Stop pretending to be ignorant.
Whether or not you choose to acknowledge it, you know racism exists.
In the 1960’s, activists protested racism in cities like Selma, Montgomery, and Birmingham. The organizers were seeking intervention from the federal government. They soon got it.
In response to their demonstrations, federal envoys descended upon the south. They investigated Jim Crow policies occurring in major southern cities and concluded that the racially bias laws were emblematic of the region.
These insights were reflected in reforms like the Voter's Rights Act of 1965, which did not only enforce special voting protection in Selma but across eight southern states and in individual jurisdictions around the country. Today, many Americans still herald this legislation as the pinnacle — the actualization — of civil rights. But now, after 50 years, it’s time that we realize it was only the beginning.
The recent federal investigations in Newark, Baltimore, Ferguson, Chicago, and Cleveland show how far the country has to go. Among other racial slights, the investigations found that police “routinely violated the constitutional rights of citizens, used excessive force, and discriminated against African Americans.”
Now, just as policymakers in the 1960's understood that it wasn't just Selma or Birmingham, politicians today would be foolhardy to think that racist policing is limited to just Newark or Baltimore.
Prior to these investigations, many Americans preferred to reduce the instances of police brutality to unfortunate, but isolated, antidotes. But now, with this new data from the Justice Department, the national scope of racist police brutality is quantifiable. These investigations give us the indisputable power of knowing. And with the burden of this knowledge comes the loss of a certain alibi.
No longer can Americans fend that innocent ignorance. No longer will “I didn’t know” or “I don’t think it’s that bad” or “black people are just over-exaggerating” suffice. Now, the brutality blacks endure, must take place under the more malicious pretext of disdain, apathy, or maybe even hatred — but whatever it is, it cannot be ignorance. Because after the Justice Department, the highest law enforcement office in the country, files thousands of pages detailing years of police racism from the Mid-Atlantic to the Northeast to the Midwest, ignorance is simply no longer an option.
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