The Rippling Effects Of Racism
The Sociology of Social Flow and Intergenerational Trauma
I am not a fan of trends. I find them to be vapid and tedious — most of them at least. I liked the mannequin challenge where people stood perfectly still as Rae Sremmurd echoed in a tranquil area. But I rarely got caught up in the hype of other trends, e.g., clothing trends or even food trends. (Side note: Sparkling water is gross. And alcohol is gross, so what makes people think that mixing sparkling water and alcohol would be even better. Furthermore, I’m super salty that ripped jeans are a trend now because back in the day, people would make fun of you for having ripped clothes). Tangent aside, as a geeky sociologist — in training — I get so much nerdy bliss from connecting things like viral trends to sociological theory. That is pretty much what sociology is about anyway, observing the patterns of our societies and connecting them to broader concepts. This is why I find the current Black Lives Matter protests intriguing because America created a habit of police brutality. It contributes to the intergenerational trauma Black communities feel every time Black people are murdered or abused by the police.
For context, I want to quickly highlight the work of Emile Durkheim, aka an OG of sociology. Durkheim worked on establishing sociology as an academic discipline. He thought that to be a respected scientific discipline, sociology needed to objectively study social phenomena as things. Social facts are external to the person, and they exert a pressure on a person to act a certain way, feel a certain way, or think a certain way.[1] Basically, social facts are things that influence people to behave in a certain way. I know that sociological mumbo jumbo can be very dense, so I like to think of it in a more relatable way.
Think of social facts in the sense of the wave at a baseball game. When the wave happens, it sweeps across the crowd and compels people to do the wave. The wave flows through the group and forces them to behave in a specific manner that they might not behave normally. However, because it is a social norm, at baseball games and other sporting events, to do the wave, people show solidarity by participating in this unusual and oddly satisfying behavior. This qualifies as a social fact because the wave is external to the person, and the normative practice of the wave exerts pressure on everyone to do the wave.
We can see how this type of social flow is spreading across the United States, and even in other countries, to protest police brutality.
Now for a little historical context, let’s go back in the day when it was perfectly legal and widely accepted to own slaves. More specifically, I want to examine Nat Turner’s Revolt of 1831. I am not particularly interested in how this rebellion started (even though it should be obvious — fuck slavery and fuck racism), but I am interested in the legacy of this rebellion. The government brought in the military to end the uprising, and White racists wanted to make sure that another revolution did not threaten their property and their business. (Just so you are tracking, they were in the slave business, and their property was enslaved people and plantations they were forced to work on).
After the revolts, a massive propaganda campaign spread across parts of the United States, urging White racists to be on the lookout for slaves roaming around to destroy property and harm innocent White people.[2][3][4] This led to White militias roaming around and indiscriminately and brutally murdering Black people.[2][4] This also contributed to the slave patrols that took place in the South, and after the Civil War, the slave patrols transformed into police departments.[4][5][6][7] The social flow of information contributed to how policing was conducted in the United States on top of the intergenerational trauma that is felt by Black communities.
If you are interested in learning more about the Nat Turner Revolt, I recommend watching this video:
Since I am from Detroit, I think it is fitting to bring up the example of the Detroit Rebellion of 1967. The history of segregation and antagonistic policing in Detroit came to a head on July 23, 1967. An undercover cop went into the United Community League for Civic Action, a blind pig, to buy beer, and that led to the arrest of 85 patrons.[8][9][10] People started to gather around the arrest site once it got hostile, and as they say, the rest is history. If you want to read more about the Detroit Rebellion of 1967 and watch a short video about it, I recommend reading A Letter to All Capitalist: Stop Asking for Our Help.
This type of racist domination and police brutality lingers in the hearts and minds of Black people. It shows up in very insidious ways and, has throughout history, leads to uprisings against the racist police. Police brutality contributes to the social flow of riots in Black communities because of the sheer amount of repression, oppression, and brutality Black communities face. Oddly, people don’t acknowledge the history of policing because if they did, they would realize that Black people have been protesting police oppression and brutality for years. In an episode of Jon Oliver’s show Last Week Tonight, he shows an example of why protesting brutality continues to happen, and it will continue to happen until it is adequately addressed.
Black people are tired of having the same stale-ass conversations about police brutality. Black people are tired of being targeted by racists and an institution that thrives on racist policing tactics. This trauma that Black people feel is not novel, contrary to popular narratives. This trauma has a history that must be addressed because it has been neglected over and over again. I am tired of getting told to just vote, and all my problems will go away. We need more than just voting to fix these wounds. We need comprehensive surgery, and if we don’t get it, the scars will reopen.
We need to see police brutality similar to the way we see the wave. Police brutality leads to a wave of uprisings. If we want to end these uprisings — and the oppression of Black people, then we need to end police brutality and the systems that perpetuate the intergenerational trauma felt by Black people. This is why we need to abolish the police because their roots are dated, disgusting, and deathly. If that scares your whiteness, then at the very least, we should defund them. By defunded the police, we would see that if we reallocate funds to help build up communities instead of repressing them, there will be no need for the police as we know them today.
Below is a video of one of my favorite people, Dr. Angela Davis, who explains this perfectly:
References
[1] Calhoun, C., Gerteis, J., Moody, J., Pfaff, S., and Virk, I. (2007) “Classical Sociological Theory.” (2nd ed.). The Rules of the Sociological Method [1895] (2nd ed., pp.139–157). Blackwell Publishing.
[2] Breen, P. H. (2019). Nat Turner’s Revolt (1831). Retrieved from Encyclopedia Virginia: Virginia humanities. https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Revolt_Nat_Turner_s_1831
[3] Abzug, R. H. (1970). The influence of Garrisonian abolitionists fear of slave violence on the antislavery argument. The Journal of Negro History, (55)1, 15–26.
[4] Revolution and Ideology. (2020, June 5). Nat Turner’s slave revolt. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUMeHhi4Vdg
[5] Revolution and Ideology. (2019, June 13). The invention of whiteness and racism in the United States- Myth is America #003. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRw7M8OACYk
[6] Archbold, C. A. (2012). Policing: A text/reader. SAGE Publications.
[7] Kappelar, V. E. (2014, January 7). A brief history of slavery and the origins of American policing. Eastern Kentucky University: Police studies online. https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/brief-history-slavery-and-origins-american-policing
[8] McGraw, B. (n.d.) 1967 Detroit riot hour-by-hour time line. Detroit Free Press. https://www.freep.com/pages/interactives/1967-detroit-riot/.
[9] Boissoneault, L. (2017, July 26). Understanding Detroit’s 1967 upheval 50 years later. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/understanding-detroits-1967-upheaval-50-years-later-180964212/
[10] Wang, T. (2008, July 3) Detroit Race Riot (1967). Black Past. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/detroit-race-riot-1967/
