Communalism and the Pursuit of Democracy: A Reflection on the Eradication of Racialism and Promoting Social Harmony by Chee-Beng Tan

Author:Chee-Beng Tan
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9783031362392
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

The “Black Lives Matter” protests with the slogan “I can’t breathe” provided a vivid image of racial treatment of the Blacks. To be sure the slogan actually originated in 2014 when the unarmed Eric Garner was killed in a chokehold by a New York police officer. Those were his last words. After Eric Garner and even after George Floyd, a few more Black Americans died violently in their encounters with police. However, this is not White people imposing racism on the Blacks, as not all Whites are racists. This is the result of racial prejudice that appears to be prevalent in US law enforcement. There are relatively more criminals among the Blacks from poor neighborhoods, and the larger American society generally has the stereotype that Black Americans are more violent and are potential criminals. This may account for the racial prejudice against them. Of course, there are many other factors that require in-depth investigation, foremost is the persistence of structural racism in the US police force. The many cases of racist treatment of African Americans cannot be explained away by individual prejudices, there is obviously persistent White racism embedded in the police departments. It is so embedded that it is rather difficult to highlight and eradicate, only to reveal itself time and again when there are fatal cases of racist treatment.

While the USA has a long history of racism, not all Blacks’ suffering can be blamed on racism. In the present-day USA, most of the injustices on the Blacks are racial rather than strictly racist. White supremacy grew out of White racism to keep America White, as exemplified by KKK White racist group. While members of White right-wing groups may have members who are racists, the movements are based on an ideology of maintaining White supremacy. These groups see the increase of non-White immigrants, especially Muslims, as a trend toward making America less White. Their media messages which warn Americans that the Muslims may take over America stir up fear of the immigrants. The election of Barack Obama, for sure, alarmed White rightists, who became an important base for Donald Trump.

The divisive politics of Trump encouraged the White rightists to feel free to be openly racists. Trump’s exploitation of their fear of immigrants helped him to gain more supporters and spread such fear, of Muslims in particular. Indeed, Trump behaved like a third-world authoritarian leader who lied and stirred up racial tension to build up his political support. The focus on Muslim immigration served him and the rightists well as this combined ethnicity and religion to stir up the primordial fear of suspicious outsiders, which served to make a section of White Americans suspicious of Muslim Americans, to other them into an undesirable category. As analyzed by many observers and scholars, Trump attacked the mainstream media as producing fake news while it was he and his supporters who kept on doing that. The most vivid example of his attack on American institutions is his attempt to use all means, including

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