The Green Shoots of Social Change
By: Kevin Donovan
Tags: George Floyd, Systemic Racism, Social Change, Black Lives Matter, Racism

We are in a moment that calls for metaphors — a structure tumbling to the ground, a wave of enlightenment that is wiping out outdated beliefs, a seismic shift in our culture, and one that I think fits best: the emergence of green shoots sprouting from the earth, and with it the promise of a bloom, a flourish and a bounty for America in the months and years ahead if it is nurtured properly.

Our shared moment of Black lives mattering is worthy of analysis and some historical perspective: Systemic racism has existed and endured in various forms for centuries. It has often been conflated with individual racism and dismissed as “cured” based on milestones of progress — civil rights legislation, the grudging acceptance of affirmative action or having a Black president. And yet racism has always remained, often simmering below the surface of our daily lives, unspoken but palpable, and most recently, thriving in the safe spaces granted to it by our current president and culture. Like Covid-19, it is a “dis-ease”, seemingly incurable, often asymptomatic, but prone to flare-ups that can cause great pain. The recent outbreak of tragic racism combined with the massive response to it raises a question: Is it possible that, as we go through the latest tribulations of this disease, we are acquiring the anti-bodies to achieve immunity from the worst forms of racism?

Parts of our culture that have long been infected by systemic racism are in the process of transformation, raising another equally important question: Is it real and sustainable? Is all the advertising in support of Black Lives Matter simply posturing to maintain market share — another opportunistic burnishing of corporate reputations — or will it be backed up by action and support for meaningful policy and organizational change? And what does it mean that three quarters of Americans now believe racism is a “big problem”?

We can imagine this movement going in one of several directions. It could be like gun control, in which a terrible tragedy happens, there is a massive outpouring of outrage and calls for change, and then it just fades away (again and again). Or it could be like Occupy Wall Street — another massive outpouring of outrage that eventually petered out because there was no concrete action tied to it.

Or it could be like same-sex marriage, in which the slow gradual enlightenment of a critical mass of Americans reaches a tipping point, and then literally overnight a Supreme Court decision becomes a cause for nationwide celebration. In this last example, there was no turning back: we will never revert to the same degree of discrimination against the LGBTQ community that we have in the past because we have experienced an empathetic awakening that has been, like a vaccine, injected into our culture. The groundswell of mass acceptance and understanding ultimately led us to recognize the moral injustice and even absurdity of discrimination.

For those of us who deeply believe in the cause of ending racial inequality, and especially for those who have experienced it, our instinct is to manage our expectations and do what we need to sustain the movement, but all indications are that this version of social change will follow the same-sex marriage model for two reasons: First, the raw brutality and injustice of George Floyd’s murder, and more recently, the senseless shooting of Rayshard Brooks, have forced unbelievers to confront what is to them a new reality via the horrific shared experiences of graphic videos. Second, the consequences of systemic racism can no longer be walled off from our sensibilities; it is a universal issue, impacting everyone at every income level in every corner of the country in some way.

The Floyd murder did something to us that had not happened up until now: It called into question our self-image as a country — our values and principles, and by extension, our patriotism, if we didn’t act to address it. But the most astounding and unprecedented feature of this moment in recent American history is that it has compelled us to question not just our country, but ourselves. As it relates to the problem of systemic racism, we, the White people of America, have collectively moved from a state of dismissal and indifference to one of acknowledgment and accountability. For the first time in our lives, we are recognizing this as a problem for which we are all responsible.

A critical part of our enlightenment has been the sudden understanding of what systemic racism is and our role in sustaining it. As part of a “system”, the claim that we are personally not racist is irrelevant because we are benefiting from a cultural and economic structure that is. Compliance with this system is at its worst in the increasingly desperate attempts to hang on to some form of supremacy through false equivalencies and cherry-picked “what-about-isms”. Less visible but no less insidious is our history of indifference; how easy it was for us to simply divide ourselves into racists and non-racists, vote for Obama, hope for the best and claim “not me!” The methods of absolving ourselves of guilt were easily accessible and socially approved. But no more.

