Masks are part of the new normal in our coronavirus reality. Everyone is wearing them now, and when someone isn’t, most people give them a wide berth. It’s become so commonplace that I’m even a little jarred and disturbed when I see a bare face.
This week I have been noticing some of the masks I wear that prevent me from becoming my truest self. I put them on unconsciously but there were reasons, and as I examine them, I see that they’re mostly because I feared or didn’t like what was underneath. Behind my mask of perfectionism—imposing rules on others to follow and getting frustrated when they don’t do things “the right way”—the truth is that I can’t stand it when I mess up and dread harsh consequences from others when they see that I have. And under that mask is another—always keeping myself busy and worrying about things—because deep down, I am terrified that if I take my eyes off the balls I’m juggling for one second, everything will just go down the drain, so I can never stop going or else I’ll be totally screwed. And that is probably a mask in itself because under that, there must be more—perhaps doubt that there can really be grace for my failings, or that I can fully trust God to take care of me. I’m a Russian nesting doll of masks with a stranger in the middle.
So I want to make it a practice to ask myself often in all sorts of situations: Am I wearing a mask right now? And commit to taking it off and dealing with what’s underneath, to not just covering up the issues and pretending they’re not there. A hard question, yet the work of removing the layers of masks over one’s lifetime is necessary for growth. How can I ever become a better person if I don’t admit to myself who I am first?
Today is Pentecost Sunday. It is also six days after we saw the death of George Floyd by the hands of officer Derek Chauvin caught on video, which launched widespread protest in Minneapolis and in other cities across the states. Three days after the escalating protests turned into riots that resulted in a police precinct building and a Target being set on fire. Two days after the president threatened that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” (a phrase coined by Miami police chief Walter Headley who was known for his violent tactics against civil rights protests in the 1960s, such as having officers patrol black neighborhoods with shotguns and dogs, and strip-searching a black teenager and dangling him over a bridge).
I grew up in the Pentecostal denomination, which is named for the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon the early church in a fiery way to transform and empower them to do the work of God. It was the fulfilment of prophecy of Joel—that God’s Spirit would be poured out on all people, that sons and daughters would prophesy, young men would see visions, old men would dream dreams, and women too would prophesy (Joel 2:28-29). Pentecostals believe that the gift of prophecy is still available today. Growing up, I was taught that the role of a prophet was to communicate what the Spirit was saying to the people of God, and that the intention of prophecy was to strengthen, encourage, and comfort others and to edify the church (1 Corinthians 14: 3-4). Jeremiah described his experience of being a prophet this way: “But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot” (Jeremiah 20:9). I don’t pretend to be a prophet in any sense of holding an official office, but the roots of my faith are still Pentecostal—a legacy which, like every legacy, is complex and cause for both gratitude and internal wrestling. When I observe what is happening in our country now, I feel words in my heart like a fire, about a subject which I never felt adequate to speak on but which I am finally compelled to say something about.
As an Asian person living in America, all my life I have worn the convenient mask of being part of the so-called “model minority.” Aside from being called “flat nose” by one kid in elementary school, it wasn’t until I went to college in Missouri that I really felt a difference in how I was treated as a non-white person, compared to the white majority around me. But even though I often felt the difference, it wasn’t something I wanted to make a fuss about. I relied on my masks of being an English major and reading, talking, and dressing the part to show that I wasn’t a FOB (short for fresh-off-the-boat, a derogatory term for an Asian immigrant who hasn’t assimilated to America yet), that I liked the same music, TV shows, and books as my white friends, and felt embarrassed by my unconscious subtle Asian traits that white friends would often find funny, such as my love of fruit as a snack or dessert, wanting to eat rice with most meals, and not wearing shoes inside, but always laughed along with them instead of saying anything. I had a professor who chose to make me a target of jokes and asked in front of the entire class if I “spoke Anglo” and when I replied “excuse me?” he pretended to be scared and commented how I was “so serious,” but I just finished out the rest of the semester in his class, praying that he would leave me alone.
In 2014, the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson woke me up to the racism experienced by the black community, but while I closely followed the news and donated money, I still did not speak up. However, as a certain unattributed text image which has been circling around lately on social media says: “It is not enough to be quietly non-racist, now is the time to be vocally anti-racist.” It’s time for me to take off my masks of not being educated enough on race to speak up and wanting to keep the peace with everyone in my social circles to confront my cowardice resulting in complicit silence with white supremacy.
As I hold the mirror up to my own masked face and try not to flinch away from what I see, I invite and challenge you to look, too. With everything happening in our country during this time, I’m starting to ask myself these questions: What is the mask here? Who is wearing it, and do they know that they are? Am I the one wearing the mask?
