On a chilly February evening, Mary Jane Pepper Lawson was strolling exterior an condo constructing on Union Avenue on Seattle’s First Hill. In response to charging paperwork from the King County Prosecutor’s workplace, Lawson heard a person hurling the N-word at her. Lawson described him leaping over a railing and operating towards her. Earlier than she may react, she advised first responders, the person hit her, knocking her to the bottom. Whereas she was down, she stated, he continued to punch and kick her earlier than retreating into his condo. Lawson reported the incident to regulation enforcement, and responding officers documented seen accidents in keeping with an assault.
The assailant has since been charged with a hate crime in reference to this assault. Prosecutors, citing the severity of the assault and the risk he poses to public security, have requested bail be set at $20,000.
The implications of this assault prolong far past one man’s violent actions. It’s a grim reminder that regardless of its liberal self-image, that violence just isn’t an anomaly. It’s the logical consequence of a system that continues to devalue Black and Indigenous lives in methods each specific and insidious.
For years now, research and studies from authorities companies have acknowledged the proliferating risk posed by white supremacist extremists. Nationwide, from high-profile mass shootings like Charleston and Buffalo to on a regular basis acts of harassment, the examples are quite a few. But, this hazard has not been met with the identical urgency in political and media discourse as overseas terrorism or the struggle on medicine. The unending failure to meaningfully deal with this racialized violence has not solely allowed it to unfold however has additionally bolstered the very methods of oppression that maintain it.
In 2012, the Seattle Police Division was positioned underneath federal monitoring after a Division of Justice investigation—sparked by the killing of First Nations woodcarver John T. Williams—revealed a sample of extreme power and biased policing. 4 years later, in 2016, Seattle was recognized as one of many cities with the worst Black-white schooling achievement hole within the nation. In the meantime, since 2017, the Seattle metro space has constantly ranked as having the third-worst homelessness disaster within the nation, a disaster that disproportionately impacts Black, Indigenous, and different individuals of shade.
And regardless of the parable we proceed to inform ourselves about this metropolis, the racism right here just isn’t merely systemic, however overt.
Simply earlier than the brand new yr, Sonya, whose title has been modified to guard her privateness, had been given the accountability in her Seattle condo complicated of getting vehicles towed for unauthorized parking. When a neighbor complained a couple of resident’s truck blocking an area, Sonya organized for the car to be towed. The truck’s proprietor was a repeat offender, so whereas Sonya anticipated some pushback, she didn’t count on what occurred subsequent.
The truck’s proprietor erupted in rage, directing his anger at each Sonya and the Black on-site supervisor. The subsequent morning, she found certainly one of her tires had been slashed, and a “Trump 2024: Take America Again” sticker had been positioned on her automobile’s rear windshield. Now almost 70 and residing alone, the aged music trainer is gripped by concern. “I’m speaking as a result of one thing must be completed,” she stated tearfully. Her concern, she stated, is compounded by a deep sense of accountability to create a safer world for her college students.
Upon reporting the incident to the police, she made it clear that she believed she was focused due to her race, and that the vandalism meant to intimidate her. The language on the sticker evokes a way of unease for many who white nationalists contemplate “threats” to their imaginative and prescient of an America, rooted in racial dominance. But reporting the incident introduced little reduction. “I’m sleeping odd hours—I’m on edge,” Sonya stated. She now feels an unfamiliar vulnerability in a metropolis she’s known as dwelling her total life.
Sonya’s story isn’t an remoted incident. Since 2012, the earliest yr of reported bias and hate crime knowledge on the SPD dashboard, anti-Black hate crimes have exceeded all different forms of racially biased incidents. This comes whilst Black residents make up a dwindling portion of the inhabitants. It’s possible the true numbers are even increased; Black communities have traditionally been much less prone to belief the police, not to mention name them for assist.
Seattle’s police division—tasked with addressing these crimes—is itself mired in a well-documented historical past of racial bias. A 2021 report discovered Black individuals in Seattle are seven instances extra possible than white individuals to expertise police use of power and 5 instances extra prone to be stopped and questioned. In distinction, throughout the same interval in neighboring Portland, Black individuals had been 1.45 instances extra possible than white individuals to expertise police use of power, in response to 2019 knowledge. For youngsters and younger adults, the disparities are even higher. Black youth make up 7% of town’s inhabitants however account for almost all of instances involving police use of power in opposition to minors.
Whereas the bigotry we’re witnessing has on no account began with Trump, he has turn into a logo of energy for the white nationalist motion, with incidents of overt racism typically co-occurring together with his rise to prominence. His inauguration that includes Elon Musk twice doing a Nazi salute—a gesture celebrated by far-right extremists and but to be straight denied by Musk—serves to stir up this alarming pattern.
It’s not possible to pinpoint a single second that triggered this most up-to-date wave of undisguised intolerance. The USA is, in spite of everything, a white supremacist nation, constructed on genocide and chattel slavery. Racism has all the time been woven into its cloth. Nevertheless, if we’re to look at the roots of this present wave, Barack Obama’s presidency instantly involves thoughts. Whereas conservatives farcically blame Obama for creating racial stress, his presidency, coupled with mass demonstrations in protection of Black lives, did create a palpable backlash. Between the start and finish of his first time period, the variety of hate teams within the US rose by 755%, and Black People had been the first targets of racial hatred. Trump’s presidency, removed from being the beginning, has served to amplify attitudes reflecting clear reversal of social progress, and normalized expressions of wishes to “Take America Again.”
Sonya’s story is not only about one act of violence; it’s a couple of nation that has lengthy chosen to look away. Regardless of the dearth of decision in her case, she is aware of what has sustained her—the group that has helped her deal with the concern and anxiousness which have adopted the incident. As a result of historical past tells us that no progress is made with out collective will. It’s in how we defend probably the most susceptible amongst us, how we refuse to simply accept bigotry as the price of doing nothing, how we maintain ourselves accountable—not simply in moments of disaster, however within the quiet, on a regular basis selections that form the world we stay in.
Seattle and Washington state might have resisted Trump’s rightward pull, however resistance just isn’t absolution. We’re under no circumstances separate from the forces that deepen inequality—we see them in the best way we police, in the best way we criminalize poverty, in the best way we permit white nationalist rhetoric to fester unchecked. The query just isn’t whether or not hate exists right here, however whether or not we’ll proceed to tolerate it.
Marcus Harrison Inexperienced contributed reporting to this text.
Gennette Cordova is a author, organizer, and social impression supervisor. She contributes to publications like Teen Vogue and Revolt TV and runs a corporation, Lorraine Home, which seeks to construct and uplift radical communities by way of artwork and activism.
