Results: Racism Today -- If You Are Not Part Of The Solution, You Are Part Of The Problem

After watching the video of George Floyd, a black man, plead for air in his final moments alive as a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck, it's hard to deny that racism is alive and flourishing. Even as far away as Vancouver, British Columbia, one man organized a rally in solidarity with the protests against police violence and racial injustice spreading like wildfire across the United States. An estimated 3,500 people turned out at the Vancouver Art Gallery Sunday. The event did not spark any looting or violence and Jacob Callender-Prasad, a White man, says the show of support gave him hope systemic change is possible. His point is this: if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Do you agree with his point?

Christopher Parker, a political scientist professor at the University of Washington, said the issue is a larger systemic problem than just "blue on black violence" and while he is thankful people are mobilizing, there are still many on the sidelines who are not part of the solution, and therefore part of the problem. "It's not the supremacists, we know they are against us, and it's not the racial Liberals, we know they are with us. It's the people in the middle who know this stuff is wrong but won't do anything about it," he said. Have you ever seen or heard something racist and either ignored it, laughed about it or joined in?

"Systemic racism", or "institutional racism", refers to how ideas of white superiority are captured in everyday thinking at a systems level: taking in the big picture of how society operates, rather than looking at one-on-one interactions. When the coronavirus pandemic struck, much of what characterizes normal life stopped. But the more fundamental and structural problems continued. Systemic racism is one of them, with numerous examples evident even as normal life came to a halt in recent months. Of course, the video of George Floyd has both shocked and angered most of us, but it certainly should not surprise us. In February, video showed Ahmaud Arbery, a black man, being shot by two white vigilantes while out for a jog in Georgia. A woman in New York's Central Park called the police on a black man who asked her to follow park rules and leash her dog, immediately telling them that "an African American man" was there and falsely claiming he was "threatening" her and the dog. As the pandemic unfolded, people of color have suffered disproportionately high death rates from the coronavirus — also an indirect result of systemic inequality and racism. Do you agree systemic racism exists?

So, what can you do to combat racism -- the first step may be to acknowledge that you are part of the problem, and chose to be part of the solution. Here are some other steps you can take. Do you feel there are any on this list that you could try doing?