Elephant in the Room
By Abdul-Majeed Azad
Pasadena, CA
As the marchers in the United States and around the world continued to fill the streets in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, I saw these comments by some of the LinkedIn employees.
One comment read: "Blacks kill blacks at 50 times the rate that whites kill blacks. Usually it is the result of gang violence in the inner city. Where is the outcry?"
Another said: "I believe giving any racial group privilege over others in a zero sum game would not get any support by others. Any thoughts on hurting others while giving privileges with the rosy name called diversity?"
I always thought that LinkedIn was a platform for the so-called professionals who were beyond the high school passing grades. It may be so, but the above comments by some of the very people who run it, have blurred that notion.
I’m sure there would be many more. For this reason, I decided to unsubscribe from LinkedIn.
I know well that this wouldn’t change a thing, but then, nobody imagined George Floyd could either.
The incidents of police brutality in our society have become too frequent and too many to even remember. Our psyche has become numb to even react to any new incidence.
This country needs to see the Elephant in the Room. The elephant which feeds narcissism, celebrates denigration, admires torture, rewards hubris and arrogance, boastfully wears the badge of racism, and, condones, encourages and even applauds undue and uncalled for use of excessive force, just because some ‘blindfolded woman with a scale’ has entrusted few in the society with the power to subjugate, subdue, suffocate and ultimately kill a helpless person in cuffs.
Also morphed into this elephant are the athlete celebrities, professional team owners, giant sports conglomerates, political appointees and powerful social media moguls, who practice, promote and demand tacit acquiescing to the deliberate excesses of the power-to-be.
Then, George Floyd happened.
Suddenly, Colin Kaepernick is getting nominated for the sainthood. The arrogant stance of the league dawns on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who is now falling over his feet apologizing for not listening to the concerns of African-American players. As New York Times wrote, “Goodell’s words are hypocritical because of the league owners’ rejection of Kaepernick” for taking the knee against racial injustice, police brutality and systematic oppression in the country.
The list keeps growing, because no matter how well some people hide, the veneer to camouflage their innate racism is not thick enough.
In between Rodney King (1992) and George Floyd (2020), there are countless other names. There are equal or more numbers of protests and murals too. Nothing has changed in terms of justice for the oppressed, marginalized and the weak with these protests and murals.
George Floyd was buried on June 9. Soon, the street protests would wind down and murals would fade.
Nothing will change, unless WE the people, change the very code which labels some of us white, black, brown, yellow, pigmy, Caucasian, European, Asian, African, Latino, Mexican, Chicano, Pacific Islander, and what not. A label that uses only one criterion: criterion of color!
This country boasts that is it founded on good old Christian Laws. Show me a Scripture - Old or New Testament - where God said that He created humans in all these ethnic varieties! You can’t, because He didn’t. Some of us either didn’t know or didn’t bother to find out that this color-coding scheme in manmade.
In fact, this is what He really said.
He said: O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes so that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble amongst you in the sight of God, is the one most righteous of you.
I don’t see any mention of the skin color of the male or female, do you?
He also said: Whoever kills a soul unjustly (unless for a soul or for corruption done in the land), it is as if he has slain the entire humanity. And whoever saves one life, it is as if he saved the entire humanity.
No color or ethnic discrimination here, either.
On March 6 of the year 632 - almost fourteen centuries ago and well before America even existed - a wise man laid out the very first foundation of human equality and racial justice.
He said: All mankind is from Adam and Eve. A white man has no superiority over a black person nor a black person has any superiority over a white person - except by piety and good action.
Thus, he shattered to smithereens, the shackles of any individual superiority based on the color of one’s skin.
This statement later become a core component of the UN charter on human rights. It also transformed the firebrand persona of Malcom X. It made him view the USA in a very different and benign light. One can find the reflection of this declaration in Reverend Martin Luther King’s “I’ve a Dream” speech too.
Universality of this message is still and will always be valid. People just need to rise above their ill-conceived prejudice and skin-toned hatred for others.
Granted that preconceived notions are hard to change. Nothing is achieved without sacrifice. Sacrifice cannot come without selflessness, which reminds me of a poignant Greek proverb:
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
You can make sense of George Floyd’s senseless killing by translating the recent awakening into a lasting legacy. This is the moment for Americans - all Americans - to vow to plant trees of selflessness, mutual respect and equal regard for the very fundamental thing that we all are made of: life. And, life as we know it, has no color - only soul, whose reflection ultimately defines us all. When life departs, soul does too. Ironically, we never brand a soul as white or black, American or European, Asian or Mexican!
If we took up on that tree planting today, though many of us would not live long enough to enjoy their blissful shade, perhaps our children and theirs can sit beneath their branches with others, without the fear of discrimination.
Thankfully, some older (wiser) men have already started planting those trees.
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