Sure, get rid of Aunt Jemima and Dungeons & Dragons’ orcs — but that won’t end racism
It has taken me a while to realize that the moment of social upheaval at which we have arrived is not a passing one. I’ve been reticent to say much in recent weeks as the country grapples with the realities left echoing after the gunshots that slew Breonna Taylor in her home and the breaths that were crushed out of George Floyd over nearly nine minutes.
Calling out racial injustice in the U.S. is like kicking the hornet’s nest underwater. The vespids deploy, then they drown. Yet here we are, after more than 30 days, floating like butterflies. It’s time to sting. It is time to speak.
Truth is, I don’t care about your Aunt Jemima syrup. As much as I love Dungeons & Dragons, I don’t care if its fantasy gaming books portray orcs and drow as evil and dark. Yes, these things are rooted in racism. In this country, you can pull on that thread until the flag unravels. Thread is all you’ll have for the effort.
Racism is pervasive. It’s in our professional discourse, our streaming suggestions, Tinder algorithms and Sunday morning pancakes. No one needs empty lip service from executives and politicians motivated by profit and popularity over societal growth and progress. We already did the whole profiting-off-the-pain-of-the-marginalized thing. You wouldn’t demolish Auschwitz to spare Jews in 2020. You can’t remove slave quarters to free a Black man from prison. Changing the name of the J.C. Nichols fountain is a nice gesture, but it does not erase the red lines he drew through our city.
More substantive changes are called for to combat the policies that have been killing, criminalizing and undermining Black Americans for the past 401 years. First, we need to question those policies. That means seeking out, listening to and heeding Black voices.
We need change, such as tolls on freeways that were built to vivisect disenfranchised communities — tolls that feed back into those communities. We need to restructure education for all our children just the way we need to restructure the police. We need officials who will reexamine every criminal case where the outcome was tainted by racial bias.
We need change that doesn’t just reinforce the same capitalist mentality that put Africans in chains and shipped them 5,000 miles to build a system that would murder and terrorize their descendants for half a millennium. We need change that finally takes the knee off the necks of Black Americans.
It may sound like reparations. Why should white Americans be made to pay for something they believe ended almost two human lifespans ago? The change I want is not just about slavery. How about 50 years ago? How about yesterday?
That kind of change isn’t beneficial to just one group or one category of people, and it doesn’t happen overnight. That kind of change takes conversation and sacrifice. People, all sorts of people, have problems with that. That’s because of a misunderstanding. To sacrifice is not to give up without cause. To sacrifice is to make an object sacred by giving it up to receive greater grace. People currently identified under the shield of whiteness are going to have to give up that privilege. I imagine that won’t feel great.
People identifying as Black are going to have to make some changes, too. The enmity toward queer, trans and nonbinary people prevalent in our communities does not support our movement toward equality. The walls we’ve built to protect our music, our food, our humor, hair and cultures from theft and destruction have to come down. I know that feels unfair. I know it feels risky. It is. But Black family, compared to the suffering of our ancestors — and white family, compared to the degradation of our shared ancestors — this sacrifice is small.
We can rip the rotten scaffolding out from the structure of America and build it up from rubble (an option), or we can pull out the blueprints and start remediating the structural failures joint by joint. The systems that oppress us were built carefully and methodically. We must be equally careful and methodical in deconstructing them.
This is our moment. Black, white, brown, immigrant, indigenous — I invite everyone to participate. We need you. I invite everyone to demand real change, and to find out what real change actually means. We can talk about Mount Rushmore and the national anthem a year from now, if the hive is still buzzing. I have thoughts on that, too. I’m excited to hear yours.
Jordan G. Williams is a civil design engineer and River Market busker.
This story was originally published July 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM.