Some unfinished thoughts
Achyuta Adhvaryu | June 3, 2020
As a kid growing up in New Jersey, the Statue of Liberty was one of my favorite summertime trips. The old suitcases and trinkets and funny-sounding names at Ellis Island; the majesty of Lady Liberty against the Twin Towers and the broad New York City skyline on a hot, blue summer day. Even as a child, coming to that place so emblematic of the so-called American Dream somehow made me feel at home in an America that didn’t always welcome a little brown kid with open arms. In school we’d learned a little about the Statue and what it was supposed to represent, and about Emma Lazarus’s famous poem, which was etched into stone like a promise, an ideal that we knew would never quite be realized, but that might also inspire us to do better. “Give me your tired, your poor, // Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Yearning to breathe free. In light of the events of the past few days, I can’t help but think — what irony, what a farce. That vision was never really for all Americans, and Black Americans are almost as unlikely to be part of the American Dream as they were when those words were memorialized at the base of what Lazarus called the “Mother of Exiles.” I’ve watched in horror and sadness at the brutal murder of George Floyd, and the grief and anger, the outcry and chaos, that has ensued. “I can’t breathe.” The nation collectively gasps for air in visceral acknowledgement of injustice — blatant, nauseating, unrelenting, and inextricably a part of the Black experience in America. I am blown away by the grace with which Floyd’s brother and others in his family have handled this impossible situation. I’m not sure I’d be strong enough to show such clearheaded moral leadership if I were in their shoes.
The very institutions that were set up to protect us instead take away our most basic civil right — the right to life. And this particular iniquity has been visited again and again upon the Black community more than any other, demonstrating that systemic prejudice is alive and well in the hearts — if not always out of the mouths — of many Americans. (Not just Whites, by the way — I know too many Indian Americans who are either overtly racist or who “act White” and blithely embrace their “model minority” status.) It also shows that police departments across the country have not yet learned from the litany of tragedies involving minority victims killed by officers for no apparent cause. Just this year — Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and now George Floyd. How many more names should the Black community, the Brown community, minority communities of all colors, endure before crying out, enough? The peaceful protests and fitful acts of violence on display across the country bear witness to the fact that millions of Americans think the time for forbearance has passed. Millions of people echoing what Langston Hughes once wrote: “I, too, sing America,” but “They send me to eat in the kitchen // When company comes.”
Should we then really be so surprised that the impassioned calls for justice for George Floyd have sometimes devolved into violence? That violence, though it’s tragic and fuels a cycle of hatred, is a natural consequence of a lack of voice — it descends directly from hundreds of years of powerlessness, of struggle, of hard-fought incremental gains and too many losses. Even electing the country’s first African American president has not, at least in the short run, lent adequate voice to the accustomed suffering of Black America. Dr. King’s words from a half century ago on the importance of being heard still ring true today:
“Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”
In the midst of this turmoil, I ask myself, what can I do? What impact can I have? The odds seemed stacked against making any difference. For one, George Floyd’s America is Dr. King’s America is Hughes’ and Frederick Douglass’s and Sojourner Truth’s America. Sure, lots of things have changed for the better over the years, but it’s still easy to feel powerless and choose inaction in the face of such entrenched resistance to justice. For another, I have lived a relatively privileged life, attended elite institutions that have historically excluded Blacks, and am part of an academic community that has struggled to foster the advancement of women and people of color. While I have experienced my fair share of racism, I haven’t felt oppression. I haven’t lived the Black experience in America — not even close — and I’ve inherently benefitted from my non-Black minority status.
Despite this, I’m fed up, and disgusted, and feel farther from fidelity to the American experiment than ever in my life. And there are some things I can do. I can speak out, which, honestly, I’m a bit ashamed to say, doesn’t come naturally for me. I can talk to my kids, and raise them to understand the ways in which their lives are so blessed, so different from the lives that others not so very far from them live. (My wife Niyati does this so naturally and with such grace and I’m so grateful for that.) Finally, as an economist I do most of my work in low-income country contexts. The experiences of the past few days, though, as well as the disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 crisis on Black Americans, has inspired me to work on an agenda related to making job search for unemployed workers of minority backgrounds a little easier in the wake of the economic crisis.
Maybe these things will only serve to assuage my own feelings of inadequacy to this moment — my lack of power and control over the sort of world I live in. Or maybe they’ll make a small, short-lived difference, in the lives of my children and my community. It’s impossible to say just now; and I suppose guessing at impacts is sort of beside the point. Trying is the point. I was touched by the words of a Palestinian poet named Dareen Tatour, who writes, “Silence has ravaged us // Our tears have become a sea // Our patience has bored of us // Together, we rise up for sure // Whatever it was we wanted to be.”