Linkedin

   Linkedin is a professional social networking platform that is usually considered sacrosanct: a safe haven, typically off-limits for discussions of a political, religious, or social nature, which can lead to recriminations, declinations, or even disciplinary actions, for members posting objectionable, provocative, or antagonistic content. The fact that so many members have chosen to not merely dip in their big toe, but take a deep dive into the issues surrounding the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial's Day (ironically a day when newly freed slaves, dug up the remains of Union soldiers killed in action, that the Confederates buried unceremoniously in mass graves, and properly reburied in marked - if unnamed graves - in gratitude for the Union soldiers having fought for their freedom) demonstrate that the fragile facade of civility has been irreparably ripped off the social contract. People are boldly and publicly taking sides – unconcerned about the consequences it may cause to their public profile, business opportunities, or employment prospects.
   As a social and behavioral scientist, I find the phenomena to be as instructive as it is illuminating because it requires authenticity, an audacity, with people finally showing their true colors (no pun intended). We learn a lot relative to where people stand on these thorny social issues. That genie is not going back into the bottle. And we have come to a precipice, a tipping point, an epochal moment where we are collectively experiencing a paradigm shift, which exposes a deep chasm between the haves, the have nots, with conscious blacks on one side; and, frightened-out-of-their-wits whites (watching as their waning privilege inexorably erode like a line on an Etch A Sketch® toy with the “browning of America”) obstinately determined to maintain the status quo, who are firmly entrenched on the other. A hodgepodge of varied ethnicities taking up opposing positions on either side of the divide comprise the remainder of the American populace.
   South Africa experienced a similar evolution (many would use revolution interchangeably) in 1994. I was there when Nelson Mandela spoke in Harlem 1990. I watched with great anticipation when he establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa after the end of apartheid “in 1995 to help heal the country and bring about a reconciliation of its people by uncovering the truth about human rights violations that had occurred during the period of apartheid.”
  On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the emancipation of enslaved Africans during the third year of the War between the States. However, June 19, 1865, better known as Juneteenth, was closer to the time that slaves were freed. On January 16, 1865, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman issued Special Field Order, No. 15 (series 1865), which “provided for the confiscation of 400,000 acres (1,600 km2) of land along the Atlantic coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida and the dividing of it into parcels of not more than 40 acres (0.16 km2), on which were to be settled approximately 18,000 formerly enslaved families and other black people then living in the area.”
   On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by an ardent white supremacist named John Wilkes Booth in the Ford Theatre in Washington, DC. Notorious segregationist Andrew Johnson was sworn into the presidency on April 14, 1865. On May 1865, he promptly rescinded all field orders (series 1865), and pardoned white Southern planters, paving the way for these planters to reclaim seized land.
   The turbulent era, known as Reconstruction following the Civil War, which spanned from 1865 to 1877, has been well documented by historians. Famed Harvard English professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., wrote, produced, and narrated one of the best depictions in his PBS series by the same name. It depicted how black political and economic advances during the wake of abolition were intentionally obstructed by racist whites; whites who did not want to recognize former slaves and their progeny as full citizens with equal rights. The largely successful efforts led to institutionalized barriers to generational wealth: access to health, education, and prosperity; and, employment opportunities for 143 years, which are still existent today. As are many of the companies and institutions that directly benefited from slavery. One hundred and forty-three years is only 7 generations. (And many of us personally remember three, four, some even five, generations of our family. So, think about that when racist whites tell us to get over or forget about it.)
   African Americans in America have never gotten their forty acres and a mule. And the time worn, hackneyed playbook of parading out successful blacks, as if these statistically insignificant examples of an ever elusive American dream are the rule rather than the exception to white supremacy, is the type of craven hypocrisy with which many whites engage routinely to rationalize, or shade, their own implicit bias or explicit bigotry.
   I cannot recount the indignities I have experienced with white [female] academicians rudely, unprofessionally, and presumptuously barging into my classes unannounced to attempt to dress me down, question my credentials, or take me to task for some real or, probably, perceived grievance in front of my students. Their misconduct was invariably condoned or covered-up -- typically by a black female (and sometimes male) HR or diversity administrator hired and trotted out to act as an official apologist, a bulwark, a firewall, insulating lily-white college executives from actionable allegations of discrimination. My experiences are not isolated.
   The events surrounding the death of George Floyd have brought these never-ending concerns into stark relief. And reveal that America needs a Truth and Reconciliation Commission; one that honestly talks about the painful vestiges of discrimination, which still linger in America: Creating an environment where four police officers sworn to uphold the law, stand idly by; or, help hold down a restrained man, as their supervisor, a training officer, casually with his hands in his pocket, brutally suffocates him in hi-def. Like the man was little more than a rabid animal, needing to be put down. The ex-officer cruelly, and callously positioned and repositioned his knee into the man's neck for an interminable eight minute and forty-seven seconds with an empty, vacant stare devoid of pity or humanity, intentionally ensuring George Floyd could not be revived without serious brain damage, until the hapless victim of this state-sponsored lynching gave up the ghost, with conscious folks watching, aghast, horrified, at the monstrous brutality of the act.
   The proposed Truth and Reconciliation Commission should be comprised of a representative cross-section of Americans with socioeconomic views that explore a gamut of sociopolitical perspectives -- where everyone's voice is heard. It should come up with tangible, binding initiatives that address pernicious public health issues and criminal justice policies, which disproportionately lead to black faces in public [read that: white] spaces being murdered for dubious, alleged minor criminal offenses with which whites suspects are merely cited and released with their dignity and, more importantly, their lives intact, on a routine basis.