This is an insight written by Stella Hudson on the recent Bahá’í Chair for World Peace Lecture by Professor Yohuru Williams on “Simply Because People Refuse to See Me: Black Lives Matter in Historical Context” held on February 8, 2022.
In many ways, this contemporary moment feels unique. The after-effects of 2020 and the ongoing pandemic, the January 6th insurrection, Trump’s presidency, our reckoning with police violence against people of color, anti-Asian sentiments; so many tensions seem to be boiling to the surface. However, Dr. Yohuru Williams’s talk “Simply Because People Refuse to See Me: Black Lives Matter in Historical Context” points out a very significant aspect of our current moment: none of this is new at all. Our contemporary phenomena are echoes of history and reflect the issues, questions, violence, prejudice, and activism of the past.
The challenges of racism that we face today are deeply embedded in the history of this country. This historical moment may feel new, and in some ways it is, but in many others, it is not. In January of 1979, Eula Mae Love was shot 8 times by the LAPD. She was in her own front yard and she was killed in front of her children. The police had been called over an unpaid utility bill. In the aftermath, newspapers called for police training reform, a familiar demand people still make to this day. When interviewed, the police chief made sure to correct the journalists under-reporting the amount Eula Mae Love owed, but did not address the responsibility or misconduct of the officers involved. He claimed Eula Mae had his sympathy.
As Dr. Williams reflects in his talk, sympathy is not enough; we need justice. This moment might feel new, but it is decades, centuries, in the making. History education about these topics is lacking, and learning about it as a graduate student can be disheartening. So many people don’t even know what they don’t know. In this way education about the past and how it has led us to where we are is paramount. However, like sympathy, education is not enough.
In this moment of converging energies, we must unite them to combat the course of prejudice that runs through the foundation of our nation. We need more than calls for action, we need activism. Racism and prejudice are present in all areas of American life and culture. As such it is an overwhelming obstacle, but this also means that everyone has a direct way to affect positive change. We need to sustain this energy and maintain our momentum towards justice, or else we will continue to repeat and remix our racist past and present into the future.
About the Author:
Stella Hudson is a Graduate Assistant with the Baha’i Chair for World Peace. She graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2021 with a B.A. in English. She is attending the University of Maryland and pursuing a Master’s of Library and Information Science.