A blizzard of thoughts and feelings accompanied this year’s Black History Month – before, during, and ever since. I’ve long had a love/hate relationship with Black History Month, anyway.
What I Love
I love learning of special people I’ve never heard of before and their remarkable ideas, exploits, and inventions.
I love having new heroes from hearing their stories of overcoming immense obstacles of hardship and hate.
In late January, a friend delightedly said he had seen John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and an album by Sam Cooke on display in a Target store. It was, of course, for Black History Month. I love seeing overdue celebration for the deserving, with the chance it brings of enriching more lives.
Far more invitations to speak about the music I have studied and particularly love, Jazz and Blues, have come my way in February over the years. Giving this great music the presentation it deserves is immensely gratifying.
What I Hate
I hate the fact that I’d never before heard of those special people and their remarkable ideas, exploits, and inventions.
I abhor the hardship and the hate these new-to-me heroes had to overcome. Why they faced obstacles of hardship and hate is even worse.
My one visit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland was in mid-2017. I did not begrudge the enormous roomfuls of stuff expected for Elvis, the Beatles, and the Stones. (The huge, comprehensive, albeit temporary, display for John Mellencamp was a bit surprising, though.)
What I dreaded was what I’d find for Chuck Berry. Sure enough, the visitor got to see a guitar or two, a jacket or two, some pics, a nice plaque. Easy to miss was one of the best things in the museum: a piece of paper containing the lyrics to “School Days” in Chuck’s handwriting. Berry’s exhibit was lumped in with similarly underplayed tributes to Bo Diddley, Fats Domino and Little Richard in a section for early contributors.
It was infuriating, especially shortly after Chuck Berry’s death, which should have converted the place into a shrine for the music’s most important founder.
I hate it when I hear a white person sneer, “When’s it gonna be White History Month?” Admittedly, it does make me chuckle thinking of the time I asked my mother on Mother’s Day, “When is Kids’ Day?” Bet you got the same answer if you asked your parents that question: “EVERY day is Kids’ Day.”
In short, I love Black History Month, and hate that it’s still necessary.
The Bad Stuff
At least as unfortunate as leaving significant contributions by African Americans out of American History is hiding so much awful stuff that has happened to them. The result is a number of Whites who seem not to grasp where we really are, and how we got here. Aggrieved they are, to be hearing about all this race stuff. Articulating this can take any number of forms, but it often goes something like this:
Yeah, slavery was bad, but that ended after the Civil War. Segregation was wrong, too, but we got past all that in the Civil Rights era. My people [Irish, Italian, Polish, etc.] weren’t welcomed here either. They called us names, denied us jobs, made us live in tough neighborhoods. We climbed our way out through determination and hard work.
The first two sentences of this are beyond naïve; indeed, they’re essentially false. Sure, they’ve put racial atrocities behind them. (What systemic racism?) The last three sentences present grotesquely false equivalencies.
Most lessons offered in February for Black History Month are remarkably benign, actually, focusing on neglected good stuff. Grasping an accurate, balanced perspective on the truth, however, requires a dive into some very disturbing history with real-world consequences to this day.
The Really Bad Stuff
I am no historian, much less one who devotes life to digging up every negative thing that’s ever happened to anyone. Something’s been hard not to notice, though, even from a very young age: Many have crazy ideas about other people based on skin color. Along the way, a resolve formed to both (a) appreciate cultural contributions on their merits and (b) face the facts as I found them on the bad stuff. This was for my own good.
When subjected to an aggrieved-white-person harangue, I find myself asking if they’ve ever heard of one or more of the following:
Specific Violent Incidents
Memphis 1866
Clinton, Mississippi 1875
History of Ku Klux Klan
The 1898 Coup/Massacre in Wilmington, NC
East St. Louis Massacre of 1917
The Red Summer of 1919
Tulsa 1921
Lynchings – of thousands, over decades
Discrimination by Operation of Law
[For background] The actual thriving, for a while, of many African-Americans working hard and playing by the rules, when given the chance during early days of Reconstruction
The Black Codes
The presidential election of 1876 and how it was resolved by the so-called Compromise of 1877, effectively ending Reconstruction and issuing in a new era of terror for Blacks
Jim Crow laws, era, and way of life
Redlining
Restrictive covenants
The “crime” of Miscegenation
Mississippi’s ratification of the 13th Amendment – in 1995/2013
Neo-slavery/involuntary servitude/forced labor
How I wish this were an exhaustive list! Unfortunately, it comprises mere shavings off the tip of an ugly iceberg. And these are just ones I know about. Here’s a depressing thought: The atrocities known must be far fewer than all that actually happened. Some attempts at covering up horrific racial crimes undoubtedly succeeded.
What is known is horrific enough. Anyone doubting as much is sincerely welcomed to look into any or all of the above with reputable, documented sources. Read them, and weep. (And, as always, if anything in this post is wrong, PLEASE say how and why in an email to KenBossong@gmail.com.)
Short Summary
At the end of the Civil War, there were some genuine attempts, by the Republican-led federal government, to give former slaves some chance at success. These attempts to meaningfully implement the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are collectively referred to as Reconstruction.
Newly freed Blacks were not the only poor people in America. If there was one thing many white people, especially those doing poorly, could not stand, it was seeing formerly-owned black people doing better. Many were.
Early on, freed people eagerly availed themselves of much that had been denied them as slaves, especially education, beneficial work, and the vote. Some immediately excelled in all lines of endeavor. As individuals found success in business, the arts, law, medicine, sciences, education, and public service, the communities in which they lived similarly began to thrive.
Violent reaction by individuals and groups of Whites began immediately in response to Blacks being elected to office, acquiring land, and starting schools, churches, and businesses.
