Blurred Lines
This piece was selected as a winning entry in the YLD’s 2021 Writing Competition.
COVID-19 pandemic hits the United States. Breonna Taylor. U.S. unemployment jumps to the highest rate since the Great Depression. George Floyd. Black Lives Matter protests against racial injustices worldwide. West Coast wildfires. Ruth Bader Ginsberg dies. Chadwick Boseman dies at 43 due to colon cancer. Trump loses the presidential bid for a second term. Joe Biden is elected president of the United States. Kamala Harris is elected first Black, Indian vice president of the United States. Widespread, unproven allegations of voter fraud begin to question the validity of the election. Over 500,000 Americans die from COVID-19. Tent cities filled with homeless people surround our cities. The U.S. gives struggling Americans $600 in the midst of an economic crisis. Death penalty reinstated for federal crimes for the first time since 2003. One in five prisoners in the U.S. contract COVID-19. Insurrectionists storm the U.S. Capitol. Trump becomes the first U.S. President to be impeached twice. The list goes on . . .
It’s hard to believe that all of the above-listed events happened within a one-year span. It is as if one day we were all living our regular lives and then tragedy struck. Life as we knew it changed. We could no longer do mundane activities that we once took for granted. All of our past achievements and future aspirations became less important as we were grateful just to be alive.
As we sat in our homes under stay-at-home orders, the news and social media became our best friends. This was both good and bad. It was good in that the world was finally still. At one point, Times Square, one of the most visited areas in the world, was vacant. With the stillness, we were finally able to hear and see each other even if we couldn’t do so in person. That’s how one of the largest movements in U.S. history came about.
Black people have been asking for decades – some may say for over 400 years – for equality. For various reasons, those cries for justice largely went unheard and/or unanswered. However, with COVID-19, stay- at-home orders, social media, and advanced technology, the world had no choice but to face and grapple with the injustices that Black people face, particularly as it relates to the criminal justice system and police brutality.
George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, lay on the concrete pleading for his life as a white police officer knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. As Mr. Floyd took his last breath, he had no way of knowing that his death would spark a racial justice movement sending shock waves around the world. Black Lives Matter protests took place in major cities in the United States and in other countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, with over a million people participating. The protesters pleaded for an end to senseless police killings and racial injustices.
At the same time as the protests, however, it was hard not to notice the “All Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter” crowd. These slogans became opposition to the words “Black Lives Matter,” but why? I assume somehow people misinterpreted the Black Lives Matter movement as an assault against other races and against the police. However, the Black Lives Matter movement would love for all lives to matter, but it understands that all lives can’t matter until Black lives begin to matter. The “Blue Lives Matter” movement was difficult to understand because it was as if Black people and the lives of people who choose the police officer profession can’t matter together. As if you must choose between empathy for the disproportionate amount of Black lives lost at the hands of the police or empathy for the police given the everyday dangers of their respectable profession. (Spoiler alert: you can do both.)
As a young, Black female attorney impacted by racial injustices, seeing all of the debates over what seemed to me as fundamental rights and issues, I couldn’t help but wonder: when did we as a people become so polarized? Black v. white, rich v. poor, Democrat v. Republican, progressive v. moderate, Black Lives Matter v. Blue Lives Matter, Media v. “Fake news,” us v. them, Christian v. Muslim, pro-life v. pro-choice, COVID-19 as science v. COVID-19 as hoax, rural v. urban, Americans v. undocumented immigrants, millennials v. baby boomers, truth v. lie, etc.
When did we become numb to tragedy and other people’s struggles? I came up with the idea that we became numb to tragedy, numb to other people’s struggles, and polarized the moment we began to blur the lines between politics, justice, and human decency. Little did we know, blurred lines would become one of the biggest challenges facing the United States and world today. When lines are blurred, they are difficult to interpret and understand, i.e., they lose meaning. Thus when we blur the lines of politics, justice, and human decency, we may treat human decency as if it were politics and politics as if it were justice, which causes confusion, and often, pain.
So what is the difference between politics, justice, and human decency?
