S.P.R.E.A.D. #17 | 20 FEB 2021 | Discussion on Race Relations

Given recent events, SPREAD hosted a discussion on race relations. We watched a video to get the juices flowing, and started to reflect on the prompts in the video, like: “I care about being accepted by White America.” Thankfully, as residents and students in a diverse San Francisco, we aren’t burdened every day by the effects of explicit racism and oppression, but we have seen the shocking assaults, home invasions, and robberies in recent times and through the decades. Our discussion explored what circumstances and motivations allow individuals to believe that such actions are good or acceptable, when they clearly have no place in our society? The perpetrators of such crimes are overrepresented by one ethnicity – why? What historical factors led to our current situation, and can we trace cause-effect relationships to explain how cultures evolved? Reflecting on the initial prompt, for example, can give some insight – what is your experience and its relationship to what’s perceived as ‘White America?’ Now you’re closer to understanding why a person would view ‘White America’ or civil society as something to be embraced, adapted to, or something to wage war against. 

If the underlying circumstances of a community, or its preconceptions don’t change, the culture that encourages violent events will simply continue and we can expect similar behavior in the future. Examples of similar incidents stretch back decades and have a long history in the US – assimilation with ‘White America’ (and whatever is socially acceptable at the time including slavery, sharecropping, segregation, etc) versus the rejection of society and its norms. Each generation’s young people increasingly believe that no one is born inferior to another, and that societal problems are solvable. As members of society, we have to ask ourselves why our fellow citizens do the things they do, whether or not it’s acceptable, and what will encourage or discourage certain things. As teenagers, you probably don’t love all the rules in your life, but probably don’t see violence as acceptable. As teenagers in the Richmond, you may not be exposed to those who hate rules or think they’re better than them, but if they follow that line of thinking they may be the ones committing crimes in your future neighborhood. You will soon be young adults… can you imagine coming across similar stories of violence, etc, in thirty years, shaking your head, and saying, “well, what can you do?” Instead, as many of you have been doing, let’s continue to think about what we can do. Welcome to society, where we’re partly responsible for our peer’s actions.