Societal change is not a gradual uphill slope of incremental improvement. Rather, change comes as a sudden upward leap, but only after a long-standing plateau of status quo followed by turbulence and chaos. History confirms this.
The dehumanizing enslavement of Africans was the status quo in the Americas for more than 300 years. Then came slave uprisings and the Underground Railroad, as well as brutal suppression of blacks (beatings, whippings, lynchings) by the slave industry aka the Domestic Slave Trade.
The Civil War, with its unfathomable carnage, was the ultimate example of chaos. Then, in a moment of change, came the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 and the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery, in 1865.
Over the following century, starting with post-war Reconstruction, the status quo featured sharecropping (which was indentured slavery), Jim Crow laws and practices that enforced racial inequality, more lynchings, and institutionalized segregation.
The corresponding movement toward justice included the Pullman strike of 1894, formation of the NAACP in 1909, the Great Migration of black laborers northward from 1915 to 1960, desegregation of the military in 1948, and the 1954 US Supreme Court decision in Brown v Board of Education that overturned the doctrine of "separate but equal" education (although the Alabama state constitution still upholds that doctrine).
To those comfortable with the status quo, all of these events seemed like chaos. Then, in a moment of change, came the evolutionary Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; required equal access to public places and employment; and enforced desegregation of schools and the right to vote.
Today, the status quo of injustice looks, in part, like this:
- Enslavement of 45.6 million people in 167 nations, including the US, where an estimated 57,700 people are victims of sex trafficking or debt bondage, per the Walk Free Global Slavery Index.
- Mass incarceration, primarily of dark-skinned people, through which, according to many sources, inmates work for pennies per hour for the financial benefit of major grocery/retail corporations and the US government.
- Nearly 900 active hate groups in the US, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
- Disregard for human life in favor of financial gain, as exemplified in Flint, Michigan, where state officials, including the governor, created an unhealthy drinking water crisis that has impaired and endangered the lives of many and, according to Time magazine, was intended to save $5 million but will cost $400 million to rectify.
- Racial inequity, which hurts the economy to the tune of $2 trillion dollars in lost earnings, lost minority purchasing power, avoidable public expenditures, and lost economic output, per the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.
- And, in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, the city I claim as "home," the infant mortality rate among black babies (up to one year of age) is three times higher than the national norm and four times higher than that of white babies.
If left unquestioned and unchallenged, these and other inhumane practices will continue as the status quo, creating a further divide between the rich and the poor, between fair-skinned people and people of color.
Fortunately, however, human rights activists are stepping forward with alternatives.
Near Montgomery, Alabama, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice recognizes the injustice of lynching an estimated 4,000 to 8,000 African Americans from the late 1800s through the 1950s.
Then, there is Donald Trump. While his presidency might appear beneficial to conservative voters and those who bought into Trump's rhetoric of "Make America Great Again," there are many within the African American community who know that concept does not apply to -- and, in fact, hinders -- them.
Trump's incompetence has also awakened and brought thousands of people into the street or into huddle groups who are working diligently to restore a semblance of true American democracy. (The anti-gerrymandering initiative put forth by Voters Not Politicians in Michigan, of which I was a volunteer in 2017 and 2018, is one example.)
These instances of good and evil illustrate that we, as a community and individuals, have choices to either condone the status quo of injustice or march onward toward a better, more humane way of life for all.
We are like the child in a Native American parable who says: "I have two wolves fighting inside of me; one is fear and hatred, and the other is love and compassion. Which one is going to win?" And whose elders reply: "Which ever one you feed."
Next blog: Colorism, racism, and whiteness
