In January 1987, a publication called The Socialist Worker posited the idea that only white Americans can be racists and the idea of Black racism “must be rejected out of hand.”
“Racism is not simply animosity based on skin color or other physical characteristics, but a systematic, special oppression, which employers use to keep the working class divided and to forestall any challenge to their rule,” the magazine editorialized.
It wasn’t a new idea, but the way it was described, in concert with anti-capitalist, pro-communist sentiment, got a powerful grip in universities and evolved to become standard thinking in anti-racist instruction around the country.
It was always a dangerous idea that only one race of people could harbor race-based animus or be racist.
The most visible racism has come from white supremacists and specifically social media provocateur Jake Lang, who disgustingly attacked Metcalf’s family for not using the murder to spread racist ideology. We have repeatedly condemned Lang for his actions and statements in Frisco, both in connection with Metcalf’s murder and his attacks on South Asian and Muslim immigrants.
But statements that arose from a now fired Texas Department of Criminal Justice supervisor about the case are another frightening example of racism that cannot, and thankfully was not, tolerated.
This is what Donna Robinson allegedly posted that got her fired: “I am a Parole Supervisor at TX DCJ Karmelo will be ok he I can almost assure you he will be protected on the inside. I for one don’t give [expletive] about the family’s loss. It’s about time these [expletive] bigots feel the pain that they have inflicted on other groups of people since the beginning of time! I’m just glad we didn’t have to bury another black child. Let them start burying some of theirs for a change. [Expletive] I said what I said.”
There is no word for this but racism. It cannot and should not be tolerated in civil society.
This case is a terrible tragedy. A teenage boy did an incredibly foolish thing in a struggle with another teenage boy. Any thinking person should be able to see this could have been two boys of the same race. So often in our country, it is.
Instead, it has become a case where too many people are casting their own dark thoughts about other groups of human beings.
Our country has to move beyond that. We have to see one another as individuals deserving of dignity. We can acknowledge the reality of historic and current racism without using race as the prism for our entire sense of society.
To do so is to erase all of the progress we have made. And that would be tragedy upon tragedy.