George Floyd and the Problem of Racism in America, By Alade Fawole

“The problem of racism does not lie with Negroes rather it is the problem with Whites.” (Richard Wright)

W.E.B. Du Bois in his book, The Souls of Black Folk, (1903) prophetically asserted that “The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the colour-line” to underscore the enduring nature of racism against Blacks in America and the rest of the world. He was undoubtedly prescient, for not only was the colour-line the problem of the 20th Century, but it is a defining characteristic of American society in the 21st Century.

The videotaped gruesome murder of George Floyd, a Black American, by white police officers in Minneapolis, has once again brought the evils of racism to the front burner of American and global discourse. Since that incident of extreme police brutality, we have seen mass protests, and in some cases accompanied by violence, mayhem and looting, across several American cities and communities, and the outpouring of both real and synthetic emotions in support of the dictum that Black lives also matter. Politicians, elected office holders of all races, religious and business leaders have been condemning the horrific murder of Mr. Floyd as if it is an isolated incident. It is not! Instead, it is a regular, everyday experience of Blacks and other peoples of colour in the United States. The extreme racism that resulted in policemen deliberately snuffing life out of an unarmed and handcuffed Black man is the normal in America: it is methodical, systemic, structural and institutional. And it is either overlooked or merely treated as normal! George Floyd’s murder merely emblematizes the normal. And the nationwide outpouring of indignation over his death will soon peter out, and the country will revert to the default mode. It happened after the Rodney King incident and changed nothing! The George Floyd case will not be different. Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury of exhaustively discussing all these in a single article because newspapers have limited spaces for op-eds. The death of George Floyd will not be the last, neither will it result in any societal attitudinal overhaul or even reorientation of policing in America.

In a paper I wrote for the July 2019 Oxford University conference on the theme: “Racialization and Publicness in Africa and the African Diaspora”, I argued unapologetically that the racialization of Black peoples in Africa and the rest of the world is not natural but one carefully and socially contrived, cultivated, practiced with extreme brutality and passed down from generation to generation. I further argued that even though not all white peoples are racist or support racism but they are nonetheless vicariously guilty of racism as supine beneficiaries of white supremacy and entrenched white privilege that it had institutionalized. America graphically exemplifies all the evils of racialization, but it is not the only one. European societies are hardly better, but perhaps only different in their style and methodology. It is poignantly emblematic of the persistence of racism and demonization of Black peoples or people of colour as racially inferior to white peoples. I seek your indulgence to quote, in extenso, the abstract of the said paper:

“The curious convergence of the tripartite abominations of slavery, colonialism and racism in Black Africa was no historical accident; it was a carefully conceived and executed white supremacist project of subjugation by those who had arrogated superior race status to themselves. The paper argues that racialization, profiling and discrimination against Blacks in Africa and in the Diaspora is to be conceptualized as a linear progression of what the early Portuguese adventurers who “discovered” Africa in the late fifteenth century had perfected through slavery and the slave trade, subsequently transformed into colonial subjugation, and has continued in the ‘post-colonial’ period. The intentional subjugation of Africa to foreign rule, though fundamentally an economic project, was cynically rationalized on some grand altruistic pursuit of a ‘civilizing mission’, an extension of the benefits and advantages of Europe’s perceived superior civilization and culture to the sub-human species in Africa. Britain’s Indirect Rule, Portugal’s Assimilado, France’s Assimilation, Germany’s extreme savagery in Namibia, Tanganyika, Togo, Kamerun; Italy’s brutalities against Eritrea, Italian Somaliland and Ethiopia; and the horrendous atrocities of Belgian King Leopold in the Congo, were not isolated events but were rationalized on this grand illogic! All of these were preceded by a cynical search for some theological rationale, pseudo-scientific and intellectual justifications, which even latter-day white supremacists also employed as justification for the satanic practice of apartheid, arguing that ‘separateness’ was of divine provenance, since God in His will and wisdom made humanity into different races, and privileged the white races over the others. To the racists, ruling over and oppressing Blacks was not only divine but intended to elevate them above their ‘sub-human’ existence and avail them the benefits of the white man’s superior civilization.”

What we are seeing playing out in America validates my position that racism (and its extreme brutalities of course) is not normal or natural: it is learnt and imbibed to become part of an average white person’s psyche and inherent nature, such that many of them are not consciously aware of it. Richard Wright states it correctly that “The problem of racism does not lie with Negroes rather it is the problem with Whites.” How else can one explain or rationalize the violently racist and relentless vituperations against Meghan Markle in the bigoted mainstream British news media and social media platforms before and since her marriage to Prince Harry, all because she is a person of colour who would “pollute” the exclusively white British royal bloodline.

Because racism exists in the subconscious of most white peoples, it is difficult to expunge, and its graphic impacts on the victims are not viewed in their proper contexts because “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners” normally view the world through different telescopes. The notion of white superiority is deeply embedded in the psyche and mentality of white peoples, and for most white peoples the notion that Black peoples might be “genetically inferior” to white folks exists in their subconscious. It has been consciously learned, imbibed and retained as correct even though without a shred of evidence; it is purely visceral! In the United States, racism (i.e. white superiority and supremacy) was actually officially legitimized, institutionalized and practiced in all spheres of life to drive it home, hence the Jim Crow laws and practices, the same template the apartheid rulers in South Africa copied and used with devastating consequences.

I am not here to demonize all white peoples as racist, but to underscore the fact that racism is of long historical duration and hence its persistence. Even when they are not overtly racist, and a good number of white peoples truly are not, they are nonetheless vicarious beneficiaries of the concept and practice of white supremacy and its subsisting privileges which most of them never see as unjustified or evil, and thus fail to take any steps to correct or rectify.

What we are seeing as contemporary racialization, increasing racial profiling and gross discrimination against Blacks, especially in America, is a continuation of the age-old practice that that had begun since the Portuguese first instituted, theologically justified, and openly engaged in the practice of kidnapping, mass enslavement and forced migration of Blacks from Africa from the early 15th century. My contention is that the taproot of modern-day racism and racialization, and the ideology that sustains them, is buried deeper into the history of Europe’s first physical contacts with the Black peoples along the west coast of Africa than many analysts are wont to accept. Though the notion of racial superiority/inferiority is devoid of any scientific proof, efforts were not spared to intellectualize and proffer pseudo-scientific, even theological justifications, for racial discrimination. The Catholic Church leadership provided initial theological authorization for the forcible conquest and perpetual subjugation of those they regarded as “barbaric pagan peoples” as can be seen in the infamous Papal Bull of 1452 (Dum Diversas) which Pope Nicholas V magisterially issued to the Catholic kings of Portugal and Spain, asserting with ecclesiastical authority that “We grant you [Kings of Spain and Portugal] by these present documents, with our Apostolic Authority, full and free permission to invade, search out, capture and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and other property … and to reduce their persons into perpetual servitude.” It was this racist ideology that provided the context and backdrop for deodorizing colonial subjugation as a necessary ‘civilizing mission’, as “the burden” of the white man to bring “primitives” into civilization.

Let me conclude rather ominously: the death of George Floyd and the outpourings of nationwide emotions would neither be the last, nor will it change the pervasive racism and xenophobia that America’s civil war, fought over racism (i.e., abolition of slavery), over a century and half ago could not. The aftermath of the civil war was Jim Crow and other sinister practices that have relegated Blacks to sub-human species. It is déjà vu! Even though the Jim Crow legislations that undergird racism have since been removed, the practice nonetheless persists, so it is a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same.