To my friends who would like to stand next to me and look in the mirror:
If you are an Asian living in America, do you wear a mask of complaining about anti-Asian racism (such as that experienced by many Asians during our coronavirus pandemic), but beneath it you are silent about the anti-black racism among your community, from the overtly aggressive (that an Asian man named Tou Thao was one of the three officers who just watched when George Floyd stopped breathing under his colleague’s knee) to the insidious throwaway comments of your older Asian relatives such as “hak gwai” (a derogatory Cantonese term for a black person literally meaning black ghost)?
If you believe that peaceful protest is the best and only way to achieve social change, are you wearing a mask of ignorantly believing in the sanitized, suitable for white society image of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who actually said in his speech “The Other America”: “I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”
If you condemn the rioting and looting that is happening right now, are you wearing a mask of propriety, respect for law and order, and belief that destruction of property is not a valid form of protest, but underneath it, you are unaware of the pain the black community is going through and that in your privileged ignorance, you are dismissing the murders of black people as not warranting escalated action and that you are essentially valuing property over human lives? Did you know that the Boston Tea Party was a riot and that the present-day value of the tea that was dumped is estimated at around $1 million? Did you know that the CEO of Target has issued a statement of sympathy with the protesters and that the owner of Gandhi Mahal restaurant that also caught on fire when the police precinct burned said, “Let my building burn, justice needs to be served”? Did you know that when Jesus went into the temple and found injustice and corruption, he ransacked the market? Do you really believe that “things don’t matter, people matter”?
If all of the above questions I have asked are not giving you second thoughts about taking off your masks, here’s one last one:
If you are one of the people who responds to “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter,” or you take issue with Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem in peaceful protest or with other black celebrities making speeches because “they’re getting too political” and “they should stay in their lane,” and you do not approve of any of the forms of black protest you’ve seen, then I have to ask: what’s really under there? Is it just plain old racism?
As James Baldwin writes in The Fire Next Time: “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”
Friends, no matter what’s underneath your mask, taking it off is a step in the right direction.
Ijeoma Oluo, the author of So You Want to Talk About Race says, “The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including yourself. And it’s the only way forward.”
As I said earlier in this too-long post, the work of removing one’s layers of masks over one’s lifetime is necessary for growth. It’s hard work, but it’s good work. And as we work to take off our masks to confront and dismantle our own racism and that of others’, we are doing the work of love—the only work that matters.
Won’t you join me in this work? I have a lot of catching up to do—starting with my favorite activity, reading! Beginning with this resource doc and How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (once it’s in stock somewhere again). If anyone has any additional recommendations, I’d love to hear them! When you’re new to anything, it’s important to listen to the experts in the field—those who have been doing the work long before you—and to support them in tangible ways like donating to organizations like Black Lives Matter, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Minnesota Freedom Fund, Black Visions Collective, Reclaim the Block, and North Star Health Collective. I am just at the start of my journey, but who knows? Maybe one day we’ll see each other in the streets making “good trouble.”
PHOEBE AU-YEUNG 
Phoebe, Thank you for sharing your heart. It is so good to hear your voice. This blog is powerful and inspiring and is such an awesome example of steps to take. I have a copy of How to Be Anti Racist if you want to borrow it. I also have a copy of White Fragility. (I know we are not white, but it speaks to systemic racism and it is really good)
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Thanks, Jeanne! Maybe we can do a book swap. I can send you Out of Sorts by Sarah Bessey.
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Can you see a reason to dislike the dangerous looting, violence against police, AND police brutality against black people? Why does it come to a pro-Black Lives Matter stance vs a pro-racist stance? Colin Kaepernick faced criticism for bring politics into the NFL and sparked other like-minded players to kneel as well, and now the NFL wants nothing to do with Kaepernick. I think the NFL wanted to distance itself for the image that it did send to viewers, an unintended message that condones nonverbal political protests. A national televised football game is not an appropriate venue for that, esp with NFL dollars and advertisements. People pay to see him play football not deliver a point in the political arena. Kneeling should be done when a player receives a visible concussion.
I am seeing a danger in being for violent protests Phoebe Au-Yeung. Violence just begets more violence. Mayor London Breed, who we all know is a black woman, spoke of National Guardsman along with a curfew to curtail any more looting and destruction of property and violence. Should she instead not impose a curfew? Martin Luther King is known for non-violent protests despite the one speech you cited. Malcom X in his autobiography criticized MLK Jr for being whitewashed and sings kumbaya with other white people; in other words, MLK was too soft. MLK was for racial integration and Malcom X at one point was for black separatist ideology, to create a literal nation of blacks when he followed the Nation of Islam.
Jesus clearing the temple and the Boston Tea Party are so different than the BLM movement today. Sure Jesus did act violently while clearing out the money changers. But this isn’t the whole of what Christianity is. Jesus said “those who live by the sword will die by the sword” when Peter drew his weapon and attacked a Jewish official when Judas pointed him out, and in the presence of Pilate Jesus said, “If my servants were of this world, they would fight.” The Boston Tea Party along with the Boston Massacre, was a clear declaration of war leading to the American Revolution.
