As we too often are reminded, race is embedded in our societal fabric, if not our American DNA. Every time there is a high-profile, controversial incident involving race–from the humiliating Henry Louis Gates episode to the outrageous Trayvon Martin tragedy–there is yet another call for a national conversation on the subject of racial fault lines.
It’s what we do, whatever our hue. It’s an opportunity to strike while the societal iron is hot. It’s also a way of defusing violent invective and pre-empting violence per se.
But for all the talk, we never seem to have that quintessential conversation. Maybe it’s because to truly have that come-to-Jesus dialogue, everything pertinent has to be on the table, which is asking a lot when there is a victim immediately involved. In effect, it means no 800-pound, rhetorically-ignored gorillas.
So, yes, it would include, for example, Founding Fathers’ hypocritical slave-holding; degrading Jim Crow laws; banks’ racist red-lining practices; minority voter-suppression efforts as political strategy; and blatant racial profiling. But it would also include, for example, black-on-black crime rates; a thuggish, misogynistic rap culture; out-of-wedlock birth rates; the perception of academic achievement as “acting white”; and rationales for profiling. If the Reverend Al Sharpton is weighing in, then so is the irreverent Pat Buchanan.