2016 Postmortem

I was sitting in the audience at the Summit Meeting of Negro Leaders yesterday when you said we must have patience. On hearing you say this, I felt like standing up and saying, "Oh no! Not again."

I respectfully remind you sir, that we have been the most patient of all people. When you said we must have self-respect, I wondered how we could have self-respect and remain patient considering the treatment accorded us through the years.

17 million Negroes cannot do as you suggest and wait for the hearts of men to change. We want to enjoy now the rights that we feel we are entitled to as Americans.

So it was no surprise to read yet another poll, indicating that whites largely don’t think racial discrimination remains a big problem, and that whites and blacks continue to view issues of race far differently. According to the recent Gallup Survey on Black-White Relations, seven of ten whites believe blacks are treated equally in their communities; eight in ten say blacks receive equal educational opportunities, and 83 percent say blacks receive equal housing opportunities. Only a third of whites believe blacks face racial bias from police in their areas. Despite the fact that half of all blacks say they have experienced discrimination in the past month, whites persist in believing that we know their realities better than they do, and that black complaints of racism are the rantings of racial hypochondriacs. Blacks, we believe, make mountains out of molehills, for Lord knows we would never make a molehill out of a mountain!

That white perceptions regarding the extent of racial bias are rooted in ignorance is made clear by a number of important facts. First, as will be shown below, there is the evidence indicating that equal opportunity is the stuff of fiction, not documentary; and secondly, the simple truth is, white perceptions of racism’s salience have always been splendidly naive. Indeed, as far back as 1963, before there was a Civil Rights Act to outlaw even the most blatant racial discrimination, sixty percent of whites said that blacks were treated equally in their communities. In 1962, only eight years after the Brown decision outlawed segregation in the nation’s schools (but well before schools had moved to integrate or equalize their classrooms), a stunning eighty-four percent of whites were convinced that blacks had equal educational opportunity. In other words, white denial of the racism problem is nothing new: it was entrenched even when this nation operated under a formal system of apartheid.

"In particular, the legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent," the report stated. "Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching."

Citing the past year's spate of police officers killing unarmed African American men, the panel warned against "impunity for state violence," which has created, in its words, a "human rights crisis" that "must be addressed as a matter of urgency."

The panel drew its recommendations, which are nonbinding and unlikely to influence Washington, after a fact-finding mission in the United States in January. At the time, it hailed the strides taken to make the American criminal justice system more equitable but pointed to the corrosive legacy of the past.

"Despite substantial changes since the end of the enforcement of Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, ideology ensuring the domination of one group over another, continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of African Americans today," it said in a statement. "The dangerous ideology of white supremacy inhibits social cohesion amongst the US population."