There is no white devil to fight. Thinking this way is too divisive.
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Hi Justin,
Thank you for taking the time to read my post and for your engaging with me on here. Since we don’t know each other personally, I want to be sure that I am understanding you correctly. Regarding your first question, I think that the point you are making is that it is possible to be against dangerous looting, violence against police, and police brutality, and your second question seems to be making the point that just because someone is not pro-BLM, they are not automatically pro-racism and vice versa, that it’s not all so cut-and-dried. Did I get that right?
If that is the essence of what you are saying, I would like to address your first two questions, starting with “can you see a reason to dislike the dangerous looting, violence against police, AND police brutality against black people?”
First, the violence against police. I am curious what instances of violence against the police you mean, unless you are referring to the burning of the police precinct in Minneapolis, which I equate more with looting since it also has to do with damage to property. In 2019, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, 147 officers were killed in duty (https://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2019), while according to Mapping Police Violence, 1099 people were killed by police (https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/). The data really doesn’t seem to support a narrative that police are experiencing more violence than they are dishing out, even if you take race out of it. However, since what we’re talking about here IS race, according to the same Mapping Police Violence resource, black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people and 1.3 times more likely to be unarmed when it occurs. I don’t want anyone to die, no matter what they’ve done, what race they belong to, or whether they’re an officer or a civilian. But can we at least agree that the violence against police is in no way equal or even close to the police brutality against black people? In fact, much of the personal footage taken at the protests happening all around the country show that it is the police inciting violence at these events, tear gassing and shooting peaceful protesters with rubber bullets and even running them over with vehicles.
Second, the dangerous looting. I cannot agree that looting, which is theft or damage to goods and property, is considered dangerous when compared to the murders that are being protested. Property can be replaced, human lives cannot. Please don’t assume this means I am saying everyone should go loot to their hearts’ content and that I support looting unequivocally, just that I understand why protests have escalated to the point of riots and looting. Imagine that after years of being profiled and detained by police officers for no identifiable reason other than that you are black and watching your friends, family, and community members die for similar reasons and justice not being served, you see a video of a man who looks like you, lying on the ground under with his neck under an officer’s knee, gasping that he can’t breathe, and no one does anything, so he dies, and the officers involved were not arrested immediately. Can you understand why this would ignite such rage and grief and make you want to do something like break windows in a desperate act to get people to do something?
You mentioned Colin Kaepernick’s nonverbal political protests not being an appropriate venue to deliver a point in the political arena. It begs the question what is the right time and way to protest, if there is always an issue of it being too dangerous or not the right place for politics. Why do you say “Jesus clearing the temple and the Boston Tea Party are so different from the BLM movement today”? No one is advocating for physical harm against other human beings on behalf of the black community. You also stated “violence just begets more violence.” Can you tell me then, if you think war is ever justified? If yes and you think war is necessary sometimes, then there seems to be contradiction. And while I am a non-violent person myself, I completely understand why after hundreds of years of enslavement, institutionalized racism that was legally outlawed but still persists insidiously in the prejudices and discrimination that black Americans experience today, and the deaths of numerous friends, family, and community members by the hands of officers who, 99% of the time, according to Mapping Police Violence, are not charged, the black community is saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ Rioting is the public outpouring of justified rage and grief, and a call for substantive change.
This country has a rich legacy of protests which led to substantive change. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, there were riots in over 100 cities across America, and it wasn’t until after these riots that the Civil Rights Act was expanded to better protect black Americans. And since it is June, which is Pride month for the LGBTQ community, I also mention the Stonewall Rebellion, started by Marsha P. Johnson, a black drag queen who threw the first brick in that riot against police brutality, which resulted in today’s peaceful Pride events and paved the way to changing people’s opinions in favor of marriage equality.
You ended saying “there is no white devil to fight. Thinking this way is too divisive.” Yet Jesus said, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law– a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10: 34-37). That sounds pretty divisive to me. Jesus was an intensely polarizing figure in his time, who cared more about calling out the corruption of the Pharisees, healing sick people on days he wasn’t supposed to, flouting traditional Jewish societal customs such as hand-washing and not eating with tax collectors, and extending solidarity to “fallen women” of the day than he did about being united with those who opposed the work of the Father. Jesus said that “every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand” (Matthew 12: 25). But America is already divided. What we are seeing in the shaking and rumbling of the building starting to collapse because so many people for so long have not listened to the pain and injustice that the black community has experienced for so long. I can’t imagine the years and generations of trauma and injustice on their backs. There’s only so long you can stand it before something’s got to give. Now is the breaking point.
