Baltimore has captured the country’s attention for more than two weeks now.
Yet another unarmed Black man—Freddie Gray in this instance—had an encounter with law enforcement. He died April 19 a week after he sustained a fatal spinal injury while he was in police custody. People protested peacefully for more than a week, but the national media did not descend upon our charming little city until a Monday night riot broke out.
Pundits engaged in discussions—some of them heated—as to whether Freddie Gray was dead because of the color of his skin. Was racism a factor in the death of Freddie Gray at the hands of police?
On May 1, State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby filed charges against the six police officers involved in Gray’s April 12 arrest. Some people argue that race is not an issue because three of the officers charged are black and three are white.
What people fail to understand is that racism has two distinct paths with two distinct destinations: privilege and assignation of human worth travel along one path toward a dominant group – a preferred group; and dehumanization and deprivation travel along a different path to an oppressed group – a spurned group. This dynamic gives rise to self-assurance (some say arrogance) within the dominant group and self-hate within the oppressed group.
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Their lives seemingly matter more because it has never, to some, stopped being the dominant race. In order to keep someone in his or her place some deem it necessary to treat those of color in a dehumamnized way.
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