Jamil Smith
June already has its share of monthly observances, including Pride, ALS awareness, and African American Music Appreciation. Let me add one more to the list: It should be National Vigilance Month.
There is Juneteenth, of course, Monday’s holiday celebrating African Americans’ final emancipation from enslavement. And three summers ago, we had the all-too-brief rebellion against racism and police brutality in the wake of a terrible few months filled with Black death.
I’m reminded now of something that a policing expert told me when I wrote about Juneteenth three years ago. Speaking about emancipation, he told me, “It took so much blood and so much treasure that the nation was too exhausted to stay focused on what you do to actually build freedom.”
He touched upon what I sense looking at today’s America. Folks are tired. I know I am.
Truth is, the Republican war on “woke” is wearing me out. “Woke” is a term meant to inspire social action and vigilance in a nation rife with hatred. It means, quite literally: stay awake.
Racism is oriented not merely towards dehumanization, discrimination, and violence. It is designed to make us tired. This month should remind us that none of us can afford to be too exhausted to build a better nation.
I saw hints of such exhaustion in Pew’s new survey of more than 5,000 Americans. It found that the 67% overall national support for Black Lives Matter that we saw during June 2020 is now down to barely half.
That particular movement is now 10 years old, and yet less than a third said they understand the goals of Black Lives Matter “extremely” or “very” well. About the same percentage, only 32%, agreed BLM is “highly effective at bringing attention to racism against Black people.”
Perhaps Pew’s poll question may be too specific. By focusing on BLM, it belies the expansive nature of our national introspection following George Floyd’s murder in 2020. That uprising was less about the organization Black Lives Matter than the meaning of those three words, and seeing them realized in policy.
What erupted in response to a murder committed by a cop grew to examine, among other things, racial inequities in medicine made clear by the mounting and disproportionate COVID-19 death toll.
We’ve been subject to incessant disinformation campaigns originating from the political right, from lying about urban crime rates to targeting funding for diversity initiatives. Rather than make a case for their policies to voters who aren’t likely to support them, Republicans have demonstrated that they’ll just try to erase us. They’ve criminalized our history, banned books, and threatened librarians and teachers.
All the while, they had the nerve to lead a negative political campaign against the very idea we should remain watchful of such actions. Rather than trying to end racism, Republican leaders would rather have us believe it isn’t a problem. Yet despite all their efforts, half of respondents still view Black Lives Matter favorably.
Is this the floor for America’s support for Black and brown safety and liberation, or are we at risk of sinking further?
Ron DeSantis may hold the answer to that question.
The governor of Florida is running against the wind. His nascent presidential campaign isn’t going well. He is being nearly doubled up in polling by Donald Trump, currently a criminal defendant in two different courts. But that DeSantis has made it this far with his politics of malevolence speaks ill of our nation’s direction.
DeSantis presents as the more competent version of the former president, but without the veneer of celebrity, all that remains is the cruelty.
Recently, his administration deceived three dozen migrants and flew them to California to make a cheap political point. His partner-in-crime, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, joined DeSantis last year in shipping migrants to both Martha’s Vineyard and the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington.
Abbott just did it again, busing 42 migrants from Texas to Los Angeles on a day-long trip without any food or water.
Recklessly placing people in physical jeopardy is what we’ve come to expect from Republican governance. It is no wonder that three civil-rights organizations recently took the very rare step of issuing advisories for anyone traveling to Florida.
That’s why it’s a time for vigilance. DeSantis and his lot may hate that the term “woke” exists, yet people like them are why it exists. DeSantis and company assert we don’t need that vigilance, likening it instead to a virus. That is not just bigotry. They’re gaslighting the entire American public, and they’re limiting the very potential of the country.
The GOP will keep doing what it does, but what will we voters tolerate? How do we treat candidates who thrive on the kind of cruelty that DeSantis and others continue to engage in?
Why aren’t protesters taking to the streets? Why aren’t Americans more conspicuously furious about what DeSantis has done? Is it because the anger didn’t seem to matter last time? Has the right’s constant, mind-numbing dehumanization somehow made us all less human? Or are we just too tired?
Jamil Smith is an essayist for the Los Angeles Times.