Observing from the outside what we are now suffering in the United States – the protests, the destruction of statues and monuments, the violence against the forces of order, and, above all, the chaos of the pandemic that continues to grow – it would be too easy to think that everything It is crazy, it does not affect other countries, and especially that “in my country”, whatever it may be, these divisions do not exist because they have been overcome. And it would be a hoax. A trap of false illusions. There is no place in the world where there are no cultural, social, economic, educational, and political differences based on race and the resulting exercise of power by one racial group over another.
As for the United States, there are four major racial lines with the greatest influence and relevance to the current crisis along with others that are smaller in number.
- One, perhaps the largest group, is that of the “whites”, of European descent, with many varieties.
- The second is the black, descendants of enslaved people who brought the “whites” against their will.
- Third, the race of Native Americans, the first inhabitants of the territory, were forced to live on reservations located in the most remote parts of the country.
- Finally, the “Latinos”, mostly mestizo people, are all immigrants, although some have been longer than the “whites.”
It has been said with pride that America is like a casserole where everyone has come to melt, but that is not the truth. It is an illusion. It is precisely what you notice right now.
Each of the racial and ethnic groups has its own history. And each story is like a thread that contains everything that constitutes culture: language, religion, customs, social networks, what each group considers most important, the ways of living together. This story has developed over millennia, so ingrained in the race that they can never be separated.
What is happening now in the US is that for the first time the difference between the various stories and the gulf that separates them has been recognized. The different threads have grown in parallel without much interchange. Each group has been so focused on its own history that it has not been interested in the history of the others.
I, within the “white” race, grew up without knowing the others. He had no connections and I studied his history very little. I learned “my” story from books; he could never imagine that others had learned hers from traditions or stories. It is true that there have been certain areas where stories and races have intersected, notably in music and sports. Despite that, to a large extent, each thread has remained separate, one from the other, and they have not interwoven to form a single fabric of many colors and patterns.
It is a fact that the lack of knowledge of the histories of other groups has contributed greatly to the current situation. It is also the unwillingness to understand or try to understand parallel stories. How can we understand what a monument to those of another race means without knowing something about its history? How to appreciate that a place is sacred for some when we have lost the sense of the sacred in nature? How can we learn to give up power when we don’t even realize we have it? Everything is more complicated by denying the study of history. Schools present it as a series of events, dates, wars, etc. Seeing history as something lived by real people who have created a culture that we have received in the present is a difficult but necessary task if we are to live with others with a diverse history. We have to know and know our own story and then embrace someone else’s.
The causes of violence are many, but I think it begins when we lose sight of the fact that we all act based on our history. It can be a story of frustration, poverty, inequality, or it can be a story of wealth, privilege, and well-being. Where these stories are mixed with the racial factor and that of power, there are struggles and the power of an explosion of violence. We have a president who is proud that he has never read a history book. You are not alone. First of all, it is up to each one of us to educate ourselves, learning the various stories, starting with our own. Violence and ignorance will be overcome with an education that leads to mutual respect. Thus we build a world where justice is practiced for all.
How about the rights of Asians?
Attacks against people of Asian descent in the United States have increased during the pandemic. Despite this wave of violence, discrimination, and racism towards this group are not recent. Invisible, little cohesive in terms of identity, and ignored by the main political parties, the Asian-American population seeks a response to these challenges.
The murder of six Asian women on March 16 in a shooting near Atlanta, Georgia, was not an isolated event. Although the murderer, a twenty-one-year-old white youth, claimed to suffer from a “sexual addiction”, this killing cannot be separated from a problem aggravated by the pandemic: racism towards the Asian American population. In recent months, a woman was beaten in New York shouting “you’re not from here,” and a man was attacked in San Francisco for allegedly linking him to the pandemic. According to a study by California State University San Bernardino, hate crimes against this group increased in 2020 by about 150% in the sixteen most populous cities in the country, although total hate crimes fell by 7%. The rhetoric of former President Trump, who called the coronavirus a “Chinese virus,” contributed to exacerbating the violence, but discrimination precedes the current crisis.
Oddly enough, the majority of the attacks against Asians are perpetuated by black people, a new challenge for the government to deal with and for the human rights groups in years to come.
