Reflecting on our Repeating Past
“A Portrait of the Sandtown Neighborhood in Baltimore”
It’s hard to think about spending my time on anything other than this present moment in history, on the precipice of change. With another permutation of police violence permeating common consciousness, chaos stirs cities again.
A Maryland neighborhood, Sandtown-Winchester in Baltimore, holds an excellent encapsulation of the effects of this nation’s systemic racism. A town in tatters, this succinct piece uses pictures and local anecdotes to evoke empathy in its readers. A fraction of the pain captured here is unfurled in observation of the dilapidated towns, near futile rebuilding efforts, and the words of the tired brave that only wish to witness less destruction.
The last 400 years of normalized white supremacy has built a country of systems that do not account for the rights promised to all its people. America removed the collective humanities from peoples of color to leave only objects, stereotypes, labels and generalizations to define people’s it has enslaved, discriminated against, systemically oppressed and murdered since its inception.
The institution of the police was created to protect and serve its people, but the system does not consider certain members of their inhabitants people. The justice system has split in two, prosecuting based on color more than crime. The legislative system is disproportionately lenient of white collar crime, and inequitably cruel to the lifestyles of the lower socioeconomic classes. Minorities have been systemically kept to these lower statuses, stripping power, money, and representation to prevent the changes needed to guarantee their humanity and equal rights.
Police are encouraged to profile and fill prisons with as many black people as possible, keeping the free slave labor this country was built on as an institution. The centuries of systemic racism seem to be cracking a dam that will not be shut off once able to flow, the people are gathering together in protest of our circumstances, now maybe more than ever.
As I looked upon the images of the homes and businesses in Sandtown, I could not help but compare to what I saw as I passed through San Francisco following the lynching-in-broad-daylight of George Floyd. Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. said that “a riot is the language of the unheard,” and how obviously unheard these people are, as history continues to repeat itself unrestricted by change. The way communities filled with these people is abhorrent, their subsequent “harassing” police presence more so. Governing institutions have no desire to seek repair or reparations for those wronged, as their voting base is removed from these areas, and their power will not be lost if another community is allowed to fall into tragic disarray.
The simplicity of the multimedia article spoke volumes more to me, the most important part encapsulating how the people felt, and seeing how they were living, even in its brevity, is moving and sufficient. We do not need to see suffering, the words and faces of these community members is to be believed, their surroundings reflecting the outcome of our condition.
If nothing is to be done, I can imagine increasing portions of this country looking like this neighborhood, as the ruling class becomes increasingly powerful, repressive, and the voices of persecuted are continued to be silenced in the face of oppression. We cannot allow it to be.
