantly clear, one fact is indisputable: race played a factor.

Further contributing to the picture of racial tension in Ferguson is that of the 53 officers making up the Police Department — which has had violent run-ins with the community — three are black. To give just a little context — this police department “serves” an area that is 67% African American according to 2010 census data.

This wouldn’t be such an issue if it was just an issue in Ferguson. But these racial incongruities are being played out in police departments and communities across the country.

This type of problem erodes trust. Citizens across the country should be able to trust their police departments — an idea that is failing nowadays. According to Pew Charitable Trusts, just 37% of Caucasian Americans say that police forces nationally “do an excellent or good job of holding officers accountable for misconduct.” Even more relevant and disheartening, though, is that 38% say the same about police departments’ performance in treating racial and ethnic groups equally.

In a country where such a small percentage of the less discriminated against racial group trusts police forces, how have there not been concerted efforts to fix the problem?

It remains because of the residual racial tension and poor race relations that plague our country. We’re at somewhat of a standstill; we’ve come far enough to have a black president, but are still largely segregated in our own cafeteria.

If you don’t believe me, take a look. Our student body has self segregated — in any given lunch, you’ll find kids mostly sitting with others who look like they do. This phenomenon per-ectly displays what, in my opinion, is the crux of our national problem.

Throughout my three years spent at LM, I have never heard anyone openly discuss our startlingly antiquated cafeteria dynamic. Interestingly enough, I’ve also never heard anyone openly discuss the racism that continually shows itself in the form of slain teenagers.

We dance around words, trying to convince ourselves that we have completely purged our country of the racism that was so commonplace hundreds of years ago. In the media, interviewees are asked, “do you think race played a factor in this shooting?”

Really...?

Instead of hiding behind benign words and “safe” phrases, we should be having open dia- logue. There is no shortage of issues to discuss. It isn’t a coincidence, for example, that one in three black men will be in prison at some point in his life. By comparison, one in seventeen white men will be in prison during his life, according to the US Department of Labor and Statistics.

This particular statistic is widely known, yet rarely discussed. Also rarely discussed are the viral videos of police abuse. While it’s unfair to generalize all police officers as abusive, there’s a reason why so few Americans trust their police departments. The stereotypes and generaliza- tions about race are still active and dominant across the country — and in law enforcement.

Take New York City’s “Stop and Frisk” policy, for example. Officers were encouraged to stop “suspicious” New Yorkers, often faced with quotas for stops and searches per month. Believe it or not, “suspicious” ended up meaning “young, black.” This, for a change of pace, eventually caught enough attention to prompt change. The policy ended up being challenged to the New York Supreme Court.

It shouldn’t take that much attention to prompt change, though. How many more teenagers have to be killed for us to face the racism in our country? It seems worth it to struggle through some uncomfortable discussions if it could lead to change on the institutional level.

Even in our school — which granted, is very open to discussion — we shy away from valable dialogue. I had high hopes last year.

Last year started with all students and teachers (supposedly) reading Run by Ann Patchett. The book got quite a lot of abuse—more than I think it deserved. What frustrated me about the whole “One Book, One School” program was not the fact that we all had to read a book, regardless of our grade levels.

My frustration with the plan was that it wasn’t used for anything valuable afterwards. While it certainly was not a high level analysis of race, Run had a significant enough racial theme to spur discussion. Instead of working together to learn from the book, we took a 10 question quiz with answers that could have been answered by reading the dust cover.

After finishing with Run, there was one more chance for open dialogue. Last year was the 50th anniversary of an integrated LMSD. It wouldn’t shock me if this were the first time some students heard of this. There were celebrations for the day, but they were held in the courtyard and at the site of the old Ardmore Elementary School. Students could not attend the ceremony if they wanted, and there were no activities held for the entire school.

How could we miss out on such a clear opportunity for progress? That would have been a perfect opportunity to step up, in an attempt to move past the discomfort associated with our remnant racism.

The District’s “celebration” stood as a clear and disheartening message to me. In a community full of open-minded students, teachers, administrators, and parents, we didn’t even attempt to break down the prejudices of which we are all ashamed. It’s even more disheartening to see this same failure in the face of teen deaths across the country.

We can’t continue this cycle; people can’t keep dying. Our problems will not go away simply by ignoring them. It will be difficult, time consuming, and uncomfortable to delve into these issues. The result, however, is one that we need more now than ever. So let’s talk about these issues. Lives depend on it.

#opinion