Seeing history's sharp edges

A reflection on the Supreme Court's decision against affirmative action at UNC.

“To demand that colleges ignore race in today’s admissions practices — and thus disregard the fact that racial disparities may have mattered for where some applicants find themselves today — is not only an affront to the dignity of those students for whom race matters. It also condemns our society to never escape the past that explains how and why race matters to the very concept of who ‘merits’ admission.” - Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Dissenting opinion in STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC., v. UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, ET AL.

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I took this photo on campus at UNC, where I graduated in 2018. I was delighted and shocked to find the world was sharp with color and texture when I got my first pair of glasses at the ripe age of 22. Frankly, it was overwhelming and disorienting. At first, it kind of made me nauseous. But then I came to love the world's vibrancy, now that I could clearly see it.

I'm thinking about this photo today. It is the day after the Supreme Court ruled against my alma mater in opposition to its holistic admissions process which includes, but does not essentialize, an applicant's race as part of the full story of their lives as told through their application.

What the justices who ruled in favor of SFFA see is a not a true world, but a blurred one—a huddled mass of the present, of all things being equal, of every person's opportunities shaped simply and only by their personal effort and will.

What the justices choose to see is world free of the sharp edges of history.

In this choice, they refuse to see is the clear legacy of centuries of oppression that elevated white communities over and to the exclusion of Black communities. They refuse to see the history of our nation which time and time again did its best to keep opportunity out of reach of the Black community. Even after emancipation, Black folks had to contend with living into their liberation only to find new roadblocks around every last corner. When we talk about "equal opportunity," we cannot say the player who started the game of monopoly six turns after another has the same opportunity simply because they're playing the "same game."¹

Ultimately, what they refuse to see is a history actually clear with the details of our past and how it built our present. They want to paint a picture which is a future free of racism. But how can they paint an accurate picture when they refuse to see the scene clearly?

In reality, a true future of equity free from racism demands seeing those details. It demands reckoning with the sharp edges of our past that carry on into our present.

Like putting on new lenses, it can be overwhelming to engage. To see the world in all its fraught detail of injustice and violence can be sickening. But we recover. We adjust. And we begin to notice how the former scene we saw no longer satisfies—and it surely won't let us paint a picture worth sharing and from which we can build. In reality, the new lenses become the power through which we can actually make something true and new and for us all.

Ultimately, we must acknowledge that history carries with it an unstoppable momentum. We cannot divorce ourselves from our past or stand anchored and unaffected by it, as much as we'd like to try. If we fail to acknowledge the momentum of our past, we will undoubtedly be swallowed by it.

Instead, if we can learn to see it, we can learn to guide it. Its strength can become our ally. The momentum of our history can actually become the source of our power, and carry us into a brighter, more just, more equitable future for us all.

I love my institution. I'm also aware of its issues. Its history is rife with support for a status quo of supremacy and oppression. Still today, those in positions of power wish to send it back to a former time.

Nevertheless, people within its grounds and bearing its name have time and again resisted those efforts and shouted truth in the face of lies. I'm proud of the way it fought for its process, and the example it gave to the country of an institution willing to bare its scars for the sake of healing. But today is a sad day for the future of our nation and the future of my university.

In spite of the setback, I am empowered by the truth that each of us still has agency. Each of us can resist the obfuscation by declaring the true world around us, seen with the clarifying lenses of an honest reckoning with our history. Only by so doing can we actually achieve a future "free of racism."

So put on your glasses, reader. And speak honestly about what you see.

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[For a clear description of the ways race informs the opportunities and outcomes of modern American life, and as such also a students application to college, please read Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's dissent to the majority opinion. Or just read it regardless: https://thehill.com/homenews/4073556-read-jackson-dissent-supreme-court-affirmative-action/]

1. Credit to Arrabon's David Bailey for the Monopoly analogy