The Year in Racism

Image via Complex Original

Professional athletes found themselves in a precarious situation this year, as racial tensions ran rampant on the basketball court, football field, and behind closed doors.

In April, Donald Sterling's private conversation with ex-girlfriend V. Stiviano went viral. In it, the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers made inappropriate comments about why his “delicate white or delicate Latina” girlfriend shouldn't associate with blacks in public. According to Sterling, it was “painful” to their relationship. After the recording surfaced, Sterling was banned from the NBA for life. Similarly, Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson sold his shares of the team after emails leaked in which he blamed the team's financial woes on its black players.

There was also sports reporter Dan Bernstein. When Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls wore a shirt adored with "I Can't Breathe," the final words uttered by Eric Garner, the unarmed African-American man who died from an impermissible chokehold used by a Staten Island police officer, Bernstein took to Twitter. “I just wish @drose could talk, or really understands what he’s doing. I don’t think he does, but he deserves to be treated as if so,” the Chicago-based reported tweeted.

Members of the St. Louis Rams showed public support for Garner and Mike Brown, the unarmed Ferguson, Mo. teen shot down by a rookie officer, by entering the field with their hands in the air. This "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" gesture has come to symbolize the #BlackLivesMatter movement and protests against excessive police force. These athletes were also criticized, but this time by local law enforcement.

When Ohio Browns player Andrew Hawkins donned a jersey demanding justice for Tamir Rice and John Crawford, Cleveland police demanded an apology, which the team refused to provide. Hawkins did, however, go on the record about why he decided to wear the shirt in the first place.

And in D.C., a judged ruled that the Washington Redskins had a right to sue Native Americans over trademark protections allowing them to continue to use their racially charged team name. This year the NFL also made a controversial move to ban the use of the word n****r on the field.

Today, you can get pulled over by the cops for playing "Fuck Tha Police," and you'll be lucky if you walk away with a ticket, as this Harvard graduate student did. Elsewhere in the country, a run in with the law may not end so well—especially if you're black. 

We’ve seen it before. Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, and Aiyana Stanley Jones: all black, all unarmed, and all of their killers walked. In 2011, we watched Troy Davis receive his death sentence for the 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail even though four witnesses recanted their statements.

In 2014, the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, and more set off a firestorm of protests around the country centered on police brutality, but little progress has been made to improve the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve. What the protests have done, essentially, is highlighted how difficult and slow-going it will be to affect change.

These high-profile cases exposed a longstanding truth in America: Black men are abused by the criminal justice system far more readily than any other group in the country. This isn't new, but addressing this disparity became the official cri de coeur of 2014 as the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter took over the Internet.

After the country watched George Zimmerman walk free of Trayvon Martin’s death last year, we've had to experience it all over again in primetime. The deaths of Eric Garner and Mike Brown—just 23 days apart— were jabs to the gut, a reminder that blue privilege still reigns supreme. 

This winter tensions reached new heights when two on-duty officers, Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were ambushed and executed while they sat in their patrol car in Brooklyn. The assailant, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, a mentally unstable individual who also shot his girlfriend in Maryland, claimed that the murders were an act of retaliation. The tragedy only widened the rift between law enforcement and minorities, and made it more difficult for peaceful protesters to push their agenda forward.

"There's blood on many hands tonight," NYC Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association president Pat Lynch said after the deaths of officer Liu and Ramos. "That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall, in the office of the mayor." We have a long way to go.

Hollywood has a bad reputation for being whitewashed, and this year was no exception to that rule. When the new Star Wars trailer hit the web the day after Thanksgiving, one of the initial (and insane) criticisms was that the first character who appears is a black man. Stormtroopers, the argument went, are supposed to be white. 

