Something has gone horribly wrong. Four hundred years in the making.
Last week the press shared a video that showed four, African-American young adults torturing a White, mentally disabled friend. Since comments suggested a hate crime had been committed, race was a highlighted issue.
As heartbreaking and horrendous as the attack on the young man has been, (One reporter broke down during the video and was temporarily rendered unable to speak.) it’s equally disturbing at the many expressions of surprise. Commentators and viewers alike are baffled by the flagrant display of hatred. It is that surprise, our perpetual failure to call out and address racial hatred in the country that we continue to be plagued by the disease. Festering wounds seldom heal from neglect.
The answer to how to how these two young men and two young women could act with such depravity, can be found in Joy Angela DeGruy’s book “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.” Within these pages that have been discussed around the world, Professor DeGruy explains the history of enslavement and the traumas imposed on our ancestors now hidden in our mental and physical DNA. It details the traumas embedded in the hatred and violence endured for 400 years; the kidnappings, rapes, beatings, whippings, lynchings, shootings, torturing and enslavement itself.
The answer goes back to news reels of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign where outtakes show him both condoning and encouraging racial hatred and violence. It’s in the venom that spewed from his lips for months. It can be seen in hot maps of completely decimated Chicago neighborhoods that reflect the devastating impact of mass incarceration; homes lost to foreclosures and evictions when mortgages and rent went unpaid.
The answer can be found in millions of children raised in broken homes while their parents are enslaved in prisons making other people rich. It can be found in the multiple traumas they suffer from parents addicted to the drugs filtered into the vein of black neighborhoods.
The answer lies in the number of times police have harassed, abused and killed unarmed black men, women and boys and how many black girls have been slammed into the ground by grown White men? The answers are all around us, we simply choose not to look.
We continue to feign disgust over the egregious actions of some, while ignoring the acts of others. We’ve gone through life, as if with blinders on, scratching our heads and wondering how anyone could act with such a debased heart. It’s in our question of how that our own callousness is revealed.
What do we think is the consequence of centuries of ongoing oppression that not all have been able to escape? What do we expect to emerge from concrete walls and iron cages were bedlam is bred by decree? How do you rip apart millions of families and expect children to emerge whole? How do you legislate and tolerate racial hatred against minorities then wonder when its vestiges come home to roost?
We cannot tolerate a society that sees its children spiral into daily fights and pretend the solution is a felony. We cannot allow history to be white washed in books when that history informs our demise.
The four young adults whose ignorance thought it smart to post their crimes on Facebook, we’re not born morally deprived and criminally deviant. The acts we now watch on constant replay are the direct and consequential result of a community that’s turned its back.
We will never exit this hamster wheel of hatred and violence until we have the courage to face the truth. We cannot plant seeds of injustice and expect righteousness to bloom.
Christi Griffin is the founder of The Ethics Project, a non-profit organization addressing the impact of crime, injustice and incarcerations, and the author of “Incarcerations in Black and White: The Subjugation of Black America.”