Now regarding your question “Why does it come to a pro-Black Lives Matter stance vs a pro-racist stance?” Because we are at the breaking point. We are at the point where to not actively and vocally support the black community means not doing our part to be anti-racist, it means letting atrocities continue to happen to them. As Elie Wiesel says, “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” When we look back at this time in history in a hundred years, I don’t want to say that when the second civil rights movement happened in America, I sat by and said nothing, like many people in the 1960s who were quietly non-racist but not vocally anti-racist.
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Hello Phoebe
Let me thank you for allowing me to say something even when we disagree. You could have just placed your hand over my mouth and silenced me since this is your website. I know you could pick me up and throw me away. You had to approve of my post.
I believe what weakens your argument overall is this phenomenon of splitting (psychology) you demonstrate, with the thinking in terms of black and white only with no grey areas considered. I will reiterate and clarify the concept: I despise the police brutality against black Americans AND despise the rioting, the violence against police, and the looting as a result. It’s all bad and a huge mess. To say one must be for Black Lives Matter otherwise you are an oppressor, that is a faulty mode of thinking. The BLM movement isn’t without controversy even back in 2016 their mission was suspect as it looked like a bunch of angry black people getting tired of being policed because they are the ones committing the most crimes according to Heather MacDonald of the NY Post. https://nypost.com/2016/09/06/the-lies-told-by-the-black-lives-matter-movement/ With the knowledge in mind that black people are the ones who committed three-quarters of all shootings and 70% of all robberies in a city with a 23% black population, along with whites by comparison at less than 2% of all shootings and 4% of all robberies and they were 34% of the city’s population, do you see why whites or other non-blacks would have reason to keep distance? Choosing support between a “monolithic oppressive police force” and “raging black men and women with no concern for the economy and the civil safety of others” is a false dichotomy.
This “us vs them” mentality you espouse is not gonna lead to anything good. I have said “there is no white devil, it’s too divisive” instead of clarifying this or refuting it you run with it using Jesus’ words about bringing a sword of division. That’s interesting because we know Jesus told Peter to put his sword away and healed the high priest’s servant’s ear and said “those who live by the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). How do you reconcile those two statements then? Jesus is being rhetorical is Matthew 10, is he not? We know Jesus’ ministry brought two people together, made the Jews and Gentiles as one body instead of furthering the alienation between the two groups like American politics does (Ephesians 2:11-21). You seem ok about augmenting the clear divisions between others and somehow peace will be achieved.
You quote Elie Weisel to discourage indifference, a speech he gave from 1999 as I recall. You seem unable to see how it’s possible to dislike police brutality aimed at a black person and dislike the tactics of Black Lives Matter too. It’s a false either-or conundrum. I don’t think I am indifferent but I do know some people can’t stand the viewpoint of others and don’t like to hear them. It’s very easy to think in terms of conservative or progressive, or Democrat, or Republican. It’s much easier to say all blacks are violent criminals, or all whites are black slave Nazi supremacists or all Asians are precocious intellectuals or all carriers of covid 19, or all Muslims are terrorists. It’s not that simple at all. People are complicated, and people groups are complicated.
I will end with this: not all police are corrupt, not all whites are racists, not all blacks are violent and not all Asians are super intelligent. Ignorance comes in all colors. Prejudice is a vice that recognizes no color skin or culture.
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I forgot to address in your blog post you claimed MLK Jr. was for violent protests. You make it seem like he was misunderstood by white society. That is not true. Here is what you didn’t quote in your speech excerpt from the link provided: “I’m still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more social problems than they will solve. That in a real sense it is impracticable for the Negro to even think of mounting a violent revolution in the United States. So I will continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way. And continue to affirm that there is another way.”
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As I have mentioned in my original post, I am at the start of my journey in becoming anti-racist and have much to learn about the work that has been done already, by Black Lives Matter and other organizations. Any movement for change comes with controversy, but I think it is important to consider who are the ones criticizing and who is in support. However, as everyone should when supporting organizations, I will be researching and finding out more about the work Black Lives Matter does, how and why they do it, and who is involved. But the reason why at this moment I feel comfortable suggesting them to others even without having done a deep-dive is for the reason I mentioned earlier, about who is in support–because I know the organization is highly respected among the black community. It’s important to listen to those whom organizations are advocating for, to know which ones are truly worth supporting. After all, as a non-black person, what do I know about what it’s like to be black and what black people want to see change in this country? So it should count for something that black people are saying, “I support Black Lives Matter. They represent my interests and beliefs.” You said: “to say one must be for Black Lives Matter otherwise you are an oppressor, that is a faulty mode of thinking.” I never said this, so please don’t put words in my mouth. But while we’re on this subject, you can believe in the same things (such as dismantling racism) as an organization without supporting it. That’s why there are so many organizations who all have the same purpose but different methods. You don’t have to support Black Lives Matter to be anti-racist and for justice on behalf of the black community. If after researching Black Lives Matter I discover that their methods don’t completely align with what I believe, I will take my support elsewhere. There are many other great organizations out there who choose different methods to achieve the same purpose, some of which I also mentioned in my original post besides just Black Lives Matter. I hope you wouldn’t let distaste for one organization cause you to disregard all the others.
