Tragedies of police brutality and ongoing racism in the U.S. highlight the importance of Black History Month this year.
The annual event, since its small start in 1970 at Kent State University, has celebrated Black perseverance and acknowledged the atrocities of slavery. Six years after its inception, it reached national recognition.
Racism in the U.S. has taken different forms over the decades. Different displays of hatred have reverberated across media. Conversations around hate speech have been going on for decades and talks of systematic reform have been encouraged for years.
But laws addressing these issues are hard to pass, according to University of Idaho law professor Aman McLeod.
“The Supreme Court has made it really clear that things associated with hate speech are extremely difficult due to the First Amendment,” McLeod said. “If you single out any kind of opinion, the law gives the highest level of scrutiny — meaning it almost always strikes it down. They’re going to look at that and say, ‘you’re not treating all opinions the same.’”
McLeod said hate speech and hate crimes in recent years appeared to be emboldened by the Trump campaign. Though the platform that racism had built seemed to be larger, it was not anything new or different.
“I remember at the time, thinking, these guys aren’t peddling anything different from what people were pedaling in the ’60s or ’20s,” McLeod said. “This is not old wine in new bottles, this is old wine in old bottles.”
Racism, though it may appear more widespread, is mostly cyclical, according to UI law professor Shaakirah Sanders.
Sanders delivered a speech earlier this year dissecting the separate events of two arrests: the arrest of George Floyd and the arrest of Anthony Brennan III, who assaulted a group of women. In Brennan’s case, the investigation was incredibly thorough.
Though the person was caught on video, local police conducted multiple interviews and reviews before Brennan eventually surrendered himself to the police. Compared to the murder of George Floyd, where there was no video evidence of a committed crime, local police had instantly pulled their weapons. The difference is Brennan was Caucasian, and Floyd was Black.
“There are two systems in the United States for investigating crimes,” Sanders said. “The system that George Floyd exists in and the system that this other individual exists in.”
This year’s Black History Month has potentially brought the conversation to a larger share of people than it ever did before. The murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahman Aubrey and the resulting Black Lives Matter protests expanded coverage of the flawed judicial system.
“I feel as though as a nation that we’ve been at this point many times before,” Sanders said. “The Civil War was supposed to be the wake-up call, yet it was followed by 100 years of Jim Crow. We just had a record turnout for voting that is going to be followed up in many places with more restrictive voter rules, especially in minority communities.
According to the New York Times, “teens are on the front lines of Black Lives Matter protests.” There are leaders of the same nature in the Moscow community.
As a sophomore at UI, Alphonse Crittenden, has been the Black Student Union’s President since October. Touching on the events of the previous year and the widespread coverage of BLM, Crittenden said it’s a challenging time for young Black students.
“There’s something inside of you that says, ‘I don’t want these actions to happen to me,’ and that creates anxiety for future encounters with authorities,” Crittenden said, “There is only so much that can be done with the protests, it’s not just one person that needs to change, it’s an entire organization that needs to be changed.”
The system that is meant to help and protect all people seems to only benefit one specific group, according to Crittenden. These issues, which have been going on for centuries, are only worsened when there has not been any evidence of monumental change.
This change is only achieved by not letting up. It requires a transformation of how people think.
The UI’s steps to address the national situation have been in the right direction, according to Crittenden, but are far from all that is needed to be done.
“It’s not an easy thing when the population of Black people on campus is only 2%,” Crittenden said. “It’s more than just the university making steps, it’s on the community level. Having others who can relate to the same experiences growing up goes a long way.”
Given the past year of events, Black History Month may hold more significance for some Black Americans. It can be a wonderful opportunity to educate those who are seeking answers and expand people’s understanding of their experiences. Especially in Idaho, with a small population of people of color, there is much to be done.
“If more people are paying attention to Black History Month, I think it’s a terrific opportunity to educate people about the Black experience in America,” Aman McLeod said. “Perhaps the best opportunity we’ve had in a really long time.”
Carter Kolpitcke can be reached at [email protected] or @carterkolpitcke on Twitter.