George Zimmerman
George Zimmerman is a person of color. Although he’s been identified in the media as a white Hispanic, he is not what most Americans would recognize as white, given his obvious part-indigenous ancestry. To be sure, these distinctions are arbitrary and societally constructed. I'd be happier in a world where they had no social meaning, but we're talking about the American society we have, not the one we wish we did.
Zimmerman's mother is Peruvian and his father is white (of German descent). Both mother and son listed themselves as Hispanic on their voter registrations. Zimmerman's ethnic identity matters because his actions on the night of Feb. 26, 2012, in particular his racial profiling of Trayvon Martin, remind of us something we already knew. Prejudice toward and fear of young black men—and racial prejudice aimed at black people in general—extends throughout our society, across lines of race and ethnicity.
In a recent commentary called "Zimmerman's Racial Realities, Beyond Black and White," a dark-skinned Sikh American described being told: "You can marry whoever you want when you grow up as long as she is not black." The fact that these attitudes extend beyond whites makes it clear just how destructive this racism is.
Now let's be clear about one thing. This post is not in any way, shape, or form, about letting white people, white racism, or the institutional racism of our society—one in which white Americans continue to exercise a disproportionate amount of power—off the hook. Those are by far the most important elements of racism in America, a corrosive force that has been part of our country from the very start and which, despite real progress won by the sweat, tears and blood of many who have fought for equality, still enacts great harm on African Americans and other groups today. We know from where George Zimmerman learned his prejudices and his fears about people who look like Trayvon, and it wasn't from Peru.
If we look back at our history, our country has long seen racial, religious, and ethnic divisions, and has discriminated against various groups. In the case of American Indians, the United States even conquered and dispossessed them of their land and sought to wipe out their culture(s). But the oppression of African Americans occupies a unique position both because of their consistently high numbers (never less than 10 percent of the population since our founding) and their enmeshment into our society, economy, and—because of slavery and the long battle for Civil Rights—our political debates.
Read more about these group divisions below the fold.
As for these various group divisions, the boundaries have changed over time—150 years ago Italians, Jews, and East Europeans were not universally considered white. They all sought that acceptance and, by the mid-twentieth century, they had won it, had become seen as white. Mexican Americans were considered white according to the U.S. census from 1850 through 1920, and in the 1940 and 1950 census were again considered white unless they were "definitely of Indian or other nonwhite race." Mexican Americans, along with Middle Eastern Arabs and South Asian Indians, sought status as whites because of the legal advantages that accompanied it in our society. But black Americans could not claim to be white, not collectively at least. While some light-skinned blacks sought to pass, there was no possibility of being legally or even socially (until recently) recognized as being both black and white. The one-drop rule reigned supreme. As Langston Hughes explained it:
There are lots of different kinds of blood in our family. But here in the United States, the word 'Negro' is used to mean anyone who has any Negro blood at all in his veins.
Today, no non-white group seeks collective status as whites. Also, no longer are more than 90 percent of Americans either black or white (non-Hispanic), something that was true as recently as the
1980 census. In the
2010 census, just over 75 percent of Americans were either black or white (non-Hispanic). George Zimmerman is a member of that fast growing quartile of the population, and when push came to shove, when lives were at stake, he saw a young black man as one of "them" and acted on it.
Group identity formation is often defined more by who the members are not than by any commonalities they may share, a phenomenon known as negative integration. Zimmerman's actions toward Trayvon Martin symbolize the fact that when it comes to the prejudices that have the most impact on our society, too many of us divide Americans into two categories: black, and everyone else.
We're a country of tremendous contradictions when it comes to how we treat our black fellow citizens. We'll cast a majority of our votes (twice) for a black man as president, but many still see a young black man as a probable criminal based on little more than skin color. That's a prejudice we're going to have to keep working to overcome.
PS—This has been a tough summer for racial justice and equality. No question about it. People are hurt and angry. Anyone who's been reading this site since the Zimmerman verdict was announced knows that. Given that, and given the thrust of my post above, I thought it useful to close with something that might offer a bit of hope.
One of the broadest measures of how well people are doing in a given society is life expectancy. New data show that the gap in life expectancy between white and black Americans has been reduced to four years as of 2010, with preliminary data on 2011 showing the gap down to 3.7 years. This represents the smallest gap since we began collecting this information in the 1930s.
Black life expectancy in 2010 stood at 75 years, up from 64 in 1970, and up from 48 in 1930. Life expectancy for whites went up as well, from 60 in 1930 to 72 in 1970 to 79 today. The gap that once stood at 12 years before the New Deal was implemented has shrunk by about 70 percent.
I know I'm one of those strange people who responds more emotionally to nameless, faceless numbers than individual stories. That's why this kind of measurable, society-wide progress gives me the hope I need to keep going, to feel like we can win our fight for equality, even after the injustices suffered in the cases of young men like Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin. I'll never tell anyone not to feel furious, or hopeless, or anything else for that matter. But these numbers made me feel more hopeful, so I wanted to share them with you.