“You claimed MLK was for violent protests.” No, I never said that, so again, don’t put words in my mouth. All I did was ask a probing question about why people think that peaceful protest is the best and only way to achieve social change. As I said to you in my previous comment, I am not advocating looting or rioting (and I was aware prior to your quote that Dr. King personally did not believe in rioting), just that I understand why protests have escalated to that point. Regarding Matthew 26:52, Adam Clarke says in his commentary that “the general meaning of this verse is, they who contend in battle are likely, on both sides, to become the sacrifices of their mutual animosities. But it is probably a prophetic declaration of the Jewish and Roman states. The Jews put our Lord to death under the sanction of the Romans – both took the sword against Christ, and both perished by it. The Jews by the sword of the Romans, and the Romans by that of the Goths, Vandals, etc. The event has verified the prediction – the Jewish government has been destroyed upwards of 1700 years, and the Roman upwards of 1000.” Furthermore, Peter Pratt says in his commentary: “‘All those who take the sword will perish with the sword.’ Compare ‘he who sheds man’s blood, by man will his blood be shed’ (Genesis 9:6). But there the thought was positive, justice must be meted out for murder. Here the thought is rather of the necessary eventual consequences.” Given what these commentaries say, what Jesus said should not taken as a command, but as an acknowledgment of the consequences of violence once it has begun. And that is what I have been saying in my original post and in my replies to you: merely that I understand why we (this country) are here (riots and looting) right now.
I find it ironic that you are accusing me of “thinking in terms of black and white only” when you yourself seem to be assuming the same thing about me– for instance, you say I espouse an “‘us vs them’ mentality.” If I am to read “us” as non-black people and “them” as black people, I am not espousing that at all, quite the opposite. To espouse means to adopt or to support, and I categorically do not support non-black people being against black people. I’m not sure how you could think that if you read my original post and my previous response to you. Or perhaps you are equating my invitation to soul-search and ask introspective questions to discover where one might be blind to their own racism as “us vs them.” This is a strawman argument, much like your statement “choosing support between a ‘monolithic oppressive police force’ and ‘raging black men and women with no concern for the economy and the civil safety of others’ is a false dichotomy.”
I appreciate you bringing data to the table in our conversation and I read the article. If the statistics are true, it would certainly paint a bleak picture of black violence against police officers. Here is a resource that tells a different story: “Multi-Level Bayesian Analysis of Racial Bias in Police Shootings at the County-Level in the United States, 2011–2014” (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1en5keh6j07gdrk/AACr4plVggBq1U44OltbvWNwa/A_Peer-Reviewed?dl=0&preview=Ross+(2015)+Multi-level+Bayesian+Analysis+of+Racial+Bias+in+Police+Shootings+at+the+County-Level+in+the+US%2C+2011-2014.pdf&subfolder_nav_tracking=1) by Cody T. Ross, a peer-reviewed research article which notes that “larger county population size, a higher proportion of black residents in the population, lower median income, and greater disparities in income all appear to be reliably associated with an elevated ratio of police shooting rate against unarmed black individuals relative to unarmed– and even armed– whites.”
The same article also goes on to say: “Across almost all counties, individuals who were armed and shot by police had a much higher probability of being black or hispanic than being white. Likewise, across almost all counties, individuals who were unarmed and shot by police had a much higher probability of being black or hispanic than being white. Tragically, across a large proportion of counties, individuals who were shot by police had a higher median probability of being unarmed black individuals than being armed white individuals. While this pattern could be explained by reduced levels of crime being committed by armed white individuals, it still raises a question as to why there exists such a high rate of police shooting of unarmed black individuals. … It is sometimes suggested that in urban areas with more black residents and higher levels of inequality, individuals may be more likely to commit violent crime, and thus the racial bias in police shooting may be explainable as a proximate response by police to areas of high violence and crime (community violence theory). In other words, if the environment is such that race and crime covary, police shooting ratios may show signs of racial bias, even if itis crime, not race, that is the causal driver of police shootings. In the models fit in this study, however, there is no evidence of an association between black-specific crime rates (neither in assault-related arrests nor in weapons-related arrests) and racial bias in police shootings, irrespective of whether or not other controls were included in the model. As such, the results of this study provide no empirical support for the idea that racial bias in police shootings (in the time period, 2011–2014, described in this study) is driven by race-specific crime rates (at least as measured by the proxies of assault- and weapons-related arrest rates in 2012).The methodology used in this paper does not allow one to speak with confidence as to the causal drivers of racial bias in police shooting; the source of racial bias in police shootings, however, can be logically decomposed into two parts: 1) racial bias in encounter rates between police and suspects/civilians, and/or 2) racial bias in use of force upon encountering these suspects/civilians. A racial bias in encounter rates could be unjustifiable (police engage in racist or ethnic targeting of blacks/hispanics irrespective of suspected criminal activity) or a proportional response to local-level, race/ethnicity-specific, crime rates. Under the assumptions that police express no racial bias in use of force upon encountering suspects/civilians, and also engage in interactions with suspects/civilians in direct proportion to race/ethnicity-specific crime rates (where crime rates covary with race/ethnicity), one would expect to see an association between racial bias in police shootings and race-specific crime rates—an association that is not found in these results. As such, the results of this study provide evidence that there is racial bias in police shootings that is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates, and is related to either: 1) racial bias in police encountering suspects/civilians, or 2) racial bias by police in the use of force upon encountering suspects/civilians. The geographically-resolved proxy of racial animus used in this study, however, did not show a reliable association with racial bias in police shootings, although the association was consistently positive across models. This finding does not rule out the possibility that racist norms within police departments themselves may potentially have much stronger associations with racial bias in police shootings than these more coarse ecological-level data. Many police, or former police, report of—or have been documented to engage in promotion of—extensive racist norms (e.g. see [41–49], and note that this list is far from exhaustive). Acquiring more systematic data on the extent of racist norms within police departments (as opposed to the counties in which they are clustered) will require more thorough qualitative and quantitative investigations of police departments themselves.”
