RACISM + AMERICAN HISTORY

Historical Racism is not Simply “History” When It’s Continually Repeated

It’s hard to “get over” the past when the past is never past

Reporters talk with Alton Yates and Rodney Hurst during the first sit-in demonstration at Woolworth’s store, August 13, 1960, | Photo Credit: University of North Florida, Digital Commons

When it comes to talking about race, racism, and racialized violence in America, far too often I have heard comments like: “get over it,” “it happened 400 years ago”, “that’s in the past,” or the classic — “we had a Black president.” All of these statements imply that racism is a thing of the past and no longer needs to be talked about, addressed, or confronted.

Rather than writing an essay providing a plethora of statistics that illustrate how America is far from being a “post-racial” society (whatever “post-racial” is supposed to mean), I simply want to illustrate for a few minutes how and why the “past” for many African Americans is not simply the past. The so-called “past” is a present reality that many Black people live with daily.

The past continues to exist in the present.

The recent racist-motivated shooting in Jacksonville, FL, has an interesting connection with the past that helps illustrate how and why the past continues to exist in the present for many Black people. On August 26, 2023, a white gunman wearing a tactical vest barged into a…