Who is The Enemy and How Do We Fight Against It?

By Tam Tran / Fall 2021

Do you remember what happened to George Floyd last year? I think most of us saw the video about the event. Floyd was a black man, and he was murdered by Derek Chauvin, who was a white police officer. He was handcuffed and pinned to the ground by the officer’s knee. Floyd helplessly pleaded “I can’t breathe” more than twenty times, but his plea was ignored. There was an intense feeling inside me when I watched the video. I asked, “What is happening in America?”. Some people that I know also watched that video and they asked similar questions. A few of them actually cried after watching. The video was really difficult to watch, and the frustration and confusion were real to many of us. It was hard to believe that this happened in the United States, one of the most developed countries in the world.

Many people considered what Chauvin did a really unnecessary force, and many of them even called that police brutality. From the event, many of us, including myself, felt that we had less faith in humans. Many of us also thought that there might be particular people who were simply racist, for instance, white police officers. We believed that the issues were about individuals, and we thought that they were our enemies. Nevertheless, from what I have learned in my writing class, I would love to show you deeper aspects of what has happened in America, that relate to system racism. I hope that this essay helps you see that our enemy is something beyond an individual, and how to fight against it.

To begin, I would like to let you know that Chauvin, like many other people, is shaped by bad soil. Many people have negative thoughts and false beliefs about black people and the black communities. They think that black people are mentally inferior, more violent, and even criminals.

As many of us learn in cognitive science classes, perception is strongly influenced by experience, values, culture, education, and other factors. So, why are Black Americans perceived in that way by these people? To answer the question, let us go back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Back then, because black people were perceived as inhuman beings by the colonists, they had to work as slaves and serve the owners. Furthermore, to the colonists and owners, black slaves were their property. Many black people had to work for a really long time, and some of them even had to do it for life. Additionally, they were exploited and abused by their owners. Also, if they committed crimes, they would get cruel punishments, such as brandings and whippings. Moreover, black slaves had to receive harsher sentences compared to other slaves.

To look deeper at the events that happened to black people, we can see the contexts that shaped these events. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was written in order to declare human rights. Nonetheless, the colonists, including Thomas Jefferson, excluded black people from these rights, as they believed that black people were mentally inferior (Takaki 67). Additionally, Jefferson saw black people as a libidinous race (Takaki 68). Furthermore, in the nineteenth century, Dr. Samuel Morton researched on differences between races in the intelligence aspect. With the skulls of black people and white people, he measured their cranial capacities. Dr. Morton found that those of whites were larger. Thus, he made a judgment that white people were more intelligent, even though the skulls of the whites were actually from the white people who were hanged for their crime (Takaki 100). From the details that I mentioned earlier, they showed that the colonists used these to justify why they removed human rights from black people and dehumanized them. In addition, there was a deeper issue related to dominant ideology. The false beliefs led to white supremacy and systemic racism, as the colonists thought that they were naturally superior, and black people were inhuman beings. The colonists also thought that whiteness needed to be rewarded, while blackness must be punished.

In the twentieth century, which was one hundred years later from the era of slaves and colonists, a lot of aspects were different from what happened in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, the ideology was still there. There was an issue called structural inequality. In fact, there was a disparity in terms of distribution of rights and resources, and exclusionary zoning was a part of it. From what I learned, there were two aspects of zoning, including keeping black people away from expensive white neighborhoods and allowing unsafe businesses to locate in black residences (Rothstein 56-57). It allowed white middle-class people to have good land, resources, and environments while groups of the black working class were forced to live in unhealthy and destructive environments. Another part of structural inequality was redlining, which was about avoiding investments in areas based on community demographics. According to the course lecture on Day 8, Black Americans were denied in terms of financial services, including banking and insurance. Additionally, basic services, such as health care and supermarkets, were denied to people living in these areas. As a result, certain communities had to go through physical, mental, emotional suffering, and even premature death. Furthermore, these communities were ghettoized, which were isolated from other areas, including exclusive suburbs for white people. So, there was a significant disparity in terms of housing qualities between different areas. White suburbs had nice houses, fresh air, and a quiet environment. On the other hand, black communities had to live with a lack of medical care, air pollution, toxic drinking water, and other issues.

What is shocking to me is that structural inequality is persistent even today, though there have been evolutions and movements. I think some of you could recognize the disparity in terms of housing qualities between different areas in San Diego. For instance, La Jolla and Del Mar areas have well-maintained houses, and the majority of people who live there are white. On the other hand, in the “El Cajon Blvd” area, which is close to San Diego State University, the quality of the houses is poor, and there are a lot of Black Americans living in that area.

