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| Image from the Boston Globe |
Opposing the President Joe Biden nomination Kiran Ahuja for director of Office of Personnel Management, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) took to the floor of congress and like most members of his party does, proceeded to say some really stupid ish. Hawley said that the America he sees and knows is not systemically racist. I don't think I can find a single GIF that would properly convey the flat, blinking expression I have on my face as I look at the plate of nonsense he just served up.
Hawley is a white man. Of course he sees a different a America. He lives in an American that black people and other people of color do not. Because he is white, he gets to move through life and the country without experiencing the systemic racism that non-whites encounter on a regular basis. He doesn't have to fear that police are going to harm him over some trivial garbage like vaping on the sidewalk, or fear that his life may be in danger during a routine jog. He doesn't have to worry about being represented in media because as a white man, he is the default.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream is one of, if not his most famous speeches. White folks especially love the quote "I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character," as a flimsy way around admitting that systemic racism exists and is very much part of American life, while at the same time treating people differently because they are not white.
But Dr. King also had another speech, a really dang good one, one you probably won't hear white people discuss. It is called The Other America. In this speech Dr. King details the two Americas that exist along side each other. The first America is one where white people are favored. The Other America, to be brief, is less than ideal and one that people of Another America would not want to live in. This speech also has the famous quote "a riot is the language of the unheard."
The Other America is a speech that still holds so much meaning today. It is so hard for white people to see the Other America because they live in Another America, the one that Hawley occupies. Another America is not perfect but next to the Other America, it is practically paradise. Another America benefits from the Other America's oppression, something Hawley is oblivious to because again, he's white.
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| Photo via New York Times |
What prompted Hawley to go off on his America-is-not-racist tangent? Well, a year ago, Ahuja said that "we must free America from the daily trials of white supremacy." And of course, that hit Hawley right in his white fragility feels. Because any criticism of America being a racist country and any sort of attempt to remedy it is a personal attack to white people.
Ahuja was just barely confirmed in 51-50 vote with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie. Ahuja is Indian-America and an advocate for Critical Race Theory, which explains why Hawley and the rest of the republicans oppose her nomination. With her being a person of color, I'm go out on a limb and say that Ahuja knows first hand what the Other America is like.
TLDR; Hawley is white, he doesn't experience systemic racism, so it doesn't exist.
Another America is also known as White America.
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