It’s ‘long past time’ to make America not ‘great again,’ but good for the first time

Was anyone surprised by the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor?

The murders of Black people by police is the norm for our country. And it has been all along.

We should have recognized that at least six years ago, when Officer Daniel Pantaleo murdered Eric Garner and was acquitted. By we, I mean white people. People like me who could look at the actual video of that cold-blooded murder, feel bad for ten minutes, tsk-tsk it, and then go merrily on with our lives without fear, doing our jobs, getting raises, having kids, and pretending a few verbal condemnations on social media somehow meant something so we could feel better about ourselves. “We’re not like them,” we could tell ourselves. And we did. Again and again and again. We did it when Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old, was murdered for playing with a toy gun. When Sandra Bland was arrested for having a taillight out and suddenly wound up dead in a jail cell. When Mike Brown was murdered for supposedly stealing cigarettes. When Philandro Castile told cops he had a lawful firearm. When Freddie Gray went from being healthy enough to run from the police to magically being dead in a van. Keith Childress Jamar Clarke, Samuel Dubois, Victor LaRosa, Kevin Higgenbotham, Oscar Grant, Sean Reed…It is a long litany, but there is a constant thread. Invariably, the legal action on all of these deaths comes down to a single sentence: “No police have been charged.” In the few instances that they have been, they were almost always acquitted.

We white people knew that white supremacists were infiltrating the police back in 2006 because the FBI told us so, and we went on with our lives, complaining about taxes and worrying about money and talking sports and pretending each and every new case of murder by cop was an isolated incident instead of a plague every bit as deadly as Corona but not nearly as novel.

But we have finally reached a boiling point, and it is scalding all of us, even those who in our white privilege would prefer to put the lid back on the pot. We have finally been shaken from our complacency and denial.

There are numerous articles circulating right now basically telling white people how to be good allies to Black people, mostly so we can feel better about ourselves and go back to doing nothing. Once again, we make it all about us. Dear friends, this is not about us. Our comfort level is not the issue.

I would say: Do something. Anything. Write politicians. Disagree with racists. Confront complacency. Write letters. March peacefully. Educate others about the long-standing social structures and advantages that have always rested upon the subjugation of minorities. (If you don’t know, learn.) Listen and try to understand what Black and brown people are going through, while acknowledging that in honesty we never really can. We will never feel the fear and terror they do daily just by living their lives in today’s America, but try. Most of all, if you are pretending there is a “great” to go back to – stop. Just stop. Our country was built on racism and sexism and exploitation. Those good old days you want to restore included humiliating Jim Crow laws, segregated schools, lynchings, women as property, child labor, and racist and sexist attitudes and discrimination accepted as a matter of course.

In the end, the current circumstance is not about us, fellow white people. It is about systemic injustice done to Black and brown people in our names and for our advantage. Not comfortable with that? Good. It’s time to stop being comfortable. It’s time to acknowledge the ongoing wrong that has been perpetrated for our comfort and ease and profit.

It’s time for change. It’s long past time.

It’s time to make America not “great again,” but good —for the very first time.

Elizabeth DiSavino is the author of “Katherine Jackson French: Kentucky’s Forgotten Ballad Collector.”

This story was originally published June 17, 2020 at 4:26 PM.