A Long Hot, Sad, and Destructive Summer

Lest we forget…

On May 25th 2020 the murder of a Black Minneapolis resident by a White policeman sparked a social justice fury which soon exploded nationwide. Anger caused by yet another Black person’s death at the hands of law enforcement erupted across America into a national reckoning – a reckoning eventually crossing international borders. Fueling the anger and frustration from the Black community was the inability to gain immediate satisfaction from law enforcement in the form of demanded police reforms.

Anger and frustration became fodder for feeding those who perpetuated a misperceived national anti-Black agenda many felt had been brewing for years. Soon those sympathetic to the outrage began encouraging every unfulfilled and discontented race based organization to pursue immediate and unchecked justice through whatever means they deemed necessary.

Knowing it was great for ratings, national news outlets and talk show pundits picked up the racial injustice baton and ran with it, consciously enabling outrage and spreading unchecked divisive fiction across the country.

Black anger and frustration soon turned to blame and Whites became the closest and most convenient target. Suddenly, the summer of 2020 became the watershed moment in modern racial history where long simmering discontent and pent up disappointments were focused directly towards White people. What followed was a twisted campaign of revenge.

Whites were suddenly made to feel as if they needed to be sorry for, and feel guilty for, being born a color they had no control over. The summer of 2020 turned racial tolerance on its head. Sadly it came from those who for decades had so strongly advocated for its acceptance.

In a bizarre manifestation of mass hysteria, compounded by fears associated with a rising pandemic, and opportunistic race baiting by national media outlets, in 2020 thousands of Americans began pleading for forgiveness simply because they were born White. Recognizing one’s Whiteness suddenly had to be accompanied with the realization being White automatically made you a racist. And naturally, if one was identified as racist, regardless of evidence or history, one must make amends for that racism – both spiritually and materially.

Spiritually, one had to accept the label of guilty by condition of skin color - evidence of racist behavior wasn’t needed nor necessary: one’s Whiteness sealed their fate and gave countless groups the license to label them collectively complicit in persecuting those that were not.

Materially, it meant you were now obligated to donate to whatever social justice organization might be able to provide you some relief from culpability or forgiveness. In turn you were also meant to support corporate America who cleverly turned the nation’s racial strife into huge profits by having shopping campaigns based on race. Who knew racial division could be so profitable.

It was not enough one sympathized or worked with the Black communities being unfairly prosecuted by police offices across the country to confront the issue; Whites needed to realize they were responsible for police actions based on their unrequested skin color and the privilege afforded it. Suddenly just having white skin meant being a part of the national race and policing problem – and that problem needed to be fixed.

Fixing that problem meant getting White people to understand there was something inherently wrong with being just that – White. Whites were being told they needed to feel guilty for having the privilege of having light skin color – in other words, they were told they should feel bad about having been born a certain way and that somehow they needed to atone for that transgression. Being White was suddenly a fault requiring contrition and compensation for those that were not. The media loved the phenomenon’s divisiveness and began running story after story about it all through the summer of 2020.

News and media outlets ran stories highlighting racially divisive protests and sensationalizing vented frustration. They reveled in their ability to cover burning buildings and inter-racial strife spreading from city to city. From Portland, to Minneapolis, to Seattle and beyond, major news outlets and their on-air anchors joined those on the streets in their demand that Whites needed to accept responsibility for abusive police action nationwide.

Not satisfied with cities promising changes in police tactics, reviewing policies like qualified immunity, or pressing criminal charges against those involved in abuses and homicides, social justice organizations and their supportive politicians somehow landed on the rationale where less police would result in less abuses by police – and what better way to reduce police numbers than to reduce police budgets? “Defund the Police!” became the clarion call for the summer of 2020. And so they did. And so here we are…