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COMMENTARY
BLACK LIVES MATTER: CONFRONTING RACISM ON JULY 4TH
by Anh Lê
A white woman committed vandalism by painting over part of a Black Lives Matter mural, with assistance from a white man wearing a red MAGA hat, in Martinez, California on July 4th. As she was painting over the mural, the man shouted "4 more years Trump" and "racism is a leftist lie."
The beautiful bright yellow mural was finished earlier that day on a quiet street in Martinez, a small town 36 miles northeast of San Francisco. Organizers of the project to paint the Black Lives Matter mural had received a permit to do so from the City of Martinez.
After the vandalism which occurred on July 4th, in a press release, the Martinez Police Chief issued a statement asking for the public's help in letting his department know the whereabouts of the vandals.
This request seems somewhat ironic, since the police chief and the Martinez Police Department already knew the description of the pickup truck driven by the vandals and the vehicle's license plate number, as seen in the videos of numerous witnesses to the vandalism.
In San Francisco in May, a white woman and white man accused a Filipino American man of defacing private property and called police on the man, even though the Black Lives Matter chalk art he drew was on a wall at his own residence in the upscale Pacific Heights neighborhood.
The white woman even lied to the Filipino American man, claiming that she knew the person who lived at the stately looking Victorian house. In fact, however, the Filipino American man has resided at that house for 18 years.
In New York City, a white woman called police on Christian Cooper, a Harvard educated African American man who was bird watching in Central Park's grove reserved for bird watching.
She falsely claimed in her 911 call that she was "being threatened by an African American man." She was finally charged on July 6 with filing a false police report by District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.
These acts of hatred and racism against African Americans and people of color remind us of the historically deep racism which plagues our nation and society. This racism is a cancer which needs to be excised.
This racism is evidenced in the killing and murder of George Floyd by police, the killing of other African Americans by police, police brutality against African Americans, and acts of violence and brutality against protesters calling for Black Lives Matter who demonstrated in front of the White House and many cities throughout the U.S. following the killing and murder of George Floyd.
This hatred and racism is rooted in a long history of racism in the United States.
Those who display this hatred and racism not only reveal their own ignorance of the role of racism in American history, but also show that they regard African Americans as "non-human," as "less than human," and as "invisible."
We will not eliminate racism overnight. But we must work hard to excise this cancer.
A good place to begin would be the adoption of police reforms in how police conduct themselves with African Americans and the African American community, and the adoption and implementation of legislation recently passed by the House which address issues of police use of excess force and brutality.
We must also address issues of economic inequality in our country.
In the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests that have occurred since the killing and murder of George Floyd, we recognize that African Americans are still not fully free in our nation.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stated in his speech, "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence," at Riverside Church in New York, that the three sins of American society were poverty, racism, and the militarism that propelled the United States to wage war against Vietnam and the Vietnamese people.
Dr. King's eloquent and prophetic words ring true today as they did when he delivered them from the pulpit at Riverside on April 4, 1967.
I am a Vietnamese American.
I am an Asian American.
African Americans are my fellow human beings.
African Americans are my brethren and sisters.
African Americans are my fellow Americans.
Black Lives Matter to each and all of us.
Anh Lê is an independent journalist.
Copyright Anh Lê, July 6, 2020