This summer has been a long train of disappointments and abuses, which, if by design, could not have been more effective at promoting fear, dissonance and hatred in the American public. The recap is simple. The Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the historic Voting Rights Act, a young man’s murder went unanswered by the legal system, and we discovered the extent to which our government will transgress individual rights in the name of national security.
The questions left by these incredible events are: Where do we go from here and how are they connected? Do we fan the flames of hysteria and rage in defiant public outcry, or do we look to ourselves and our culture for the answers to these problematic decisions?
The answer, like the recap, is simple. We are responsible for what happens in our culture. Whether or not you agree with my perspective on these issues, there are problematic premises underlying all these events that we must examine.
The provision, which protected the minority’s inviolable right to vote, was struck down under the premises that it was based on outdated ideologies and evidence, which bore no relationship to the present state of affairs.
They were right; racism is certainly outdated, and the evidence for it should certainly bear no relationship to the present. However, when I walk into the neighborhoods, schools and churches of my state, not only is segregation still alive, but racism still beats in the hearts of more people than I care to admit. Visit Montgomery, Selma, Wilcox, Jackson or Mobile and see the segregated schools and voting districts redrawn along racial lines.
Once the Supreme Court ruled, nine states immediately sent Voter ID legislation back to their state houses. This was of course to combat the serious and frequent offense of voter fraud – which occurs less than 1 percent of the time across the nation. So, why are we solving a nonexistent problem in a country that has experienced ever-decreasing voter turnout since the 19th century? Because, more than 11 percent of the population, most of them poor and not white, do not have government ID and cannot afford to take off work and spend hours at the DMV going to get one. More importantly, they don’t generally vote for the Republican legislatures enacting the laws.
The real intent behind this law is to suppress individuals who would wield their power to vote against those who would silence them. It’s no surprise Republicans can’t get these people to vote for them – they would rather practice and weave a web of deceit than approach American voters honestly. The implicit belief underlying voter ID is no different than a poll tax: We must fear the beliefs of others. It is the polite version of racism and classism. This same implicit ideology allowed a young, unarmed boy to be murdered on his way home.
Trayvon Martin is dead because we live in a culture where it is acceptable and believed logical to make implicit judgments about individuals based on their appearance. These stereotypes transmit beliefs about people that have no basis in objective reality. Yet, a boy in a hoodie is not only criminal, but he is also complicit in his death because he looks like a criminal.
I’ve heard so many varying versions of events, but one fact stands out clearly to me. A young boy was pursued by a man without a badge and without a warrant to harass him, and now he is dead. I’m told that George Zimmerman defended himself and that Martin’s death was the result of a mistake in judgment. These things are one side of the truth. Zimmerman would have had no need to defend himself had he not followed and harassed an unarmed boy.
Who among us would not fight an armed stranger stalking us on our way home? Moreover, Zimmerman indeed made a mistake in judgment, but his transgression was not a simple traffic citation – it was a murder. Yet, we are responsible for the culture which makes this permissible and exacerbates these atrocities.
The wide-sweeping Fourth Amendment abuses committed by our government are acceptable because we live in constant fear of 9/11 reoccurring and under the despotism of the Patriot Act. What do the private phone calls of American citizens have to do with national security? Many other countries monitor the communications of their citizens, but we are supposed to live in a country where the process of law and order mandates a warrant and probable cause.
I am not plotting to kill my fellow Americans, but why should I cede my right to privacy on the vague premise of national security? How does that make me safer? Does the surveillance regularly conducted on citizens in Iran or China make them feel safer or silenced? How long will our fear justify abuses? We allow our fear to control us and to choke our reason.
As long as our reason is silenced by fear of one another, fear of different beliefs and fear of the unknown, we live in a prison of fear, built with the walls of cowardice and chained with the manacles of ignorance. Now, more than ever, we must reflect on our own complicity in the issues that face us in the present.
John Speer is a graduate student in secondary education.
