She says she grew up never feeling like a real person because of her race. Her single mother was an alcoholic, and her brothers began committing crimes at an early age. White’s view, she says, was shaped by exposure to racism as a child and also by a family she describes as dysfunctional. But even many of those who support the effort suspect it will do little to address what they see as fundamental racial injustices - from mass incarceration of black men to a lack of economic and educational opportunities. “We never felt like we were allowed near normal life,” said White, speaking from the tidy, two-story home she purchased last year in the struggling suburb south of Los Angeles.Īcross the country, African Americans are applauding a fast-growing movement to remove the Confederate flag from public life after last week’s racially charged massacre of nine black worshipers in a Charleston church.
All of them had dropped out of school in their teens. Over the years, five members of her family have been killed by guns: her two brothers, at the ages of 28 and 38 her nephew, at 19 her niece, at 16 and her niece’s mother, at 28. The 57-year-old Compton, California construction worker has seen and endured too much, she says, to be excited. A demonstrator holds a sign at a rally outside the State House to get the Confederate battle flag (R) removed from the grounds in Columbia, South Carolina June 23, 2015.
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