On December 21st, the statue of Robert E. Lee was removed from the U.S. Capitol. For over a century, Lee’s statue was one of the two that represented Virginia; the other is of George Washington.
A week earlier, on December 15th, there was serious discussion of renaming Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco because our sixteenth president failed to demonstrate that black lives mattered to him and how his policies affected American Indians.
These follow a long line of similar stories that happened in 2020, including:
- Tearing down statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass
- Rhode Island dropped from its official name, the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the last three words
- Renaming musical groups Lady Antebellum to Lady A and Dixie Chicks to The Chicks
- Princeton removes Woodrow Wilson’s name from its public policy school
- White voice actor Mike Henry steps down from voicing black cartoon character
- The Washington Redskins changed its name to the Washington Football Team
When we entered 2020, the nation was certain that two events that would happen: President Trump’s impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate at the beginning of the year (Yes, there was an impeachment!) and the presidential election at the end of the year.
In any other year, those two events would have dominated the news.
Who would have predicted that the United States, along with the rest of the world, would be embroiled with fighting and coping with a pandemic? And the economic recession that would result from the coronavirus? Even as we approach the end of the year, the virus is still a problem as people are still contracting it with, very often, unpleasant symptoms, sometimes resulting in death. The national unemployment rate, while falling since the spring, is nearly double that of January and February. We are not out of the woods.
With the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there was a Supreme Court vacancy six weeks before the 2020 election. In recent decades, any Supreme Court nomination captures the attention of the public. This one did as well. The process moved along without delay or much controversy. The scheduled vote in the Senate took place on October 26th; Judge Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed. Only political junkies will remember the Supreme Court vacancy and confirmation as a major event five years from now.
There is one event that will no doubt be written about and read about in history books in years to come.
On May 25th, in Minneapolis, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died in police custody. He was face down on the ground with the knee of 44-year-old Officer Derek Chauvin, a white man, on his neck. The knee was on Floyd’s neck for a reported eight minutes and forty-six seconds. There were three other police officers present looking on: Tou Thao (Asian), J. Alexander Kueng (black), and Thomas Lane (white).
The days and weeks afterward saw demonstrations and riots all over the country, and around the world.
We have had black men who have died in police custody or have been killed by white police officers before. What made this event so particularly egregious? Why not Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown?
The eight minutes and forty-sex seconds is one obvious candidate. That length of time for the cop’s knee to be on Floyd’s neck strikes many as unnecessary and cruel.
Another possibility is that this all took place during the pandemic. Specifically, early in the pandemic when Americans were cooped up in their homes, many unable to work or to go out spend time with friends and family. The death of Floyd possibly caused an already frustrated public to react in ways they may not have in normal times.
A third is the image itself. For all the world to see, there was a black man apparently suffering in police custody. This, however, was not just any black man. Floyd was dark-skinned. He had very full lips. He had wide nostrils. With these African features, George Floyd was unmistakably black. He was completely at the mercy of the officer. Officer Chauvin did not have a particularly menacing expression as he pinned Floyd pinned to the ground. His look seemed one of indifference, even as Floyd expressed that he had difficulty breathing. One might say that the optics were bad.
An image of a powerful white cop cruelly subduing a suffering black man was, to many, a clear example of black subjugation by the police. Black Americans had in Chauvin and Floyd the undeniable proof of what they had been claiming about law enforcement for decades.
This example of black subjugation seems to go beyond law enforcement. There is no question that the incident called into question methods of policing and racial attitudes toward blacks by white police officers (incidentally, there is no evidence that Chauvin’s treatment of Floyd had anything to do with race). For many Americans, however, the image of a black man being held down by a white cop was the perfect metaphor for the United States of America. It was a metaphor that America is a fundamentally a bad country. And it was as if many white Americans said to themselves, “Oh my God, they caught us red-handed!”.
Then came George Floyd demonstrations by black, white, and races in between. There were even demonstrations in towns that were nearly 100% white, with Black Lives Matter signs and similar messages. White America was thus in the position of having to demonstrate a negative: that they were not racist. Those protesting intended to make it clear that they were in solidarity with George Floyd and not with the “racist” cop.
The question arises: Why were so many Americans so susceptible to the idea that America is bad, and that some collective apology, on behalf of the nation, was needed in response to the Minneapolis incident?
One likely answer is that media has made the country sensitive on matters concerning race in recent years. On issues of crime, education, income, and wealth, where there are disparities between blacks and whites, some in our media will suggest or claim racism is the cause. Many now suggest that opposing illegal entry into the country or limiting immigration from certain nations is somehow racist. The steady diet of this kind of messaging from the media personalities (television and print) have had some effect on the psyche of many Americans.
America has always been obsessed with race. From slavery and Jim Crow laws to I.Q. tests and the O.J. Simpson trial, there has always been national fascination with race, much of it unhealthy. This unhealthy interest in things racial has been part of country’s identity. For all of America’s virtues, there was always a deep stain of how the nation conducted its racial business. Many elites, I believe, see and to some extent appreciate America’s greatness but also like balancing that with a focus on its shortcomings (America, you’re not so great).
However, that balancing act began to unravel on November 4, 2008. Electing a Barack Obama, a black man, to the presidency of the United States, seemed like it might go a long way in removing the stain.
At first, the historic election of Barack Obama was an interesting story to cover. Obama, however, was not simply elected, he was re-elected. And all the while, he was doing all the mundane things presidents do (from meeting with congressional leaders to pardoning turkeys). Having a black man as president somehow became normal. The symbolism of having someone black in the White House suggested that America was no longer bad. It had cleaned up its act in handling its racial business.
This was too much for media, the elites, and the Left to handle.
The 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman captured the attention of the nation. Martin was black. Zimmerman is Hispanic. To attempt to racialize the incident, some media sources such as The New York Times and CNN described Zimmerman as a white Hispanic.
The 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson also dominated the news for months. The reporting was slanted, painting Brown as the victim, with little suggestion that his actions may have contributed to his death. The Black Lives Matter movement gained steam in the wake of Brown’s death. And then we saw:
- Voter identification laws were assumed to be racist.
- Some in the media suggested that opposition to the Affordable Care Act was motivated by racism.
- Criticizing President Obama was open to charges of racism.
- Since 2015, many believe President Trump is racist.
The election of Barack Obama was a traumatizing event for the country. While his election may have signaled that America was no longer the sinful country of its past, Obama’s presidency has made us more sensitive about racial matters. Ironically, the less racism there is in America, as Obama’s elections testify, the more the Left wants to suggest that the nation has not made much progress since the 1950s. There is a desire among some Americans to search behind every tree and around every corner for racial infractions. Identifying racism makes those who seek it feel virtuous. There is also power in being able to label adversaries racist. There has even been change in how we use language to keep America on the hook. We are now bombarded with terms such as anti-racist and systemic racism. There is a significant portion of the American public that needs America to have just enough racism that clearly tarnishes the nation’s image as a great nation. The elites seized upon the death of George Floyd to incite racial division, to rebuke America’s history and icons, and to end any possibility of removing the nation’s historical stain.