He returns home and begs his roommate, Keef, to stop the experiment, because it’s causing society’s real sentiments toward blacks to surface; and he simply doesn’t want to deal with it. Like any politically conscious social media user, I occasionally find myself in a spirited back and forth with an opposing perspective, when time permits. A couple weeks back, while scrolling through my phone, I came across a jarring post on Facebook, and I had the time. I was familiar with the author of the post’s viewpoints, which are so far-right, she’d make Mitch McConnell question his party loyalty. The topic was government funded diversity training. A commenter insisted that racism and discrimination were no longer an issue in America, because they had been legislated out of existence. In fact, the general consensus among the author and select commenters was that government shouldn’t play a role in diversity training at all, and that it’s actually incumbent upon the individuals with inherent racial discrimination toward historically marginalized groups to reach out and invite them over for dinner to help fix their bias. You can laugh, it’s fine. The fact is, this idea of blacks being undeserving, unequal to and lesser than was an idea perpetuated by courtrooms, legislatures and police stations—the government. So it’s incumbent upon governmental bodies—federal, state and municipal—to do their part to help turn the tide. Blacks are not looking for handouts nor trying to play victim. But to insist that the spirit of racism has been fumigated from the institution of government, corporate business and education simply because laws were passed, or you haven’t seen anyone be called a racial slur since the Regan administration, demonstrates an obscene sense of ignorance. This misguided logic that America is just fine, or has already been fixed, underscores the many factions of America that have yet to wake up. How is it in the age of unprecedented access to information, people still deduce that kneeling for the flag at the beginning of a football game is intended to disrespect the military, when the idea of kneeling for the flag actually came from a member of the military? Is it the melatonin? Not to mention the Kansas City Chiefs that got booed in Week 1 of the NFL when they locked arms with the Houston Texans in solidarity against racial injustice. What is there to disagree with? Add pink breast cancer patches on all the jerseys and helmets, and there wouldn’t be a single opposing jeer heard in the entire state! Meanwhile, JJ Watt said after the game that he didn’t even know what the booing was about. He obviously overslept. The inconvenient truth is we can come together in a public sports forum to discuss how much we hate breast cancer—no problem. The URBAN EXPERIENCE | 2021 19
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