Features Editor
Eric Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe,” represent more than his unwarranted death, but a greater issue, a suffocation that minorities endure in the United States. Eric Garner’s death has riled the nation, causing a deep divide between the police and their supporters, and the black population and their supporters. My newsfeed is filled with articles advocating for Officer Pantaleo and excusing Garner’s death for a number of absurd reasons including his health, his past “run-ins” with the law and his supposed disobedience towards the police officer. Unlike Michael Brown’s case, there is no ambiguity about the events that passed moments before Eric Garner died. We can watch the footage, and yet the blame is still being placed on him. It is another form of victim blaming that happens to black men all of the time. Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and even Tamir Rice, a 12 year old, were killed because of ingrained racial stereotypes and a biased and racist justice system. They were victims treated like criminals, and their murderers were criminals excused for doing “good police work.”
I’m distraught watching my peers posting on Facebook about the rights of police officers and articles claiming that this isn’t a race issue. Three black men have been killed in the past six months by police officers. So, why are we taking sides? This is not an issue between the police AND African-Americans. It is much more complex than that. It is okay to support the police and still not agree that Michael Brown’s and Eric Garner’s killers were not indicted because the lack of action was blatantly unjust. Instead of taking sides, we should all be questioning the system that we complacently live in because it is clearly favoring some more than others.
The United States has a longstanding problem with race, and it didn’t simply vanish after the Civil Rights movement as many people seem to believe. Many white Americans have been fooled into thinking that we live in a post-racial society because black people supposedly have the same opportunities, but this is an obtuse claim. We have failed to prosecute people who committed felonies because we are busy lying to ourselves that race is no longer a problem in the United States. Blaming the victims of these crimes feeds stereotypes, stifles conversations about race and normalizes these injustices. The supposed “moral compass” or “peace keeper” of our society is broken, and we are ignoring it in order to protect white privilege and preserve these warped illusions that we have about race. If our justice system cannot correct the abhorrently racist society in which we live, then we must do it ourselves.
Last week, Franchesca Ramsey released a video describing five ways to be an ally. In her words, an ally is a person who wants to fight for the equality of a marginalized group that they are not a part of. The first step to becoming an ally is understanding your privilege. As she explains, privilege can be a difficult concept to grasp. Having privilege does not mean that you have lived an easy life. It simply means that you will never experience certain injustices because of who you are. For example, white people do not have to think about their race nearly as much as black people who face many racial stereotypes every day. This is called white privilege. The second step to becoming an ally is to listen and do your homework. Reading articles and watching videos is one of the best ways to understand the issues that minorities face. Ramsey continues to explain that the third step is to speak up, but not over. You are there for support. The fourth step is to apologize when you make mistakes. Finally, Franchesca says that ally is a verb meaning you have to actually do something, not just claim to be an ally. Garner’s case is a tragic reminder that we do not live in a post-racial society. I hope that his life, and the lives of many other black men, were not vainly lost, but spark much needed conversations and change in the months to come.
