From football players in Miami to university faculty and students across the country, Black people are still under physical and psychological attack in America. This isn’t new. Do you remember when America’s racial contradictions and assaults on Black citizens became too obvious to ignore in 2020? White university, corporate and political leaders said, “We didn’t know things were this bad. We need to do better. We must do better. We will do better.”
They lied to you. They’re not doing better. In fact, this latest iteration of white American backlash is actually making things worse.
Unsurprisingly, their enemies are trying to distract and confuse suffering Black people by saying they’re being “fair to all” and committed to meritocracy. More lies. Toni Morrison warned about such distractions when she wrote, “The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being.” She concludes that when Black people make even minor progress, “there will always be one more thing” to distract and push them backwards.
It is no wonder they’re now banning Morrison’s books .
The distractions from the real issue of anti-Black racism
Being “woke” is one more thing. CRT is one more thing. DEI is one more thing. All are distractions from the real issue of enduring anti-Black racism. Currently, the anti-Black racists are winning and they’re getting help. The Supreme Court is helping them. Companies that said they had to do better in 2020 are helping them. A number of college and university boards of trustees and presidents are helping them. One need look no further than an infuriating column written by University of Louisville Board of Trustees chair Diane Medley for an example.
Thankfully, people are now paying more attention to where places like U of L stand on diversity and anti-Black racism as schools like Kentucky and Northern Kentucky march into the past by dismantling their diversity units and offer lame excuses why. Others, like Bellarmine University, prove they are enemies of Black people and their children by callously saying nothing at all. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our (so-called) friends.” They all will end up on the wrong side of history.
Letter to the Editor: U of L's DEI department change embarrasses Black people who call Louisville home
U of L and the ghosting of Black people
As for U of L, the unconvincing justification of the school abandoning its longstanding diversity mission by changing the name of its diversity office to the “Office of Institutional Equity” was limited, deceptive, and ahistorical. She does not mention or does not know that two young Black professors , who had yet to earn tenure, started a campus movement to address troubling and endured racial problems at U of L in 1999.
Among the professors’ demands was the creation of the diversity office and they were the principal writers of its leader’s job description. Make no mistake, the 1999 movement was one centered on fighting anti-Blackness. Black people started it. Black faculty and students led it. How do I know all of this? Because I was one of the two professors who led it.
More from Ricky Jones: UK and Brown-Forman wave the white flag in Kentucky’s ongoing war on Black people
Now, 25 years later, Medley obscures history and the reality of the Black human condition at U of L with a piece full of misleading statistical claims even a novice researcher could see through. She justifies U of L’s abandonment of Black people and the tainting of the diversity office for which we fought with a missive chock full of “all lives matter” Orwellian double-speak. She repeats “all means all” pablum and never once mentions Black people, who have been at the vanguard of the justice movement from which all have benefitted at U of L. We are still under assault, but U of L has, in effect, ghosted us. It’s disrespectful and shameful. And they would have us believe they have our best interests at heart. They must think us cowards or fools.
Neither Ms. Medley nor the other current white powerbrokers at U of L ever address the nasty racial marginalization and disempowerment Black people have faced at the school since it integrated in 1950. They never ask or speak about the 1999 fight to create the diversity office. Power gives them the ability to ignore and dismiss Black people in that way. Who knows if Ms. Medley realizes what she wrote is a canard or actually believes it all. Neither option is good.
Agree or disagree? Submit your letter to the editor here.
Doing right is now illegal in America
Like others, Medley will probably justify tossing Black people to the dogs, mutilating programs designed to aid Black students and faculty and fall back on the tired excuse, “Those things are illegal now.” She should be reminded there was a time slavery, Jim Crow segregation and countless other ills were legal in this country. Our dear brother Martin Luther King, Jr. also instructed, “Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.” Of course, talk like that is too woke. King was too into critical race theory. He concentrated too much on diversity, equity and inclusion for Black folk. So, let’s forget him.
At the end of the day, what Medley wrote doesn’t speak to progress; it’s propaganda. As Toni Morrison would say, it’s just “one more thing.” Don’t sleep, they lied in 2020. They’re still lying, distracting and think Black folk are too scared or stupid to do anything about it. And that’s the truth.
Dr. Ricky L. Jones is the Baldwin-King Scholar-in-Residence at the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute and Professor of Pan-African Studies, University of Louisville. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Threads, and X. Read his Substack columns at https://rickyljones.substack.com .
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: They lied to you in 2020. Now U of L and others are trying to distract you.
Local News