Another resource that I want to share is https://policescorecard.org/findings, which uses data from multiple sources to grade California police departments in three areas: violence, accountability, and their approach to policing. According to this site, “When people come forward to report police misconduct in California, it rarely leads to accountability. Statewide, only 1 in every 14 civilian complaints of police misconduct was ruled in favor of civilians in 2016-2017. In 81% of jurisdictions, civilians reporting misconduct had less than a 1 in 5 chance of the complaint being ruled in their favor by police investigators. Complaints concerning police violence and racial/identity discrimination almost never resulted in accountability. Civilians reporting police racial discrimination had only a 1 in 64 chance of their complaint being upheld and civilians reporting use of force complaints had only a 1 in 78 chance of being upheld. This lack of administrative accountability for police violence mirrors the criminal justice system’s approach towards police violence. Of 647 police shootings statewide between 2016-2017, only one of these incidents has resulted in an officer being prosecuted for breaking the law.”
Furthermore, “There’s evidence of police racial bias in California, especially against black people. Statewide, black people were arrested for misdemeanor offenses at 2.2x higher rate per population than white people. 89 of California’s 100 largest city police departments arrested black people for drug possession at higher rates than whites, despite research showing similar rates of drug use and selling between the groups. And while police were more likely to arrest black people for low-level offenses, they were less likely to find someone responsible for the most serious offense – homicide – when the victim was black. California police reported finding a suspect in 76% of homicides of white victims from 2016-2017 compared to only 48% of Latinx victims and 48% of black victims. There was also evidence of racial bias in police use of force. California police were 32% more likely to shoot when arresting a black person and 20% more likely to shoot when arresting a Latinx person compared to a white person. Similarly, police were 23% more likely to kill or seriously injure a black person and 20% more likely to kill or seriously injure a Latinx person when making an arrest. And while 46% of white people killed or seriously injured by police were unarmed, 52% of black people and 51% of Latinx people were. Finally, police also appear to be more likely to shoot black and Latinx people as a first response rather than first attempting non-lethal force to resolve the situation. Police shot first, rather than first attempting a lower level of force, in 87% of police shootings of black people and 84% of Latinx people compared to 81% of police shootings of white people.”
Based on the findings of these resources, I have to disagree with the conclusion of the article you shared that black people disproportionately cause crime.
“There is no white devil to fight.” I don’t know how you can think that racism doesn’t still exist in this country even if it is no longer legal. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis still exist, comprised of individuals who live across the country. They work in regular jobs and are friends and family members of regular people, including law enforcement officers and politicians. The “white devils,” to use your phrase, might not operate in broad daylight these days but just as you seem to be arguing that I am being an absolutist, I think it’s too absolute to say that there are no “white devils” to fight. They don’t have the power they once did, but they are still among us in society, and their ideas and influence still live on, in many who are not aware of their predispositions and prejudices which have been passed down by people whom they’ve only ever known as good people– people like sweet old Grandpa who built a dollhouse for his granddaughter and taught her to say the Lord’s Prayer, or Bob, who helps out at all the church fundraisers and happens to be the police commissioner’s father. No one wants to believe that the people you like and even love could have racist prejudices or beliefs, or that they taught us something that was actually racist. But one of the main points of my post was that we all wear masks without even realizing it. If you don’t see the work of “white devils” still happening in this country, maybe it’s because they don’t take off their masks when you’re around.
In your closing, you listed a series of offensive stereotypes and told me that people are complicated, as if I had somehow suggested that I believed any of those stereotypes. You don’t have to tell me that people are complicated– as a Chinese woman who is a Canadian citizen living in San Francisco, a Christian, and part of the queer community, I understand the complexity of individuals and groups quite well.
