We can look back to anytime in history and easily see the multitude of mistakes that were made, by great and small men, trying their best in what was acceptable or even normal behaviour, the “mores” of that particular era. Slavery was acceptable throughout the 1700’s, in fact a great many British, Europeans and Americans can attribute their wealth to that industry, as repugnant as it is. Wealthy people make money off the misfortune of others, ie during prohibition, during the COVID 19 pandemic, when stocks in medical industry paid massive returns, to those who were quick to see the opportunity.
History has not been kind to women, minorities or children. In fact, women were considered “chattel“ until the 1920’s, she was a “man’s property” as such was unable to own her own property or if she did it own land or house, inherited from family or her father, it was given to her husband as dowry or into his care as if it were his own. Finally, a woman’s right to vote changed with the suffragette movement, first in Britain, then in America. Blacks were always challenged for that right to vote, it was very bad at first, when it was thought they couldn’t think about who would be a good leader, or had the thought process to make the decision, they were challenged, made to count beans in a jar, or work out a problem, if they dared to try to vote, they were beaten, and denied that right to vote, in so many ways, even up to this very day, 2020, that southern Republicans gerrymander their states to prevent blacks from votIng, or they remove them from voter rolls altogether.
Jim Crow era was that mean, terrible, time, which wrought every punishment known onto blacks for the loss of the southern way of life, plantations, owners of massive tracts of land and slaves to work it, incomparable riches, all of this lost during the civil war and the subsequent freedom of the black slaves from bondage. Tales of their suffering are testaments of the cruelty of the white man, slavery was as if that black person was dead to any sense of self, any thoughts of freedom dangerous and not possible. Of course, their lives were impossible to describe, the despair, the relentlessness of the work, and beatings if they didn’t perform the way the owner overseer demanded.
Many books have been written about slavery, by modern authors like Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience”, or any tales from or about Harriet Tubman, a famed black woman who saved a number of slaves from what she called “the coffin” referring to the way slaves felt when working on southern plantations. Uncle Toms Cabin, Tom Sawyer, even To Kill a Mocking Bird, all studied during our school days but never really penetrated our thinking of how it must feel to be black, then or now.....
We are familiar with all of this, but still we can never understand the insidious outrage, the history and onus of having to explain why they should be counted as a real person, that they are a deserving person, of the right to exist...these are the burdens that all African Americans still carry, always on alert, always careful where to look, what to say, how to move in a way that doesn’t get you killed.
It must all end, now.
I agree with you Greg that our black brothers and sisters are a bonus to our lives, with their talents, their ingenuity, their musical abilities, and their superb talents at any type of ball game. Our lives are enriched by our black communities, we must see that, really see it.
I have not read this yet, Greg, but someone already brought to my attention: "Lee surrendered on 9 April 1965." Oops. Okay. I will read it now. By the way, the person who noted this said to me "This guy pulls no punches!" and he is right. You don't. Thank the gods.
Thank you for this piece. I believe we are at the point in conscious evolution where it is time for each of us as individuals and together as citizens acknowledge and admit to our demons, or those aspects of self/nation that we are denying.
I had a brilliant Literature professor in college who made a huge impression on me with his analysis of The Fall Of The House Of Usher. He said that Roderick's burial of his twin sister Madeline symbolized denial of his feminine side, and it was that denial of an aspect of his own self that precipitated the fall of the House of Usher. I always recall that lecture when I think of how this country has abused, mutilated and tortured African Americans and Native Americans. As you said, if we don't atone (which means "at one" of making whole), we will destroy ourselves..
Greg, I just learned of “Black Wall Street” myself on Sunday while watching CBS Sunday Morning, I was horrified. It seems I am constantly learning of/hearing of travesties of justice perpetrated in the name of racism against Black Americans. Not that long ago I learned of a lynching in the Minnesota city of Duluth. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/duluth-lynchings-1920/ The picture at the head of this article looks eerily similar to those posted by poachers posing with their trophies, smiling for the camera & proud of what they’ve “accomplished”. It’s beyond sickening, and yet WE MUST LOOK AT IT. WE MUST SEE what we were, what we still are, what we tolerate in the name of ‘compromise’. To avoid looking at the pictures of the injustice and horror that has been visited on Black Americans by those of us with lighter colored skin is unacceptable. We’ve avoided it, we’ve looked the other way, for far far too long.