Politics refers to the actions or activities associated with the governance of a country or area, especially the debate between parties having power. When someone says that something is “political” they usually mean that the particular idea at hand is likely to be taken differently depending on which group is assessing it, i.e., it is subjective.
Justice means fairness. When something is just it is morally right and fair. The standard for justice should be objective. Just treatment should also extend to any group of people no matter their race, sex, religion, etc. Unlike political statements, with justice, ideally, there should be no difference in opinions.
Human Decency refers to character traits such as honesty, good manners, and respect for other people. In a perfect world, no matter the personal feelings that one has for another person, each person would still be decent towards another as fellow [hu]man.
Justice and human decency are foundational principles in a free society. Being able to choose one’s politics is a privilege of being a part of a functioning democracy. As with most things, a proper foundation must be set before building. The foundation must remain in place in order to continue to enjoy the building, as without the foundation the building will eventually fall. The same principle can be applied today when we see politics trying to exist without the proper foundation of justice and decency. This threatens our building, the United States of America.
But what’s worse is that it’s almost as if we don’t see the warning signs or that we don’t care that we are on the brink of collapse. Some may say that they don’t understand what I mean by blurred lines or my building analogy, so for clarity purposes, I will attempt to show through examples how blurred lines have impacted us and caused so many of society’s problems.
- Politics and human decency are blurred when elected officials lie about the seriousness of a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. in less than a year to help the economy. People’s lives should matter more than money and reelection chances.
- Justice and human decency are blurred when the man acquitted of murdering an unarmed teenager autographs Skittles for his supporters as a testament of his conquest. For those who don’t know, Trayvon Martin carried only Skittles and an Arizona Tea in his hands shortly before taking his last breath. When did the loss of human life stop being sacred? Nowadays, certain deaths are mocked and celebrated.
- Politics and justice are blurred when shortly after the former President of the United States is acquitted for inciting a riot, the senate minority leader admits that the former president did just what the impeachment trial alleged he did. Since when did our politicians decide right and wrong on the basis of party lines? When did it become more important to secure future votes than to secure present justice?
- Justice and human decency are blurred when a woman can make a false police report alleging that she is being threatened by an “African American” [birdwatcher] in the park, and get the charges dismissed in less than a year after completing a diversion counseling program. Where’s the fairness and human decency? Kalief Browder would’ve loved to take a diversionary counseling class. Instead, he sat in Rikers Island for three years without trial as a teenager for allegedly committing a property crime.
- Politics, justice, and human decency are blurred when the Senate refuses to even take up a vote for Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nomination, citing the fact that it’s too close to an election and the people should decide. Then, three years later, the Senate takes up the next president’s Supreme Court nomination even closer to an election while in the middle of a pandemic. Where’s human decency? At the time of Justice Barrett’s confirmation hearing, people were in desperate need of another COVID-19 relief package. Where’s the fairness, because both Presidents were in their last term? Was the “too close to an election” statement just a way to conceal the contempt felt for the nation’s first Black President? If so, prejudice should not be a substitute for politics.
Politics, justice, and human decency should not be blurred. But this is where we are today. There’s no longer an incentive for finding a common ground. Why would you do that? Your side will support you more if you oppose those with differences. Speaking of sides, we’ve even created sides where there should only be one perspective. Matters that involve justice and human decency for a fellow [hu]man wouldn’t have opposing sides in a perfect world – just the right side. There would be no ill feelings from anyone for acknowledging that another human being’s life mattered or for stating that a human should be treated with dignity and not be killed as a punishment for committing property crimes without due process.
It’s hard to face it, but America drank the Kool-Aid. Some activists argue that America has always been this way. That we’ve always had these qualities. If we look at America’s history, that may very well be true. That is not the point this essay attempts to make. The point is that, at one point, Americans at least pretended to be decent, pretended to care about justice, and pretended to put politics aside when more important matters were at stake. Nowadays, there’s no more pretending. The lines between politics, justice, decency, and so much more are blurred. If we don’t fix it, the whole country is at risk of falling apart or even another civil war.
And this is my perspective on the challenges faced by society at large today.