Because of the living conditions, many Black Americans use drugs to deal with the situations. This is one of the reasons why they are falling through the cracks. Then, police try to fix it by putting more enforcement in areas where black communities live, although drug use in black communities is not any higher than in white communities. Nonetheless, it is only a shallow solution, and it actually leads to another issue called over-policing, which means using excessive force and even brutality towards other people. As I mentioned earlier, there is police brutality in the George Floyd event. That event is not the only event that relates to the issue. There are other Black Americans that have to go through similar tragedies, such as Breonna Taylor, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, and many more. These events show the pattern of excessive force, hence the deeper aspect. In fact, black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people, and only 1.7% of police officers are convicted for their murders (Mapping Police Violence). Moreover, with over-policing, many people in low-income areas are criminalized and put into prisons. From the movie “13th”, 40.2% of the U.S. prison population are black men, but black men only make up 6.5% of the total population in this country. This shows that there is a significant disparity between the two percentages, and the mass incarceration is a huge issue especially for black communities.

As I walked you through three deeper aspects including the flawed ideology about black and white, exclusionary zoning, and over-policing, you might wonder why I did that. When the event of George Floyd happened last year, I discussed with some people, whom I knew, about that event and the Black Lives Matter movement. A few of them told me that they thought that the Black Lives Matter movement was nonsense to them. Afterward, I asked them why they thought in that way, and they told me that black people lived in ghettoized places and police enforced a lot around these areas. They also told me that black people, in general, were less intelligent compared to others in this country. Moreover, many people told me that the disparity between different areas in San Diego was simply because people who lived in poorly-maintained areas were lazy and lacked intelligence, so they would not be able to go to a well-known college, get a good job, and move to a better place. Being shocked by the responses, I thought they might lack empathy. Nonetheless, I realized that they had quite similar answers, showing that there could be a deeper problem of how their perception was shaped. From the dominant ideology in the eighteenth century, both explicitly and implicitly spread out to the institutions, and made people believe that it was something natural. Exclusionary zoning and over-policing, indeed, are the results of the ideology, and they are still major problems for black communities. Moreover, if people look at these problems only in superficial aspects, they might have misunderstandings about Black Americans. Since these people do not live in the same conditions as black people, it makes sense that they do not see how black communities have been through. As I said earlier, perception is strongly influenced by experience, values, culture, education, and other factors.

When people see many Black Americans living in poorly-maintained areas get arrested by police officers without knowing the deeper contexts, they might think that black people are innately not intelligent and these people are not serious with their life. Thus, from all the deeper stories, we can see how they connect with each other. These stories show that the ideology negatively impacts not just individuals but also institutions. In addition, institutions negatively impact someone’s mind. It can be seen as a loop of impacts going back and forth, that perception influences the outside world, and the outside world influences back the perception. We need to realize that the ideology within a person is a deeper cause for these issues. In Thich Nhat Hanh’s letter to Martin Luther King Jr., he states that the enemies are not individuals, but they are “intolerance, fanaticism, dictatorship, cupidity, hatred and discrimination”, which are inside these individuals. The dominant ideology is the actual enemy that we need to fight against, not particular individuals such as police officers, racists, and supremacists.

Now that we see the depths of the issues, we can think about the obstacles. Despite the deeper stories and knowledge, the issues still exist, and they might continue in the future. Why do they happen? Perhaps, there are prevalent obstacles that we have to face. One of the obstacles is not everyone has the opportunities to get in touch with the knowledge, the insights, and the perspectives. The truth of American history has hidden faces that might cause disadvantages to the system and the supremacy. Therefore, the institutions, including the educational system, try to hide these aspects. This leads to people having misunderstandings about black communities, especially when they see how Black Americans are different from other races in superficial ways. Thus, it is challenging to get someone to learn about the truth. Also, even when someone knows the insights, it is difficult for them to change their mindset, and this is another obstacle. Reshaping someone’s mind is not something that we can do in days. It can take weeks, months, or even years, especially the issues related to the cognitive trap that has been established for centuries or even longer. Moreover, we also need to change how the system works, and that includes laws and institutions. Hence, the systemic issues are complex, and we need to solve them gradually.

