American democracy was established with the intention of putting political rights into the hands of the people. However, Cathy Cohen, as well as many other Black leaders that we have discussed in class, have proven the fact that American democracy is not equal to all of its citizens. Cohen is a well known author and speaker, who has been studying how young people engage in politics for about fifteen years. She focuses mainly on Millennials, which are an important group because they are now the largest generation in America. Millennials show where society is now and where it is going. Cohen made it very clear that in all her studies she was talking specifically about young adults, or young Black adults. In this program, Cohen shared the importance of revolution, aligning with the idea of agitation as opposed to accommodation. In her research, Cohen posed a simple statement for her participants to respond to, the statement was: generally I feel like a full and equal citizen in this country. She received mixed answers on this, which not surprisingly correlated to the participants’ race, as many young Black adults feel as though they are viewed as secondary citizens. Due to the way African Americans have historically been treated and continue to be treated, they have an undeniable distrust with American democracy, so in order to feel like a full and equal human, democracy as a whole needs to be reconstructed.
Comprehending the history of African Americans is vital to understanding why young Black adults feel this way. The feeling of being seen as a secondary human began with slavery and how white Americans treated those who were enslaved. They were harshly and inhumanely treated through practices like whippings, beatings, and lynchings. This violence continued even when slavery was abolished through groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), whose goal was to “…intimidat[e]…blacks through terror, violence, and even murder” (White et al. 344). By the 1860’s, violent multi-racial attacks in Western fronts were normalized and became common anti-black practice. Instead of helping, the Supreme Court overturned the rights granted to African Americans by the Fourteenth Amendment through Slaughterhouse and Civil Rights cases. These cases allowed individuals and private groups such as hotels, restaurants, and other businesses, to discriminate against Black people. The fact that the government failed to take action against the killing and terrorizing of Black people proves, like Cohen said in her talk, that racial capitalism endorses repeated attacks on Black people. This history of violence towards African Americans extends into how Black people are treated in modern day America.
This violence and discrimmination towards Black people is shown today through police brutality and the incarceration systems. Certain aspects of the state, like policing and industrial policing, have grown. These aspects allow white people to continue to undermine Black civil rights by disproportionately killing and incarcerating Black people. Incarceration blatantly takes away the rights of Black people, as people in jail do not have the right to vote. The violence that Black people face, is why, according to Cohen’s study, young Black people believe police treat Black people worse than they treat white people. On top of this, in a survey that Cohen created, 86% of young Black respondents replied that police brutality was among the three biggest issues in America, whereas only 48% of white young adults think this. Police brutality has taken the lives of innocent victims such as George Flloyd, Breanna Taylor, and many more, however American voters do not seem inclined to change this. This is why young Black adults who think they are seen as secondary citizens in America also think that the only way to change racial inequalities in America is through revolution.
Along with being violently killed, black people are also disproportionately affected by illnesses in America due to many factors that stem from systematic racism. A recent example of this, as Cohen shares, is COVID-19. Black communities have been impacted disproportionally by this illness than white areas. Another example of this disproportionate killing, which has been occurring even before COVID, is asthma. A recent study done by the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health showed that, “In 2019, non-Hispanic black children had a death rate [due to asthma] eight times that of non-Hispanic white children” (OMH). Due to de facto racism like redlining, which increases housing segregation, poorer Black families are forced to live in areas with high pollution due to factories and landfills. These high levels of pollution result in high levels of asthma among young kids. This alarmingly high difference in death rates clearly shows how disproportionately impacted Black communities are even in regard to health care.
The violence and disproportionate killings that Black people face is why young Black Americans feel a sense of alienated vulnerability in America. Alienated vulnerability, according to Cohen, is a feeling of harm and anger, with no sense that institutions, systems, or agents will protect you. This idea has been supported countless times, such as when the government turns a blind eye to the killing of Black individuals. Cohen shared that young Black people who feel as though they are secondary citizens are also likely to believe that policing is not necessary for safe communities. This shows that this group seems to have a general distrust in the system where policing comes from, which is the democratic system.
This affects how young Black people view politics. Those who don’t feel like a full and equal person in America are less likely to have supported Trump, but they are also less likely to support Biden. This shows that this indifference has gone past deciding which party they are for, and has turned to young Black Americans rejecting democratic parties at a national level. Instead of supporting politics, young Black people who feel like secondary citizens are more likely to support revolutions or protests. This causes them to challenge and rethink how the American democracy works as a whole.
Cohen shares that according to young Black Americans, change will not come from making minor tweeks to the political system, but it will come from uprooting the system that America was built on as a whole. There has to be a systematic change in order for young Black Americans to feel like full and equal citizens in this country. Young Black Americans see protests as politics and demand transformational disruption through protests so that Americans can look and see that democracy and the government as a whole will never be able to give Black people racial equality. This sort of revolutionary change aligns with agitation, which is an approach that W.E.B. Du Bois spoke and acted for. He helped launch the Niagara movement, which was “a militant protest organization of black intellectuals and professionals that…tried to revitalize a national black civil right agenda” (398). This rejects the idea of accommodating with white society, and instead promotes fighting for a society with Black equality.
Understanding African American history is vital to understanding Cohen’s research, because it explains why revolution and protests are the only ways to truly allow young Black Americans to feel like full and equal citizens. Seeing the intersection of past historical Black leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois and young Black Americans’ need for a revolution shows that even though progress has been made towards equality, equality will not fully be reached until accommodation as a whole is fully rejected. In general, I agree with Cathy Cohen’s argument. There is no way of denying systematic oppression and racism in America, and due to its systematic nature, the only way to change it is to create a new system. Although this idea seems challenging and scary, if Americans as a whole were able and willing to see the oppression that people of color face, they would be able to realize how democracy reinforces the continuous undermining of Black rights.
Bibliography
“Office of Minority Health.” Asthma and African Americans – The Office of Minority Health, https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=4&lvlid=15.
White, Deborah G., et al. Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans, with Documents. Bedford/St. Martins, 2021.
