Onlookers should have responded in the N-word video

Once again, the ugly specter of racism has surfaced in our community. In a video that has now gone viral., a white woman verbally attacked a group of black women at a Raleigh restaurant, calling them “stupid [n-word].” One of the black women began filming after white woman had initially confronted them, calling them “rude” and “loud.”

This confrontation illustrates many of the biases that continue to plague our nation when it comes to race. The white woman’s actions show that she does not believe that black customers are entitled to the same access to public space as others.

To some extent, these attempts to patrol public space are a legacy of Jim Crow laws that established where black people were allowed to go. More recently, we have seen that affluent white people have been empowered to define what counts as “noise,” according to sound studies scholar Jennifer Stoever. In fact, just a few years ago, here in North Carolina, a black doctor played loud music in her private home while celebrating the fact that she had become pregnant. A few minutes later, she received a knock at her door from the police, telling her that she was being too loud.

While these complaints about “noise” often relate to loud music, it can also pertain to a group of friends having dinner in a restaurant or even a group of people having a conversation on a street corner or listening to music in a gas station parking lot.

Notably the white woman in the video seems to assume that the fact that she says she has “black friends” immunizes her from being racist. She later added that her “anxiety” had caused her to lash out and use racist language, but millions of Americans have mental health disorders and know better than to use this kind of language. But what is most significant about this scene isn’t just the fact that she felt comfortable using this racist slur. It’s that nobody else in the restaurant felt compelled to stand up against it. What if the woman had used other ethnic slurs? Would people feel compelled to act or would they again watch passively as one person dehumanizes others? An attack on one person is an attack on every person that shares their identity.

This verbal assault is also symptomatic of a culture in which hate and intolerance is becoming increasingly mainstream. As the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented, hate crimes and the number of hate groups have risen dramatically since Donald Trump announced his plans to run for president. Trump has often been a ringleader, setting the tone for this type of racism. In just the last few weeks, he has targeted a group of first-year Democratic congresswomen known as “The Squad,” and implied that they are not fully American. These practices of attacking others based on their identity lead to their dehumanization, making it easier to mistreat them in other ways.

Despite the public criticism, the white woman in the video told WRAL that she would use the word again. She — and others like her — likely aren’t going to learn to co-exist with others. But we can still make a difference. A lot of folks are tired of this kind of story.

So let’s imagine a different one. What if just one of the dozens of patrons had stood up and said no? What if a bystander went and sat with the black women? What if the manager or another patron had asked the white woman to take a walk? The story could have been “community rallies.” The story still can be.

Gerald R. Givens, Jr. is the President of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP and Chuck Tryon is the chair of press and publicity for the Raleigh-Apex NAACP.

This story was originally published July 26, 2019 at 5:00 AM.