February is Black History Month with some wondering why we spend so little time on diversity. Others wonder why we are spending any time at all. Racism exists or doesn’t exist in the eye of the beholder.

Situations always come up that make us wonder and we had another one crop up in New Jersey. Obviously, news organizations cover these events in their own way and it can vary some depending on the source. As you might imagine, social media responses run the gamut. At the very least, it demonstrates the need for a continuance of the national conversation.

For those that don’t care to go down the rabbit hole, two teenage boys got into a fight at a shopping mall in New Jersey. Police appeared to respond very differently to the two boys. The white participant is allowed to sit on a sofa until the confrontation was over. The black participant didn’t get nearly the same treatment.

Obviously, such videos create just as many questions as they do answers. What happened before the video began? Is one boy more responsible than the other for the fight starting? Did witnesses provide the police with their own perceptions that might have impacted how both boys were dealt with? Were they harder on the black boy because he appeared to be winning the fight? The coup de grace is the question of what happened immediately after the video abruptly ended?

These are all pertinent questions and I’m sure they will come up in an investigation. In many ways that will be unfortunate. I seriously doubt we will hear the results of said investigation. That’s especially true if they find other mitigating factors that can explain why the two boys were treated so differently.

The social media reaction is very telling. Those outside the country don’t necessarily understand the baggage that comes with another event like this. For what it’s worth, the white participant told authorities he didn’t understand why they were treated differently. Maybe that was a moment of honesty. Maybe just maybe there is a little hope for the future.

As for the here and now, it is another very visible example that we aren’t where we need to be. Whether those two officers were wrong or right, the video is proof that we are not equal. If Critical Race Theory can be defined as “systems laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race” then we could credibly argue that this video is proof that these systems are real and need to be studied and debated.

Of course, many states (including Texas) don’t want that to happen. At least, they don’t want it to happen in school. We aren’t racist anymore. We can all gather around the camp fire and sing “Kumbaya” and hold hands. Whether something makes our kids feel bad is not the standard we should be using. We know it exists. The video above is proof enough for most people.

The funny thing is that those two particular officers can credibly claim that they are not racist. They may even be able to prove that they reacted appropriately in that situation. That’s not really the point. The point is outcomes. If the outcome in situations like that seem to consistently create unequal treatment then that would be evidence of the very thing that CRT opponents want to sweep under the rug. Welcome to Black History Month. May these conversations not cease once the calendar strikes March 1st.

Yesterday was the first day Black History Month. These collection of news stories were bound to happen, but it is still amazing nonetheless. The first one is one you all know well. The backlash against the 1619 Project and so-called critical race theory has been ongoing. In the midst of all that chaos, numerous states have chosen to limit what teachers can teach their students during this month. For instance, we can talk about Jackie Robinson, but we can’t talk about why there was a color barrier in the first place. We can talk about Martin Luther King Jr, but we can’t delve too deeply.

The end result is that multiple generations of Americans believe MLK had a dream. They’ll quote the dream and even misquote it in order to pretend that he would support policies that further subjugate people. Meanwhile, we have students that think he freed the slaves, was the first black president, and a precious few seem to think he was related to Martin Luther.

It’s in this backdrop that the second news story makes even more sense. Former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores started a class action lawsuit against the NFL charging systemic racism and racist practices. While it certainly wasn’t the most shocking revelation, the fact that Bill Belichek accidentally texted him and congratulated him for getting the Giants job (thinking he was Brian Daboll) before he interviewed. His interview was simply to comply with the Rooney Rule that mandates at least two interviews with minority candidates.

A league that has a 70 percent African American player population has one black head coach for 32 teams. There are three minority coaches combined amongst those 32. That’s impossible to defend. I’m sure teams like the Giants, Dolphins, and Broncos (who were specifically named in the suit) can somehow defend their hires and their decisions. I’m sure most teams can. That’s the difference between systemic racism and overt racism.

Hardly anyone comes right out and says it anymore. We are all too smart and too sophisticated for that. However, when the vast majority of the owners are white then they will hire white executives most of the time. Those executives will hire people that they know and have worked with. They turn out to be white most of the time. Head coaches hire assistants they’ve worked with before and they turn out to be white most of the time. I think everyone knows the score.

Ultimately, we don’t grow if we don’t force ourselves to acknowledge some painful truths. We can argue about intention until we are blue in the face. We can assert that we don’t hate anyone because of their race, ethnicity, country of origin, or religion. We can argue vehemently that we aren’t racist and even believe it down to our core.

Many of us can do so with a straight face. Yet, it’s hard to look around and not see the results of a society that has been systematically unfair for decades. Now, many of us are barred from pointing that out. We don’t want kids to feel bad. There’s a fine line between assigning blame in the present day or simply being aware that a discrepancy exists. We didn’t cause the discrepancy, but if we don’t acknowledge it we can’t move on. Then, it will be our fault.