We Must Continue to Root out Racism

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, my friend from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Congressman Dwight Evans, for anchoring this Special Order hour, the subject of which is Root Out Racism, #rootoutracism. It is a sensitive topic, somewhat uncomfortable for people, both Black and White, or shall I say dark-skinned and light-skinned.

It is an uncomfortable subject, and no one wants to be accused of being a racist. It has all kinds of emotional connotations and negative connotations, as it should. Because what racism actually is, is a belief, or a doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievements, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior, and has the right to rule others.

So in other words, what racism is, is a concept that one believes that their race is superior to the race of someone else. And how racism manifests itself in America, historically, has been that if you are a racist, you are a White person, and you believe that your race is superior to that of a dark-skinned person, a Black person. That has been how racism has unfolded here in America since the White man came to America.

Of course, when Christopher Columbus, an Anglo-Saxon from Spain, came to America and discovered America, America was populated, at that time, by what we called the Red man, the Indian, a dark-skinned individual-- darker than the Anglo-Saxon. And so this country has a history of mistreating people severely who are of a different color than white.

First, it was the Indians. The feeling was that the European was superior to the Native American. That is the bottom line. Now, also, on that ship coming over in 1607, landing at Jamestown, Virginia, were some indentured servants, some of whom were dark-skinned people. Racism was not necessarily a part of slavery, or indentured servitude, but racism was used to ensure that the multitudes of dark-skinned people who were brought over here from Africa, who outnumbered in the South the number of Europeans, or White people there, racism was used to keep those Black people in their place.

In other words, it was not indentured servitude. It was racism based on the subjugation of one group of people, or one race of people by another race of people because the race of people doing the subjugation impressed upon themselves and their children that those dark-skinned people are beneath us. And so slavery became an institution, as did racism.

Those ideas of racial superiority still exist today, but it is so sensitive for people to talk about the fact that racism still exists, and even more uncomfortable when someone is accused of being a racist.

What is a racist? A racist is a person who believes in racism; the doctrine that the human race is superior, and that one's race is superior to that of another. That is a racist.

The problem is, when we don't understand that we are racists. Now, some even say that folks like Black Lives Matter are racists. But that cannot be further from the truth because Black Lives Matter activists are not saying that Blacks are superior to Whites. They are, in fact, saying that all lives are equal; that Black lives matter. So you can't call a Black person a racist when they are not proclaiming their race to be greater than the White race. No.

Racism tends to rear its ugly head in America when White people use it to preserve their position on top, superior. And that is what Make America Great Again was all about. It really wasn't make America great again. It was make America White again. That is what the message was.

The message was a racist message. It began 4 or 5 years ago when our President started this rumor that President Obama was not an American; he was not one of us; he was from Africa. That is appealing to the subliminal messaging, that subliminal messaging that has been implanted in each one of us since we were born. White folks have been led to believe that they are superior.

Now, I am not accusing all White people of being racists, but I think it is a question that all White people have to ask themselves, whether or not they harbor feelings of superiority. Because I do know that when we look at the mass media, the images that Black folks get of themselves by looking at the media are that we are inferior. That is what is implanted in us.

That is the legacy of slavery, the legacy of racism and slavery, and it has implanted in our minds that we are inferior. And we have to fight feelings of inferiority just to feel equal.

White people, on the other hand, have been implanted with the theory that they are superior. And so this is the American society that we live in. When President Trump, 4 or 5 years ago, accused President Obama of not being an American, not being one of us, and being from Africa, it was code to provoke the racist instincts in people who harbor them. And not all White people harbor that. That is not the point that I am making.

But the point is, there was an appeal made to those instincts. That instinct was further aggravated by the insinuation that President Obama was a Muslim; he is not one of us. It is almost dehumanizing. And so that was the code word.

Then, when he descended those steps at the Trump Tower and said that all Mexicans were racists and murderers, that was another appeal to the racist instincts in people--in White people, not Black people, not Hispanics, but in White people.

And so playing the racist game is what got President Trump elected, bottom line. And so now that he is in office, we see all kinds of racist policies coming back to fruition.

My colleagues who have spoken before me have talked about it: criminal justice, drugs in society, the prison industrial complex. They have talked about it. I am not going to point out or go over what they have said, but I will say that racism is alive and well in America. We will never be able to root it out until we all have a conversation with ourselves to ask ourselves, and to probe our own minds and souls to determine whether or not we feel that we are superior, whether or not we place ourselves in line before others just because that is the way it has always been, and we want to make America great again.

It is something that we have to think about. It is something that we have to discuss. I, for one, love my fellow man regardless of color, and I know that even many people who don't know that they are racists love their brothers and sisters, and so they will at least sit down and talk. That is what I have to do as a Black man, is to talk with as many people of different colors as I can to show them my humanity, to let them know that I appreciate their humanity, and that I love them.

Maybe through love, we will be able to overcome the scourge of racism that is historical here in America and that is alive, well, and in living color today.

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