Editor’s note: This commentary is by Bob Stannard, an author, musician and former lobbyist. This piece first appeared in the Bennington Banner. This month marks his 13th anniversary as a regular, bimonthly columnist
for the Bennington Banner.
[Y]ou and your toddler daughter are walking through a shopping center parking lot on your way to go buy groceries. Your daughter really likes shopping with you, because she almost always gets a treat; well, if she’s good, that is. But she is a good kid and the treat is a given.
As you’re about to cross the road, a rather large truck driven by a woman goes by. Her window is down and for no apparent reason she starts screaming at you. “Go back to Africa you f****** n***** and take that f****** kid with you!.”
The 15 or so people around you are equally as stunned as you; maybe more so as this isn’t the first time you’ve been verbally accosted by an insecure racist. You let it go. You know the people around are not about to do or say anything.
Once inside the store you notice about a half dozen or so of the people who were with you when the incident happened. When you look at them, they avert their eyes. You’re not too far along in the store when you recognize the woman who shouted profanity at you. She recognizes you, approaches you and resurrects her assault. She starts screaming at you in front of your child, calling you more hideous names. She’s quite threatening. You know the drill. Stand your ground and don’t show fear, because that’s what people like her expect and want. You’re not going to give her the satisfaction. She can see it in your eyes that if push comes to shove, you’re willing to die to protect your child.
After the vile woman decided that she’s spewed out all the horrible words she knows (she’s not all that smart so she doesn’t know all that many bad things to say) she storms off. You’re glad that she’s alone.
Things can get out of hand quickly if there are more bigoted racists like her joining in on the phobic rant. A generation ago you might have been beaten or killed just for being black in a white world.
That’s not changed.
The saddest part of your experience is not that it’s a repeat of similar experiences that you’ve encountered throughout your life, but that the white people who had the benefit of sharing your experience said or did nothing. Oh sure, they felt a great deal of empathy and maybe even a little shame, but their silence was much louder than their chants at the last Black Lives Matter rally. They were mostly good people who feel comfortable speaking out against racial injustice as long as they are surrounded by a lot of like-minded people. But when confronted with the reality of what it really means to be a black person in America today those who say they are not racists remain silent.
We now live in country whose leader is more sympathetic to the screaming woman in the truck than he is to the young child who had to bear witness to the screaming. The young child who had to stand there in fear as her dad stoically weathered the assault. Our president initiated a policy that supported tearing children like this young daughter from her parent’s arms and his supporters think that’s just fine.
In his recent column, Fintan O’Toole makes the case that the separation policy is little more than a trial run. If people can accept this horrible policy, and millions have, then they might accept more policies like it. It’s how a fascist state comes into being. History has many playbooks of the script. For those who’ve opted not to learn from history they are likely to repeat it.
A post on Facebook/Twitter expressing your outrage is not good enough. You have to speak up and defend those subjected to racism even if it means stepping out of your comfort zone.
Are you the solution or are you the problem?
