By Dr. Rhonda Hackett
As a Newfoundlander living in the United States for nearly 30 years, the past four stand out for two reasons — the rise in blatant racism and the fervent efforts to fight it.
From the minute he rode down the escalator announcing his candidacy for president, Donald Trump has repeatedly upped the ante on racist rhetoric and capitalized on whatever division it sowed. A politically fractured country battling for its soul is the sum total of his improbable, disastrous reign.
When television networks finally called the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden, the nation’s collective sigh of relief was palpable.
Despite current divisions, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Americans may be more aligned on race relations now than ever before.
For some, Biden’s win meant America’s four-year nightmare was over. For others, it was the first step toward reckoning with the incalculable damage inflicted by a man who made stoking racial animus a fundamental feature of his governance. For my Hindu American husband there was relief. “It feels like my shoulders relaxed for the first time in four years,” he said after watching Kamala Harris’s and Biden’s victory speeches.
There are countless examples of Trump fanning the flames of bigotry. From Charlottesville, where he declared there were “fine people on both sides” after a counter-protester was killed at a white supremacist rally; to Tulsa where he encouraged chants of “send them back” after he attacked four congresswomen of colour, Trump has repeatedly appealed to the resentments of white Americans with his racist rhetoric. And it has had real consequences.
A Southern Poverty Law Center study found that the number of hate groups in America rose to a record high in 2018. That same year the civil rights organization NAACP found that racially motivated crimes comprised nearly 60 per cent of all crimes. Derrick Johnson, CEO, said, “…this president has spewed the language of division and hate, and it has manifested in not only racist policies but in racist acts against people of color and other groups.”
Telegram columnist Russell Wangersky recently wrote, “I think the gulf might just be too big,” referring to America’s ability to heal its differences. There have been plenty of days when I’ve thought the same. Prevailing rhetoric tells us we’ve never been so at odds, but nothing could be further from the truth.
This country fought a civil war after 11 states left the union. In 1968, the Kerner Commission laid out in stark detail how divided the country was concluding, “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.”
Despite current divisions, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Americans may be more aligned on race relations now than ever before. A 2020 Monmouth University poll found 57 per cent of Americans believe police officers are more likely to use excessive force against Black people than white people. That’s up from 33 per cent in 2014. Whereas in 2015 about half of Americans believed that racial discrimination was a big problem, roughly 75 per cent do now, according to the poll.
This year, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets marching for racial justice. According to Civiqs, an online research firm, support for Black Lives Matter increased almost as much over two weeks this summer as it did during the previous two years. Despite increased awareness around racism, most people agree there’s a long way to go to reckon with it fully. Getting there won’t be easy. But for the first time in America’s history, a majority of her people accept that racism is a real problem and that a reckoning is overdue.
For people like my husband, the election of Biden and Harris is the beginning of that reckoning. A united citizenry that remains committed to seeing it through to the end, no matter the obstacles, will guarantee its deliverance. And in so doing, the battle for the soul of the nation will have been won once again.
Dr. Rhonda Hackett is a Newfoundlander living in Denver, Colo.
