July 13, 2020
Harvard-educated attorney, author of Just Mercy, and the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson, discusses biases in the criminal justice system and why it's no surprise that those biases still exist today. He says this country has not reckoned with its original sin of slavery, which is made evident by the "iconography of the Confederacy" littered across the Southern landscape, and the honoring of Confederate leaders like Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis in school names and state holidays.
Richard Rothstein, author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America reminds us that the government very intentionally and explicitly created and enforced policies of segregation for decades, which explains both the vast majority of the staggering wealth gap between blacks and whites as well as why that segregation largely still exists today.
The United States was founded on ideals that were violated at its conception, and if we're going to get to a better place, this racist past needs to be understood and reckoned with. Germany has largely tried to atone for their Nazi past, and though it will be much more difficult for America (since the Third Reich was only active for twelve years—we had slavery for nearly 250 years), it can be done.
The right-wing media is hell-bent on the idea that America is "not racist" and has "nothing to be ashamed of". In fact, the Confederacy and its secession was absolutely about slavery, not about states' rights and Donald Trump has been perfectly clear that he thinks the Confederate flag, memorials, and statues should stay. The removal of Confederate monuments and banning of the flag is often reported by the right as an attack on white culture and heritage, and the "erasing of white history".
...the idea that the statues are about history or heritage is ridiculous. We don’t memorialize every piece of our heritage. We pick out what we want people to remember. Monuments are visible values. They portray the men and women who embodied the values that we want our community to share, that we want our children to learn. So [the Confederate monuments] have to go.
Driving to OBX this summer, I saw numerous flagpoles with "TRUMP 2020" flags hanging beneath the Confederate flag. The people flying those flags, the President, and all who support this idea that we should continue glorifying the Confederacy are either grossly ill-informed or proudly voicing their support for racial injustice and inequality.
updated July 13, 2020