A Case for the Third Reconstruction: Part 1
Introduction
Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing my thoughts about the current state of our country and the opportunity that we have to actually deliver on America’s potential for true freedom and democracy.
I’ll go into more details about what I mean by the Third Reconstruction in a subsequent post but here’s a quick summary with links. The First Reconstruction took place after the Civil War from 1865 –1877 ending with the Compromise of 1877. This effectively ended a period of rapid improvement in equality for Black folks.
Depending on the historian, the Second Reconstruction ran from about 1948, when President Harry Truman issued an executive order desegregating the military or in 1954 with the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, and culminated with the 1965 Voting Rights Act which was signed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
The Third Reconstruction is where I and others believe we are today.
The past year of world events and circumstances have raised a new level of awareness about inequality and there appears to be a revitalized civil rights movement afoot. Predictably, there is also a virulent effort led by mostly white Republicans to stifle this movement.
It is time for white liberals and moderates to choose a course. Stay silent in relative comfort and watch America backslide into further dysfunction or join the fight for equality and help rescue the soul of America.
A Case for the Third Reconstruction: Part One
We are about a month into the new term of President Biden and only a few days after the Senate, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, voted 57– 43 to acquit former President Donald Trump of incitement of a Capitol insurrection. The insurrectionists were disproportionately middle and upper middle class white folks (who else could afford to take off in the middle of the work week and fly to the capitol?) that were completely vested in a whopper of lie about stolen votes.
The 7 Republican Senators that put country above party and voted to convict Trump face censure by the Republican leadership in their respective states and most certainly will have tough rows to hoe if they plan to make it past primary challenges in their upcoming 2022 and 2024 election cycles.
For a little more perspective, a recent study fielded by the Washington Post found that 70% of Republicans believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump despite having hardly any actual evidence and dozens of opportunities to present such evidence. Moreover the YouGov study found that the strongest predictors for Republican belief in fraudulent election results were disdain for Democrats at 72.5% and sympathies with white nationalsim at 67%. For me, that last statistic is at once the least surprising and the most frightening. Over 2/3rds of Republican voters seem to be perfectly fine with white supremacy and would rather believe a completely disproven lie than grapple with our legacy of systematic disenfranchisement.
Thankfully, we managed to avoid a Republican white nationalist coup and transition to a new fairly elected President and Congress. Nevertheless, these numbers coupled with the unabated presence of white nationalists in our military and police forces should be cause for alarm for those of us that actually believe in democracy, truth, and freedom for all.
Income inequality, the Covid-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, rampant misinformation and mainstreaming of white supremacist sentiments have brought about new level of awareness and discomfort for white moderates and liberals.
Do you call out your family members and neighbors risking your own comfort and livelihoods?
Are you willing to have uncomfortable conversations with Black and Brown folks about the issues we’re facing?
What are you willing to sacrifice to help folks that don’t look like you have more opportunities to flourish?
For better or worse, you will largely determine whether we move closer to achieving the true promise of America or slide further, perhaps irrevocably, into the New Jim Crow.
If you prefer the former, then I hope that you’ll come back for my subsequent posts and continue to engage in this constructive dialogue.
