Over the past month and a half since the May 25, 2020 death of George "five years in the pen for armed robbery" Floyd, violence has erupted throughout the country.  More than twenty people, many of them innocent victims (including, most recently, an eight-year-old black girl in Atlanta), have died during these "protests"; scores more have been seriously injured; and damage to property, not including the destruction of national monuments and the defacing of public buildings, has topped one billion dollars.

The Democratic Party and every other voice on the left has been virtually silent over the price society is forced to pay for this grotesque overreaction to an incident, albeit deplorable, of police brutality.  How can they justify their silence in the face of this tragic loss of life and property that radicalized incendiaries have wrought?  It can't be that Minneapolis has a few inhumane and racist police officers.  That wouldn't justify this Vesuvian eruption.  Nor would the fact that five other blacks died at the hands of police in high-profile cases during the last six years.  (It is, needless to say, conveniently overlooked that each victim — i.e., perpetrator — was resisting arrest at the time of his death.)  No, the justification for the silence over the deaths of the various, quickly forgotten people caught in the middle of these totalitarian uprisings and the ISIS-like destruction of our historical legacies is the narrative of "institutional racism."

Only that would justify such an extreme reaction to the death of Floyd and the five others, beginning with Michael Brown in Ferguson six years ago.  If racism is endemic and rampant in our institutions and our system of government, then extreme measures to extirpate the cancer are justified, even merited.

According to Solid Ground, a leftist activist organization headquartered in Seattle, institutional racism is defined as "the systematic distribution of resources, power and opportunity in our society to the benefit of people who are white and the exclusion of people of color."  Unfortunately for the left, this narrative has it backwards.  One of the most salient examples of governmental efforts to unfairly assist, rather than stymie blacks has been affirmative action in education.  Opportunities in education provide a tangible way for the disadvantaged to advance within society.  In Grutter v. Bollinger, the U.S. Supreme Court, following the guidance set out in the 1978 landmark case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, upheld in 2003 the use of racial preferences on behalf of black applicants to law school despite the inconvenient fact that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was to eliminate government-mandated discrimination based on race.  Now such discrimination is routinely sanctioned in the name of creating a racially diverse student body.  What cognizable benefit that engenders remains a mystery.  Regardless, affirmative action remains the law of the land in higher education.

And it is not only there.  Executive orders going as far back as 1965 require federal contractors to take affirmative action to ensure that blacks and other minorities are hired.  Likewise, the Minority Business Development Agency was created within the Department of Commerce to augment the growth and development of minority-owned businesses.  A host of similar governmental initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels exist.

All of this is to say nothing of the statutorily imposed protections against race and other forms of discrimination that were enshrined in federal law in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Title I of that statute requires that qualifications for voter registration be applied equally; Title II prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation, such as hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues; Title V prohibits state and municipal governments from barring blacks and other minorities access to public facilities; Title VI bars discrimination in programs receiving federal funding, such as educational institutions; Title VII outlaws discrimination in employment; and Title VIII bars discrimination in the rental, sale, or financing of dwellings.  Similar protections are also found at the state and local levels.

All of this brings us back to the mantra of "institutional racism."  Those mouthing it confuse symbols with realities.  The reality is that at all levels of government, this country has worked for more than fifty years to eradicate institutional racism and has often done so by discriminating in favor of those whose ancestors were discriminated against.  Destroying or defacing statutes and monuments is not how racism is eradicated; it is how vandals obtain a "get out of jail free" card.  If this nation honors a Founding Father from the South who, like his brethren, was a slave-owner, the country is not endorsing discrimination any more than bulldozing his statue will eliminate discrimination.  But it is easy; makes for good theater; and, like the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, has a shock and awe effect.

Shock and awe work on one level.  They terrify not just the Democrats, but the business toadies who don't want to be perceived as being on the wrong side of this explosive issue.  After all, pro sports and the entertainment industry, to name just two of the many voices mouthing support for radical action taken by the left to desecrate our past, have made a lot of people a lot of money.  Reciting the black national anthem is a small price to pay for their coffers to remain full.  Doing so, however, won't accomplish an iota in fighting any lingering facets of racism in our country.  But, like tweeting, it's quick and easy, and it reaches an audience beyond one's wildest dreams.