A Washington Post Article Sounds The Reconstruction Era Alarm of Racism Going Unchecked
Kanye did it first.
Well—actually, Abraham Lincoln did.
Before anyone stops reading, hear me out.
After the Civil War, Reconstruction was supposed to reset the country. Instead, it offered leniency to the Confederacy and half-measures to newly freed Black people.
The South wasn’t forced to reckon with what it had done, and Black Americans weren’t given the tools to protect what they had barely gained. Radical Republicans pushed for accountability, punishment, and lasting civil rights protections. What they got was compromise, and you can’t compromise racism.
That softness didn’t heal the nation. It taught it something far more dangerous: racism could survive without consequence. And we still face that lesson today.
Fast forward to 2018. Kanye West, now Ye, said slavery was a choice. He wore a “White Lives Matter” shirt. The Black community condemned it immediately, loud and clear. But the corporations, such as Adidas and Gap, he partnered with didn’t.
The message was simple: anti-Black rhetoric was offensive, but to whom?
In 2022, Ye praised Hitler and openly bragged, “I can say antisemitic things and Adidas still won’t drop me. Now what?”
This time his antisemitic remarks crossed a line that his anti-Black rhetoric never did. Adidas terminated its nearly decade-long Yeezy partnership, a deal tied to roughly $1.5 billion of his net worth. Gap and Foot Locker pulled Yeezy products, Balenciaga cut ties, and his talent agency dropped him.
That similar imbalance is now visible in public policy. A recent Washington Post article, in Lubbock, Texas, Black students are facing racial slurs, false accusations, and harsher discipline across multiple school districts. Parents and advocates such as the NAACP say the behavior is worsening, not improving.
Under the Biden administration, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opened investigations into racial bullying in Lubbock-area schools. After the 2024 election, those investigations stalled. Under Donald Trump’s second term, regional OCR offices (including Dallas) were closed. Investigators handling Lubbock complaints were terminated. Thousands of civil rights cases nationwide were dismissed.
DEI programs, social programs, and civil rights protections have all been cut. Certain forms of hate speech, particularly toward Black people, are no longer treated as such, or even worthy of investigation during this administration. Meanwhile, enforcement against antisemitism has been—rightfully—elevated, publicly prioritized, and backed by executive action.
Early 2025, the OCR publicly stated that resolving antisemitism complaints, particularly on college campuses, was a priority, even amid staffing and regional office cuts.
But when did America ever face an antisemitism problem on the scale of its racism problem? Did the Holocaust happen here? Or was it the 200+ years of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and generations of inequality against Black Americans? Lately, it’s hard to tell which history this country is choosing to remember.
However, this isn’t new. Black communities have warned about selective and punitive enforcement since slavery, through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the civil rights era, police brutality, and modern movements such as Black Lives Matter. We’ve protested. We’ve pleaded. Now, we’re sitting down as it seems safer than standing up.
Now ICE raids the country. Renee Good is shot. More names join a list that will never stop growing. People act surprised, protest, and the cycle continues.
Until racism carries consequences as real, as swift, and as expensive as other forms of hate, America will keep doing what it does best: condemning injustice in theory while tolerating it in practice.
Until then, good night, and good luck.
