For Black people, the very public murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis was the most recent reminder of a long legacy of racism in the United States. But today, that word seems so inadequate, almost quaint. When people who look like us — who look like our mothers and fathers, our aunties and uncles, our neighbors and friends, and, most devastatingly, our children — are slowly suffocated to death in the gutter in broad daylight, or shot to death in their beds while they sleep, or shot to death for wearing a hoodie, or shot to death for jogging, shot in the front for jaywalking or in the back for running away, it’s more than just racism. It’s hate. It’s a deep-seated, visceral hatred of our very existence and the undeniably intentional desire to erase us.
Four hundred years ago, my ancestors were kidnapped from their homes and violently ripped from their families, stuffed into the hold of a boat, and shackled together as they were forced across the Atlantic to the Americas. For more than 150 years, they toiled away in the scorching heat and crushing humidity building this country’s wealth and might, only to be excluded from that hollow document declaring all men equal. Another 89 years would pass before the war was over, and the government said we were finally free. But freedom did not last, and just 12 short years later, elected Black legislators were dragged from statehouses, the Ku Klux Klan had risen to power, and many so-called white allies had abandoned us.
The nine decades following the Compromise of 1877, which marked the end of Reconstruction, would become known as the Jim Crow era. For the heinous and amoral crimes of looking at a white person (known as reckless eyeballing), whistling, looking for work, walking to work, walking home from work, walking on the sidewalk while white people walked there, sitting toward the front of a bus, using a water fountain, using a public restroom, using a public pool, or pretty much anything else you might think of, Black people were beaten and incarcerated to remind them of their place as somewhere between property and second-class citizens. This apartheid state was the product of the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude, “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” Enter mass incarceration.
There is a clear line between slavery and mass incarceration: both confine, punish, and exploit through deprivation of rights and privileges. For the latter, the punishment never ends, as formerly incarcerated people experience what’s known as civil death: the exclusion from being able to participate in society fully. It’s only a recent phenomenon for formerly incarcerated people to be re-enfranchised and allowed to vote, but convictions, especially for drugs, often exclude people from college financial aid, professional licensure, public housing, assistance buying food, being a chaperone at school events, coaching youth sports, and a whole host of other activities. Despite vague notions of rehabilitation and paying a debt to society, people convicted of crimes, a disproportionate amount of whom are Black, are pushed into cycles of crime and conviction because the government has made it nearly impossible to survive. For many readers, this crash course in connecting the dots of institutionalized racism will seem overwhelming. For some, unbelievable. For others, paralyzing.
The Central Coast was once home to a thriving Black community, even hosting MLK as he delivered a sermon at a Seaside church, but white people in Monterey County may now feel as though this isn’t a local issue because of how few Black people remain here. As a direct result of the racial covenants that barred Black people from homeownership everywhere on the Peninsula except for Seaside and the exploitative poverty wages for many jobs in the hospitality industry, even today, our community has dwindled from more than 6,000 to less than 2,500 — just 7.3% — of the population of Seaside, and 3.5% of Monterey County. With stagnant employment opportunities, soaring home prices, and enclaves of racial exclusivity, your Black neighbors, coworkers, and friends continue to get pushed out.
So, what can you do? You’ve made it this far, sprinting through the broad strokes of 400 years of slavery, subjugation, exclusion, and exploitation, learning how you personally have benefited from a country that was built by others but at their expense; learning why some school districts are so well funded while others aren’t; why Black people are stopped, arrested, and convicted at higher rates than others; and why white people enjoy lighter sentences when they are convicted of crimes; why the average white family has nearly ten times as much wealth as the average Black family. You might take comfort in your heartfelt beliefs that racism is bad and that you don’t support or condone it, or you might have even taken it a step further and declared yourself an ally, giving your time, energy, and money to causes that support Black people truly becoming fully human in this country. At the risk of offending most of you, I’m here to tell you that’s not good enough.
Dr. Bettina Love, a Black community leader and professor at the University of Georgia, speaks of co-conspirators: people who are willing to “put something on the line.” With a centuries-long head start in building wealth and enjoying privileges some in this country still don’t enjoy, it’s not enough to earnestly want equality or to buy books on race written by white authors. White supremacy and racism were manufactured – and sustained today – by white people, and only white people can dismantle the system they built. Being an ally means being willing to put your body between the police and a Black person, speaking up when your coworker makes a racist comment in an all-white team meeting, or telling the principal that your child’s teacher made a racist comment about another student. We will never achieve a more fair, just, and equitable society unless you’re willing to become a co-conspirator and put something on the line.
Jon Wizard lives in Seaside with his partner, two stepsons, two miniature dachshunds, and cat. After his law enforcement career abruptly ended due to an on-the-job injury, Jon ran for city council and was elected in 2018. Jon now works for Habitat for Humanity Monterey Bay helping to create more affordable housing throughout Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties. Jon holds a master’s degree in humanities for which he completed a thesis about the militarization of the police in the United States and is currently working on a Master of Public Administration degree.