I would like to ask you to watch this entire video of Trevor Noah from The Daily Show sharing his thoughts about the death of George Floyd, and the Minneapolis protests (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4amCfVbA_c). He makes some insightful points that helped me clarify my thoughts. I hope you will find this video as eye-opening as I did.
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By the way, I came across an article (https://timeline.com/by-the-end-of-his-life-martin-luther-king-realized-the-validity-of-violence-4de177a8c87b) about how Dr. King shifted his perspective on rioting not long after he made the first speech we previously discussed in April 1967. In September 1967, after a summer of riots, he said in another speech: “Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social phenomena …They may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking.”
The article then goes on to say: “One of the foundational notions of nonviolence is that in order to be respected, one must behave well and abide by the social contract: work hard, follow the rules, and prosper. The problem is that since the beginning of the Atlantic Slave Trade, black people had worked harder and followed more rules, more strictly than anyone in America. And still they found themselves in an impossible and impoverished situation. King might not have been as militant as the militants would have liked, and he may have become an even greater citizen of the world while cities were on fire, but by the time he spoke in the fall of 1967, he recognized that it would no longer be effective to tell black folks to only protest peacefully, kindly, and respectfully. They could not prosper in a game where they were the only ones expected to play by the rules. King closed that speech with a stark truth: ‘Let us say boldly that if the violations of law by the white man in the slums over the years were calculated and compared with the law-breaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal would be the white man. These are often difficult things to say but I have come to see more and more that it is necessary to utter the truth in order to deal with the great problems that we face in our society.’ If it is violent to take that which does not belong to you for the thrill of, even briefly, imagining yourself on even ground with your oppressor, then King was concluding there was to be no hope for nonviolence. Perhaps not then, perhaps not ever. Martin Luther King, at the end of his life, was coming to understand the restrictions of nonviolence as a weapon against a violent oppressor who shows no moral compass. There are limits to how long one can attempt to quiet a fire. King’s transition from the summer of 1966 to the summer of 1967, was from hoping against violence to accepting it as a function of the society it operated in, as an inevitability for a people he had led to a promised land that did not deliver on its promise. Beyond the misattributed quotes and bad memes and poor logic made in his name, the real tragedy of King’s legacy is that the white people who so frequently invoke it in the name of peace do so with a fundamental perversion of his message. Nonviolence — as it is discussed and fetishized in proximity to the poor and/or marginalized — is so often only dragged out in response to any uprising of those people. The riot is a language, yes, but the response to a riot is also its own language; a language of doublespeak. The call is for peace and love, but the true demand is for complete silence altogether. An NFL player takes a knee without speaking, and is threatened and hated, called a violent thug and a racist. For those of certain skin colors, no protest can be peaceful enough. And it’s funny how that works. The people who have the most justifiable anger, the most rightful case for rebellion are the ones most frequently told to settle down, to embrace nonviolence. They are the ones told to follow the example of a man who met his end with a bullet, fired from a racist’s gun.”
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I am not putting words in your mouth when speaking of MLK Jr. (I have made a deduction.) You have said in your original blog post: “If you believe that peaceful protest is the best and only way to achieve social change, are you wearing a mask of ignorantly believing in the sanitized, suitable for white society image of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who actually said in his speech…” You are stating that the nonviolent image of MLK Jr. is not the true image of him when this is uttered before quoting the speech The Other America. It must follow that you believe MLK Jr. is in favor of violent protests or your attribution makes no sense. All he says from your citation is that riots are a byproduct of injustice; this does not mean he prefers it. To complicate the matter, this “sanitized, suitable for white society image” is confirmed by Malcom X when he censured MLK Jr’s peaceful “turn the other cheek” rhetoric. Malcom X also said MLK Jr was whitewashed for “singing kumbaya around a campfire with white oppressors.” As for the mindset of MLK Jr in September 1967 where he saw the value in violence, well it was already too late by that point. Nonviolence is what MLK Jr was known for—period; it’s not a misunderstanding of him, otherwise one would have to ignore Malcom X who was his best and contemporary critic.
When I said “thinking in terms of black and white only” it is extension from the previous point in my last post about splitting, a psychological tendency to deny any middle ground of discussion. To deny the valid position of despising both police brutality AND the violence and riots is splitting; thinking in terms of only black and white, us versus them, pro-racist vs pro-BLM, etc. Consider your initial reply when I asked this question:”Why does it come to a pro-Black Lives Matter stance vs a pro-racist stance?” Your reply was, “Because we are at the breaking point. We are at the point where to not actively and vocally support the black community means not doing our part to be anti-racist, it means letting atrocities continue to happen to them. As Elie Wiesel says, ‘We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.’ ” It makes no sense for BLM supporters to demand that I choose one over the other to hate: police brutality versus violent protesting and rioting, why not both? (No strawman argument here just another deduction.)
