Reflections on the July 18th BLM march in Palos Hills.

On Saturday, July 18th, a BLM march sponsored by Beyond the Borders took place in Palos Hills. Starting at Stagg HS, the march went down Roberts Rd. to 103rd, where we stopped for 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence, and back to 111th and Roberts Rd. A very diverse group of over 125 people were accompanied, and heckled at times, by a tiny group of counter protesters, but the group ignored the noise and marched.

The announced aim of Beyond the Borders is to bring BLM marches to mainly white communities. The point is to show that systemic racism affects all of us, and that living in a majority white community does not insulate anyone from the effects of racism, and does not excuse all of us from the responsibility of working to end racism.

What was troubling to me was not just the counter protesters carrying their political signs. They are a symptom, and an outward manifestation of that systemic racism. But before the march started, one of the organizers actually asked the white marchers to walk on the outside of the march so the non-white marchers would be in the middle, and presumably safer.

This might be a reflection of the response Beyond the Borders received when they marched in Mt. Greenwood. In that south side neighborhood, BLM marchers were subjected to a steady stream of racist insults and taunts as they dared to peacefully march in that majority white neighborhood.

Palos Hills is also “ground zero”, so to speak, for over 3 years of protests directed at Palos Twp. Trustee Sharon Brannigan. Brannigan is notorious for her many Islamophobic and racist Facebook posts, including one that stated that Muslims hate us and want us dead because we are Christians.

The choice to include Palos Hills for a march was, in my opinion, very understandable for those who are aware of the ongoing racial tensions in that area.

In closing, what does that say about the country that in 2020 this type of open racial animus still exists? It would be too simple by far to only blame the current President. In my view, he is the outward symptom, not the primal cause, but he stokes the fires of racial resentment on a near weekly basis. Comments about the heritage underlying what is a flag of traitors are aimed only at increasing racial tension.

Until we all accept how foundational racism was, and still is, to living in the US, we will never heal, and the civil war that erupted to defend slavery in the US in 1860 will never truly be over.