Now we know the actual enemy to fight against, and the obstacles that prevent us from solving the problems. So, we can consider how to overcome the obstacles and fight the enemy. Many people think about defunding the police, and even taking some power away from them. Also, many people consider having more and more officers be more accountable and take penalties for their actions. These ideas are a good start. However, simply reducing police power and focusing on individuals will not ultimately solve the deeper issues of the ideology within someone’s mind and the institutions. If we only try to solve with superficial solutions, the ideology remains there. Moreover, even the problems are superficially solved, the cycle of a cognitive trap will happen again. The ideology will spread out to the system, and the system will influence back to someone’s perception. As a result, we will try for nothing. Hence, we need to know that we are ultimately fixing the system, not necessarily the people. One way to make changes is to provide more lessons, classes, and programs that provide deeper aspects and insights to other people, so they will learn and understand different perspectives. From that, more and more people will be able to understand and feel the deeper stories of the lives of Black Americans.

Another aspect that we can make an impact on is redistributing the money and providing more funds to black communities, not just simply reducing police money. There are many cities in the United States started to reduce police budgets and redistribute the money to other programs such as healthcare, homelessness, food, substances, and social services (Collins, “The financial case for defunding the police”). When the other programs are invested, Black Americans have their chances to get resources, education, and build communities with better conditions including housing, medical care, environment, and more. Then, there would be less ghettoized areas, and there would be less police enforcement and over-policing in general. When these aspects happen, more and more people will be able to see that black communities are healthy, and their mindset will gradually change. This is where the loop between the negative ideology and the system will be gradually broken.

How do the implementations and changes happen? Many of them are applied because of the pressure from nonviolent movements. Hence, participating in nonviolent movements is another way to solve the problems. It would help represent other people in black communities who are not able to raise their voices. In addition, that will put pressure on the government, and the government will need to make a change in some cases. For instance, the reinvestments, which is defunding the police and providing more money to other programs, would not be happened if there was no “pressure from national uprising and hardworking activists” (Collins, “The financial case for defunding the police”). Another example is the Civil Rights movement, which is from 1954 to 1968. Discrimination and segregation separated people, but the movement helped people come together and fight for their rights. Without the movement, our current world would be different, perhaps worse. The examples show that how important nonviolent movements are, as to how they bring people together and fight against the flawed system, separation, and isolation.

As I said about the event of George Floyd, the deeper perspectives, and the solutions, the issues are systemic and complex, and they need to be solved in ways that can break the cognitive cycle. I know that it is easier said than done, especially we are living in the world of capitalism and competitive individualism. Nonetheless, Martin Luther King Jr. states in “The Letter from a Birmingham Jail” that once injustice impacts one directly, it would be threatening for every other aspect. In some ways, we are all influenced by systemic racism and the ideology that is behind it. Thus, this is why we should care about it, and take action. We need to fight for a country that is fair for everyone, and respect all human rights, not just only certain groups. Also, there are many ways that we can take action. Besides the solutions that I mentioned earlier, one way is to keep learning and have an open mind, so we can see aspects beyond the superficial understandings. Then, we can help other people understand the perspectives by passing our knowledge to them. In addition, I believe that we are smart and talented. So, we can use our talents to provide aids and insights in different fields including education, psychology, statistics, environment, health, and many more. We can also speak for other people who are not able to speak for themselves. Moreover, we might not see the effects that we make in days or weeks, but we will see the gradual change in years. What people did in the past, especially in the Civil Rights movement, made our country a better and more hopeful place to live for us. It was challenging for them, but we can see that the country gradually changed in years due to the movement. Therefore, we can also make America a better place to live with hope and justice for future generations eventually.

Works Cited

Ava DuVernay, and Jason Moran. 13TH. USA, 2016.

Collins, Sean. “The financial case for defunding the police”. Vox Media. 23 Sep. 2020. Web. 9 Dec. 2021.

Hanh, Thich Nhat. "Letter to Martin Luther King, Jr.(1 June 1965)." Vietnam: The Lotus in the Sea of Fire (1967).

King Jr, Martin Luther. “The Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Systemic Analysis for Everyday Life, edited by Niall Twohig, UC San Diego, 2021, pp. 91-102.

Mapping Police Violence. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 December 2021.

Rothstein, Richard. The Color Of Law: A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America. Liveright, 2017.

Takaki, Ronald T. A Different Mirror. Little, Brown & Company, 2008.

Twohig, Niall. “Day 8 - A New (and Raw) Deal.” WCWP 100. 2021, UC San Diego, UC San Diego.