While it is long overdue, I am inclined to praise the courage that this reckoning has brought to the fore, if for no other reason than to reward and sustain it. But in the spirit of empathy, we should acknowledge that wrestling with one’s demons is never easy; the courage is real, and it is being shored up as institutions, companies, governments, cultural icons and most importantly, regular people of all races, across the country and even around the world, come onboard and assert their belief in America’s vision of equality as a proxy for morality. This sudden unity of thoughts and actions is a validation that the cause is just, it is universal to humanity, and that we may be finally moving forward.

Of course, no vaccine is 100% effective, and our antibodies will probably never completely kill off the disease. Racism has not disappeared, and it won’t ever be completely eradicated, but it can be managed and marginalized effectively, and if it is, we will grow stronger as a nation. For many of the suddenly alienated racists who are running up against the transformation of so many of their friends, neighbors, family, and even NASCAR, this is more like a mass-intervention. They are being surrounded and confronted by the people and entities that once served as their reference points for their beliefs and enablers of their behavior, and it must be disorienting. But like a true intervention, we must combine harsh confrontation with support for progress because this is, after all, a national rehabilitation and we want to minimize the chance of relapse. We can do that by pulling as many people as possible along with us before we leave behind those who are beyond salvage.

We should also proceed with eyes wide open regarding the forces aligned against any kind of harmony. A cold hard reality is that divisiveness is profitable; there are interests at work in politics, the media and the private sector that will literally lose money and power in inverse proportion to the unity we achieve. They are determined to win the tug of war for the souls of the fearful and indifferent.

Well, at least they’re not White supremacists, right? Actually . . .

When we hear the words “White supremacy”, the most extreme and inflammatory images typically come to mind: KKK hoods, Nazi swastikas, confederate flags. But as we reflect on the reality of systemic racism, perhaps it’s time for us to establish a more “inclusive” definition of White supremacy — something like this: A pattern of behavior characterized by the inability — through resistance, denial, and/or indifference — to accept that there is a credible Black perspective and life experience worthy of thoughtful and equal consideration.

With that in mind, we can’t deny there are plenty of brushfires of White supremacy out there, as a random sampling of right-leaning social media that is fanning the flames of a BLM backlash would indicate. Antifa terrorists, All Lives Matter, George Floyd was a thug, they are all looters, they are trying to eliminate police, they are calling me racist (even though I have a Black friend), protesters are terrorists, What about the cop killed by the Black guy? What about Black people killing each other in Chicago? They’re tearing down statues, they’re erasing my heritage. They are all coming to get us! . . . and on and on it goes. These are the agenda-driven talking points flowing through social media feeds with the purpose of overtly crushing the pathways to unity and covertly maintaining the profitability of status-quo division.

The high level of susceptibility of a certain audience to these messages correlates with the shrinking group of our population who is unable to relinquish enough power — or more accurately, enough “supremacy” — to empathetically consider why someone unlike them might see things very differently. We might be able to extract a few actual facts from their word-salads of outrage and even argue against them with a presentation of context, but if we were to peel back the layers of their arguments, we’d discover that factuality is far less important than hanging on by their fingernails to the privileges they’ve inherited. Their avoidance or denial of a Black-originating counterargument is reflexive. More bluntly, it is an act of dehumanization that is characteristic of an obsolete worldview where — they might be ashamed to publicly admit — “everyone knows their place.” The good news is that massive numbers of protesters are succeeding in prying those fingernails loose, but we can’t lose momentum.

Social change is hard and often slow, and as we have recently seen, it can be tragic and painful. The arc of progress is not a smooth line — it tends to zig-zag, but the latest “zag” is clearly bending toward justice.

So, for all of us onboard, and all those willing to join, the virtues of courage, commitment, acceptance, strength and responsibility are needed to sustain our shared progress. The good faith act of continuous self-reflection, the calls and push for meaningful legislative action, and most importantly, the exercising of our right to vote in November — these are the ways in which we will nurture the green shoots of social change and move as one to the more perfect union that is worthy of our American ideals.