When i said “There is no white devil” I did not clarify. I just threw it out there. Malcom X used this phrase in his speeches when he campaigned for the Nation of Islam. “He fought the white devils every where” is an excellent way to summarize his activist career until he came to a necessary revelation. Since you brought up neo-Nazis and the KKK without warrant, what is the difference between whiteness and white supremacy? There has to be a difference, right? It would be wrong to equate plain, dull, average, white men and women to the same infamous status of a swastika tattooed anti-black bigot, who wears a tall elongated hood in the woods at night, and funds the Christian Identity Movement website, wouldn’t it? That is how some blacks see it. How does one fight anti-black racism with more racial prejudice against an alleged oppressor? Can’t fight fire with fire.
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Justin, I must say I tire of this chess match (something I’ve never been good at) of a conversation in which we parse each other’s words for unintended meanings and try to catch each other in the wrong. My intention of sharing those quotes from Dr. King was to show that even he, often held up as a paragon of non-violent protest, understood the validity of rioting, and that I too understand why we (this country) are here (rioting) currently. I have clarified several times that this was my meaning, so if you continue to argue that I mean something different from what I have expressly told you I mean, I am not sure what the point is in continuing to respond to you. Also, please note that I have read the article you provided in your second comment and replied at length, providing many resources of my own, but you have not returned the courtesy of replying to them or given any indication that you have read them.
I confess that the term “white devil” is not one I am familiar with, but which I assumed we could at least agree would include white supremacist groups such as neo-Nazis and the KKK, which is why I brought them up. Your question “what is the difference between whiteness and white supremacy” is a good one and attempting to answer this question has filled many volumes. I invite you to do your own research on this as well. However, I did a little preliminary digging and found a page (http://www.aclrc.com/whiteness) on the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre website that includes a definition of whiteness, as well as the Brittanica Encyclopaedia entry on white supremacy (https://www.britannica.com/topic/white-supremacy). If we are to accept these as working definitions, think it’s important to make a distinction between these two terms and white people. You rhetorically asked, “It would be wrong to equate plain, dull, average, white men and women to the same infamous status of a swastika tattooed anti-black bigot, who wears a tall elongated hood in the woods at night, and funds the Christian Identity Movement website, wouldn’t it?” I agree; yes, it would. You followed this question with “that is how some blacks see it.” Sure, there are extremists in any group so there must be some black people who see all white people as white supremacists, but just as you make the point that not all white people are white supremacists, let’s not paint the entire black lives movement as believing that all white people are white supremacists or that all proponents of the movement support black violence against white people and/or the police. That, to use your phrase, is fighting “fire with fire.” Do you believe it’s possible to be for the black lives movement AND not be against white people? I do. Now a harder question: do you believe it’s possible to not endorse white supremacy YET unknowingly possess racist preconceptions and attitudes that contribute to continued racism in our country? I do, because I’ve seen it in myself– and as with any mess that needs cleaning, the more I look, the more I see.
I think transformation always starts within, with recognizing the ways you have unconsciously aligned yourself with the oppressor. As a Christian, I believe it starts with looking in the mirror, in the spirit of Matthew 7: 3-5: “‘Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye,'” and asking as in Psalm 139: 23, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” In other words, taking an unflinching personal inventory and asking: where have I done wrong in this, and how can I humbly learn and grow? In my original post, I invited others to take inventory along with me. If you have accepted my invitation, taken inventory, and found nothing that needs to change in your thinking or actions, then that is between you and whichever deity you believe in (or if you are not religious, the ideals and values you most treasure). It is not my place to judge you, especially as I myself am so new to taking the plank of racism out of my eye.
I genuinely want to thank you for our conversation as it has forced me to do a lot of research that has increased my knowledge and learning about racism. I stand by my statement that to not actively and vocally support the black community means not doing our part to be anti-racist and letting atrocities continue to happen to them. But even if we never see eye-to-eye on this, I value respectful dialogue and believe that ultimately conversations like these are necessary for healing in our country to take place.
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I appreciate your piece. Good writing and good reflections. It is a journey and what I hear is that you are seeing, feeling what is underneath the violence, pain, suffering, and despair. As a student of therapy, we look beyond the presenting, external symptoms, we need to see things in context and how there are factors and influences underneath the behaviors. Know, see, and understand what is driving the looting and violence can help with the healing. We need to treat the roots and source of the pain. That is really all that matters to another human being..to be heard, to be understood, to be appreciated, and to be valued, to be allow equal rights and access. That is what I hear you are saying here. Others will discolor this piece and won’t fully understand your reflection, and that is why the fight is heavy work but I am optimistic, the needle will move as we stand together. The fact that you are reflecting, trying to understand is action. You are moving the needle. In solidarity with you.
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