(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Race Matters [1]

['Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags', 'Showtags Popular_Tags']

Date: 2023-02-02  

We begin today with Robin Givhan of The Washington Post taking a look at how caste manifests itself within Black communities.

Systemic racism does terrible, dehumanizing things to the souls of those who are caught in its net. And it’s impossible to watch even a few minutes of the video footage captured during Nichols’s arrest and not weep over the cruelty and disregard with which he was treated. The videos from police body cameras and an overhead street camera offer a limited look at what transpired on that night in early January. The public can see that the tragedy begins with the officers exhibiting angry contempt for Nichols as he is pulled from his vehicle while officers hurl curses at him. He is lashed by a barrage of impossible and confusing orders, waves of profanity and verbal threats, and a litany of deadly blows from a baton, fists and feet. By the time the officers step away from Nichols and prop his limp body against a vehicle, they’re panting from their efforts. It’s exhausting work beating another man down, breaking his spirit so that one can stand over him, pounding the life out of an unarmed man and calling it one’s livelihood. [...]

The failures in the country’s police forces cannot be reduced to a matter of race, even as race is fundamental to the way in which people experience both law enforcement and criminal justice. Race helps distinguish whether a person has faith that the police will see them as citizens worthy of respect, will empathize when they call for help and will act when they plead for aid. The police are part of the substructure that helps hold up the country’s social hierarchy, its strict delineation of power and privilege that is stubbornly unyielding to money, education and politics. As the author Isabel Wilkerson noted, America’s caste system “is about the deadly dehumanization of the subordinated caste that allows almost any atrocity to be inflicted upon them — by anyone in any group, including their own, to uphold the caste system and to maintain one’s own place, however marginal, within it.”

History long ago defined Whiteness as an invaluable asset, affording one a foothold on the top rung of the ladder. Just one drop of Blackness was an inescapable burden. The order was set. Over time, the caste system has encouraged colorism. It has caused some Black immigrants, hoping to stay at least one rung from the bottom of the social hierarchy, to carefully distinguish themselves from Black Americans whose ancestors were enslaved. It drives the Black cabbie to pass up the Black man just trying to get a ride home. It helped spawn the old saw about only having to do two things in life: stay Black and die.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/2/2150482/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Roundup-Race-Matters

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/