Editorial
August-September 2000

Racism continues to define U.S. society

American "civilization" was recently confronted with a graphic image many had hoped was confined to a bygone era-a time depicted in the ongoing exhibit of photographs of the lynching of Blacks at the New York Historical Society titled "Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America" or in the lyrics of Abel Meeropol's song "Strange Fruit," made famous by Billy Holiday's performances of it.

That not-so-long-ago time has revisited us in a horrifying way in the form of the tragic death of Raynard Johnson, 17, who was found hanging from a tree in the front yard of his family's home in the southern Mississippi town of Kokomo on the night of June 16. Raynard's body was discovered by his father, who did not recognize the belt fastened around his son's neck. The Johnson family members immediately feared that a lynching had claimed the life of their son and brother.

The results of the investigation by local law enforcement officials were both hasty and unwelcome. They concluded that no foul play was involved and that Raynard-an honors student with everything to live for-had taken his own life.

Raynard's family members and the 1,500 who joined them in a march that took place in Kokomo on July 8 to show their solidarity-including Mamie Till Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, a Black Chicago youth viciously murdered during a 1955 visit to Mississippi-suspected that a cover-up was being perpetrated. They believe that racist objections to Raynard's friendship with two young white women neighbors were behind his death. "We reject the suicide theory," was their rallying cry.

While Jesse Jackson has marshaled his organization, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, to offer a reward for information in the case and has steered the Johnson family toward placing expectation in Attorney General Janet Reno for intervention, the South-and the country as a whole-still needs to undergo as profound a change on the question of racism as the one which gathered steam after the time of Emmett Till's murder to emerge as the Civil Rights Movement.

Any number of things can be pointed to as evidence of this necessity:

* Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chairwoman Ida L. Castro reported to the recent convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that 20 racial harassment lawsuits involving nooses in the workplace are either pending or have been recently settled. She also noted that charges of racial harassment filed with the commission have increased nearly fivefold from the decade of the 1980s, to represent 6% of all charges filed.

* Questions linger over a series of 46 suspicious deaths which took place in jails in Mississippi during the years 1987-1993, 24 of which involved Black inmates. All of the deaths were ruled suicides by hanging.

* Violence by police officers persists as an increasingly prevalent reality of life in the Black community.

* The bloated institution which has come to be called the prison industrial complex continues to warehouse disproportionately large numbers of Black men and women. Living conditions inside these prisons are becoming increasingly harsh, with access to recreational and educational facilities diminishing.

* The death penalty remains the ultimate representation of American racism. Numerous studies have shown that the criterion of race-specifically the race of the victim-plays an enormous role in the imposition of the death penalty. Capital punishment has become, in the words of recently-executed Shaka Sankofa, "legal lynching in America."

These retrogressive features of U.S. society define the scope of its existence. The ruling class of this country has realized that it cannot shape the world outside its borders entirely to its liking, but it is intent on ensuring that its will is unchallenged at home. Racism, the prison system and the death penalty are integral to this effort. Even a defeat for Texas governor George W. Bush in November may not be enough to prevent the conditions of mass incarceration and assembly line-style executions which prevail in his home state from setting the norm for the entire country.

The recent mass protests against the official adoption of Southern state governments of the Confederate flag as a symbol of resistance to equality for Black citizens and the local labor organizing efforts in Mississippi, chronicled in the pages of NEWS & LETTERS, NEWS & LETTERS have the defeat of the still-prevailing "plantation mentality" as an aim. Alongside these, the 1,500-strong anti-lynching march in Kokomo may represent a development towards a much-needed movement for a South-and an entire country-"without sanctuary" for the forces of racism, in its state and "private sector" forms.