khanfactor.com

Over the last few weeks the U.S. has faced a racial crisis not seen since the ‘60s. But while civil-rights protests and urban riots marked racial conflict a half-century ago, todays’ crisis is defined by a wave of white racist violence. It is a rage epitomized by numerous “urban lynchings” (i.e., police killings of unarmed people of color, most often men); Dylann Roof’s (apparent) killing of nine African-American parishioners at the Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston, SC, on June 17th; and the subsequent burnings of eight African-American churches in Tennessee, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Florida between the 21st and the 30th.

These developments bring to a boil the long, painful history of slavery, Jim Crow Reconstruction, the tumultuous civil-right era and the reconstitution of the U.S. now underway. It’s led to much soul searching, especially among African-Americans and well-meaning Southern whites. Ever sensitive to bad press, white Republican politicians are moving to banish the Confederate flag as a token appeasement so as to avoid addressing more systemic issues. They want race and inequality off the political agenda as the 2016 election cycle gets underway.

Much of the current national debate about the killings has, rightly, focused on America’s legacy of racism, gun control and the forgiveness expressed by some of the family members of the deceased. Its also led many to link white-nationalist violence to police killings of people of color, often committed by white law-enforcement officers. Together, they reveal the roots of racism in America. Unfortunately, little attention has been paid to the deeper crisis besetting America’s white population which likely fuels the racist rage, a recognition that white skin privilege is being eroded. Continue reading →