We can look back to anytime in history and easily see the multitude of mistakes that were made, by great and small men, trying their best in what was acceptable or even normal behaviour, the “mores” of that particular era. Slavery was acceptable throughout the 1700’s, in fact a great many British, Europeans and Americans can attribute their wealth to that industry, as repugnant as it is. Wealthy people make money off the misfortune of others, ie during prohibition, during the COVID 19 pandemic, when stocks in medical industry paid massive returns, to those who were quick to see the opportunity.
History has not been kind to women, minorities or children. In fact, women were considered “chattel“ until the 1920’s, she was a “man’s property” as such was unable to own her own property or if she did it own land or house, inherited from family or her father, it was given to her husband as dowry or into his care as if it were his own. Finally, a woman’s right to vote changed with the suffragette movement, first in Britain, then in America. Blacks were always challenged for that right to vote, it was very bad at first, when it was thought they couldn’t think about who would be a good leader, or had the thought process to make the decision, they were challenged, made to count beans in a jar, or work out a problem, if they dared to try to vote, they were beaten, and denied that right to vote, in so many ways, even up to this very day, 2020, that southern Republicans gerrymander their states to prevent blacks from votIng, or they remove them from voter rolls altogether.
Jim Crow era was that mean, terrible, time, which wrought every punishment known onto blacks for the loss of the southern way of life, plantations, owners of massive tracts of land and slaves to work it, incomparable riches, all of this lost during the civil war and the subsequent freedom of the black slaves from bondage. Tales of their suffering are testaments of the cruelty of the white man, slavery was as if that black person was dead to any sense of self, any thoughts of freedom dangerous and not possible. Of course, their lives were impossible to describe, the despair, the relentlessness of the work, and beatings if they didn’t perform the way the owner overseer demanded.
Many books have been written about slavery, by modern authors like Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience”, or any tales from or about Harriet Tubman, a famed black woman who saved a number of slaves from what she called “the coffin” referring to the way slaves felt when working on southern plantations. Uncle Toms Cabin, Tom Sawyer, even To Kill a Mocking Bird, all studied during our school days but never really penetrated our thinking of how it must feel to be black, then or now.....
We are familiar with all of this, but still we can never understand the insidious outrage, the history and onus of having to explain why they should be counted as a real person, that they are a deserving person, of the right to exist...these are the burdens that all African Americans still carry, always on alert, always careful where to look, what to say, how to move in a way that doesn’t get you killed.
It must all end, now.
I agree with you Greg that our black brothers and sisters are a bonus to our lives, with their talents, their ingenuity, their musical abilities, and their superb talents at any type of ball game. Our lives are enriched by our black communities, we must see that, really see it.
I have not read this yet, Greg, but someone already brought to my attention: "Lee surrendered on 9 April 1965." Oops. Okay. I will read it now. By the way, the person who noted this said to me "This guy pulls no punches!" and he is right. You don't. Thank the gods.
Thank you for this piece. I believe we are at the point in conscious evolution where it is time for each of us as individuals and together as citizens acknowledge and admit to our demons, or those aspects of self/nation that we are denying.
I had a brilliant Literature professor in college who made a huge impression on me with his analysis of The Fall Of The House Of Usher. He said that Roderick's burial of his twin sister Madeline symbolized denial of his feminine side, and it was that denial of an aspect of his own self that precipitated the fall of the House of Usher. I always recall that lecture when I think of how this country has abused, mutilated and tortured African Americans and Native Americans. As you said, if we don't atone (which means "at one" of making whole), we will destroy ourselves..
Greg, I just learned of “Black Wall Street” myself on Sunday while watching CBS Sunday Morning, I was horrified. It seems I am constantly learning of/hearing of travesties of justice perpetrated in the name of racism against Black Americans. Not that long ago I learned of a lynching in the Minnesota city of Duluth. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/duluth-lynchings-1920/ The picture at the head of this article looks eerily similar to those posted by poachers posing with their trophies, smiling for the camera & proud of what they’ve “accomplished”. It’s beyond sickening, and yet WE MUST LOOK AT IT. WE MUST SEE what we were, what we still are, what we tolerate in the name of ‘compromise’. To avoid looking at the pictures of the injustice and horror that has been visited on Black Americans by those of us with lighter colored skin is unacceptable. We’ve avoided it, we’ve looked the other way, for far far too long.