Racism Has No Place…Except Here, Over There, and Everywhere

“They say that home is where the heart it. I guess I haven’t found my home.”

These are the opening words to Ingrid Michaelson’s song, ‘Are We There Yet’. It’s not a song about racism but there it was, playing in the background while I was reading responses to the racist tweets directed towards Black players on England’s soccer team.

Responses that were reminding anyone who cared to remember that racism has no place here. Assume for the purpose of this article that ‘here’ was anywhere and everywhere that the author of the tweet called home.

Home is where the heart is, and so we say.

Racism runs rampant, regardless of where we call home.

Rampant racism in our homes doesn’t jive with our ideal picture of a great society. Of our society. Of our home.

Except, racism is here, there, and everywhere — even in places that we call home.

And I get it, when we say that racism has no place here, what we are really saying is that it doesn’t belong. That the vile acts put upon people of color go against the values etched in our doctrine. Except, shooting and that word that starts with that letter aren’t the only vile acts occurring. So is redlining. Ditto for racial profiling and systemic exclusion. What is more, they are happening because of everyday people who tweet away and put up yard signs.

In the neighborhood I just moved from, I saw “Hate Has No Home Here” signs in hundreds of yards. They were put up within days of the 2020 murder of George Floyd. In that very neighborhood, I was asked to help facilitate a community dialogue after ‘concerned’ residents began voicing their displeasure with the ‘neighborhood being turned into a Black Lives Matter convention’. As I stepped into the proverbial octagon to facilitate, I realized two very specific truths.

1. The ‘concerned’ residents were afraid of their property values going down if, for instance, “prospective buyers were turned off by the political ideologies that began to overtake the community”.
2. The residents whose yards were flushed with “Hate Has No Home Here” signs were just as concerned but they were “besides themselves” over what happened to George Floyd.

All to say, these neighbors were just as comfortable putting up yard signs as others are in tweeting proclamations that reflect a supposed…