Ridley Scott's latest film, Exodus: God and Kings, is set in Egypt, and yet none of the lead actors are people of color. Similarly, when Academy Award nominee Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) was cast as Annie, detractors were quick to point out that everybody knows Annie was white. Rush Limbaugh ranted about why Idris Elba, a fine actor, should not be cast as James Bond. "He was white and Scottish, period. That is who James Bond is," Limbaugh noted. It's unclear if Limbaugh understands that Bond is a fiction. 

Early in the year, when news broke that Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station, The Wire) would play the Human Torch in the new Fantastic Four reboot, comic book nerds hemmed and hawed about how the decision deviates from the original—a thinly veiled attempt to cover up their anger about Jordan's race. (Rush Limbaugh and comic book fans have a lot in common.)

The Interview, a legitimately not-good movie that received more attention than it deserved thanks to a cyber attack that probably wasn't orchestrated by North Korea, was also chided for its insensitive portrayal of North Koreans as gullible goons with ridiculous accents.

The issue of race and pop culture was particularly prevalent in music. Taylor Swift provoked a collective uproar when she appeared in the vicinity of twerking in her "Shake It Off" video. "All About That Bass" singer Meghan Trainor helped make 2014 the year of butts for white people, even though asses have been celebrated in communities of color for some time, even when they were derided in pop culture. 

Things took a turn for the more serious when Azealia Banks, no stranger to controversial Twitter arguments, attacked Iggy Azalea via Twitter. “It’s funny to see people like Igloo Australia silent when these things happen,” referring to the death of Garner. The Harlem rapper added, “If you’re down to ride with us bitch, you gotta RIDE ALL THE WAY.”

The exchange became more heated when Banks addressed Azalea's apparent love for black culture, including black men. Names were called, sub-tweets were posted, and it became a pure mess. (If you want to experience a more nuanced dialogue about appropriation, we strongly recommend this.)

Of course, we couldn't talk about racism and music in 2014 without mentioning Justin Bieber. In June, two videos of the pop sensation using racist language emerged from the dark recesses of TMZ. In the first video, Bieber, at age 15, tells a racist joke.  In the second video, a teenaged Bieber remixes his song “One Less Lonely Girl,” swapping out the word girl for the n-word. Really testing the limits of what qualifies as youthful ignorance here, aren't you, Biebs?

President Obama, the first black president and the GOP's favorite punching bag, has had a tough year. But he really doesn't seem to care anymore. He just wants to get things done, even if Mitch McConnell vows to make his life miserable in the process. 

Politics are never a friendly game, but many of us thought that, by electing a black man into office, we would take one giant step forward in regards to race relations in America. Turns out that was wrong. If anything, 2014 was proof that racism in politics is just as insidious as it has been since Jim Crow and the poll tax.

In a classic example of over-sharing, Republican House staffer Elizabeth Lauten reacted to a photo of Sasha and Malia mean mugging during their dad’s National Thanksgiving Turkey pardoning ceremony by telling the teens to "have some class.” It didn’t stop there. “Then again your mother and father don’t respect their positions very much, or the nation for that matter, so I’m guessing you’re coming up a little short in the 'good role model’ department,” Lauten wrote. Just days later Lauten revealed to NBC News that she would be resigning from her position.

It's been 47 years since the Supreme Court ruled against laws prohibiting interracial marriage, but in some corners it's still dangerous. Back in August, 17-year-old Lennon Lacy was found swinging from a noose in North Carolina. Initially his death was ruled a suicide, but after his family stated that they believe their son was lynched for racially-motivated reasons, the FBI got involved and launched an investigation. Lacy's girlfriend, 31-year-old Michelle Brimhall, told the Daily Mail that Lacy was murdered because the couple's interracial relationship was not welcome in their conservative Bladenboro community. The FBI's investigation is still ongoing.

Still, the president has said that he thinks race relations in America are better than they were six years ago. Now that Republicans control both the House and the Senate, things may change in 2015. It was recently revealed that majority whip Steve Scalise was a keynote speaker at an event hosted by Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Instead of asking Scalise to step down, Republican Speaker John Boehner has come to his defense. It's politics as usual, we suppose.