If
Americans value black lives, we have a funny way of showing it.
As
a teaching assistant in a class on race in the United States, I’ve probably
paid more attention to the #BlackLivesMatter movement than a lot of my white
peers.
The
professor who teaches the course here in Madison, Wisconsin — where I’m
pursuing a PhD in sociology — is an expert on racial disparities in policing.
But now I’m learning a devastating lesson in the subject from outside the
classroom.
The
wakeup call came a few weeks ago — when a 19-year-old biracial man, Tony
Robinson, was shot right here in Madison. It happened between my favorite
restaurant and an excellent coffee shop.
This
brought the issue home in a new way: Tony Robinson was truly my neighbor. I
walk past the scene of the shooting nearly every day. How many times did I pass
him on the street or stand in line behind him for groceries?
In
a small place like Madison, the tragedy is intensely personal. Friends and
family of both Robinson and the cop who killed him are members of the
community. Parsing police violence against blacks isn’t some academic exercise
here.
The publicly known details of the Robinson shooting are still sketchy, so it’s too early to surmise whether the cop can justify his actions.
Of
course, people of color aren’t the only ones here who suffer from police
violence. Another Madison police officer shot a white
man who had drunkenly entered a neighbor’s home in the same
part of town a few years ago.
But
the bigger picture is too clear to ignore.
In
the aftermath of the latest tragedy, the protests in Madison — led by a coalition
calledYoung,
Gifted, and Black — are wisely keeping their focus on the
structural issue of racial injustice.
Wisconsin’s
actually ranked the worst
place in America to be black, according to TheRoot.com.
Nearly
half of black men under 30 have already done jail time, in fact. In Dane
County, where Madison is located, black people
are eight times more likely to be arrested than white people, based
on 2012 statistics.
Going
further, the unemployment
rate for blacks in Dane County was over 25 percent in 2011,
compared to 4.8 percent for whites. More than half of blacks in the county
live in poverty, compared to 8.7 percent of whites. And graduation rates
for black high school students lag behind those of whites.
Maybe
that’s linked to the fact that schools are more apt to suspend black students
than their white classmates. And while you might think, “Well, that could be
because the black students misbehave more,” consider that the disparity
in suspensions begins in preschool.
What
could a preschooler possibly do that’s so naughty he or she needs to be suspended?
Indeed,
Madison is a lousy place to be black — and it’s everyone’s responsibility to
change that. These shameful statistics should drive us all into the streets to
demand change.
One
line I’ve heard, generally from whites, is that they disagree with the slogan
“Black Lives Matter,” because all lives matter.
And
it’s true — all lives do matter.
But
here’s the thing: Nobody is disputing that white lives matter. Our entire
society is set up to protect white lives — not just to keep whites from getting
killed, but also to help them live healthy, productive lives.
If
America values all lives equally, we have a funny way of showing it.
We
need to turn this around so that the opportunities for black people in America
are equal to those of white people. That is everyone’s responsibility, no
matter your skin color.
OtherWords
columnist Jill Richardson is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our
Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It. OtherWords.org.