An incalculably important pivot point in history was the resolution of the bitterly contested presidential election of 1876. The short version of this Faustian bargain is that the Republicans got their candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, sworn in as President. In exchange, they essentially agreed to forego Reconstruction. That included withdrawal of federal troops whose presence had helped keep “freedmen” somewhat free.
Predictably, this provided carte blanche for white supremacists. Both the frequency and severity of racial violence grew apace. Although provocation ranged from negligible to non-existent, the truth is that innocent men, women and children were killed, and whole neighborhoods, even towns, were burned to the ground. Groups like the Klan ran amok. Folks brought snacks, and the kids, to public lynchings.
“Legal” Machinations
More insidious than individual acts of violence, however, was the deliberate, carefully orchestrated discrimination institutionalized within legal structures. This is the (also incomplete) second part of the “Really Bad Stuff” list above. Those who scoff at the notion of systemic racism want no part of this information.
Herein lies an extraordinarily important point often missed for being more subtle than murder and mayhem. Practices like redlining and restrictive covenants – enforced as a matter of law – present a whole other aspect of evil, beyond acts of discrimination and violence. When odious statutes are passed, or such contracts enforced in courts, discrimination becomes official public policy. Cloaking hate in law makes a mockery of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of Due Process and Equal Protection of the laws.
Please don’t miss the last item on that list of bad things, by the way: Neoslavery. Like every other concept in this post, the topic deserves its own book. Luckily there is one: the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction, Douglas A. Blackmon’s Slavery By Another Name. No brief summary of this convincingly documented book could do it justice, but here’s a teaser: Human beings were no longer bought and sold; they were leased. By the tens of thousands, for decades.
When coal mines, quarries, factories, railroads, lumber camps, brickyards or farm plantations needed workers, officials would swoop into an area, arrest men over the age of around twelve for charges like vagrancy, and convict them. Sentences always included large, unpayable fines, and the men were taken away to work off their “debts” under unspeakable conditions. It was rigged so that the indentured servitude lasted for years, or until death for many. The scope and the details of the system are mind-boggling.
Bottom line: The Jim Crow era, in the century following the Civil War, was as shameful as slavery. (Slavery was an execrable institution for millennia before America existed; Jim Crow, sadly, was very much American.) Admirers included the worst people on earth; proof abounds that Jim Crow America inspired the Third Reich’s architects of the heinous Final Solution to their “Jewish Problem”. Hitler and his henchmen studied and emulated the implementation of race hatred through US legal mechanisms (compare the Nuremberg Race Laws to criminalizing miscegenation in 30 of the 48 states) after slavery’s official abolition. The patina of legal authority helped keep any foes the Nazis might have had at bay until it was too late.
The Sinister Sequences, or Why Cluelessness Matters
The point here is not that all Caucasians are inherently hateful or bad, of course. Those who are, however, have found demagoguery very lucrative. One reason is that too many of us have no idea about the subject matter of this post.
This really matters. Ignorance sets the stage for fear, the demagogue’s favorite tool. Absent the facts, almost anything or anyone can be cast as The Problem. Then, hate can stroll right in. This is not the “I-hate-Brussels-sprouts” kind of hate; this is blinding, irrational hate that is personal. Who benefits? Only the demagogue. This sinister sequence gravely harms everyone but the demagogue, who finds it irresistible because it works.
Race is the ultimate Us vs. Them (see post of 2/19/19), however. Those people are responsible for all problems – theirs and ours. Luckily, one can spot demagogues by their rhetoric. Lately, they’ve seized upon their two greatest threats to our society: being “woke” and “critical race theory”. They can’t stop saying either one. Whether unprompted or in response to any mention of racial justice, demagogues eagerly knock down their two favorite straw men.
The sequence at work for decades regarding race has been especially sinister. It perpetuates itself: Segregate; denigrate; then stigmatize. Repeat. Specifically, when the stigma is believed widely enough to stick, segregation and the rest simply flow. Marginalization ensues, preventing families from attaining financial or personal security for generations.
Less fancy wording makes clear these are the oldest tricks in the book: Deny certain people decent jobs and call them lazy; deny them education and call them stupid; force them to live crammed together in poverty and complain about their bad neighborhoods. And so forth. It’s OK to let some superstars do well; a certain few spectacularly so. Even for them, there can be a price to pay – the sense that you are the exception being used to prove the racist rule.
Why This Black History Month?
Getting back to the present, why did all these things especially resonate this year when so much of this is nothing new?
Indeed, for years, I’ve wondered whether folks who feel the wrong side won the Civil War, yet piously sing “Amazing Grace” on Sunday morning, have any idea what had made the hymn’s author a “wretch”.
This February’s musings, though, involved fellow Caucasians who know the right side won the Civil War, but seem oblivious to much of what has occurred from then to now.
Thoughts turned to conversations had with white friends and acquaintances. For example, with the sight of officer Derek Chauvin snuffing out the life of George Floyd (with that smirk on his face, no less) emblazoned in my brain, I recalled people saying how disgusted they were by the images on screen. Not the images of the cold-blooded murder, you understand, but of knuckleheads skipping out of K-marts with televisions and sneakers.
Outraged they were, and frightened by the (overwhelmingly peaceful) protests that erupted in the wake of Floyd’s death – which they seemed to confuse with the looting. My brain juxtaposed these sentiments with an unforgettable brief exchange during coverage of the protests: Reporter: “What do you say to all the people worried about this unrest?” Protester: [incredulous] “Well, white people are doing the worrying, and we black people are doing the dying. What else is new?”
A Brief Aside
Is it necessary to say that, of course, vandalism and theft are not OK and should also be prosecuted? If so, then it’s also worth mentioning this: A much higher percentage of the few who tossed Molotov cocktails under police cars are being brought to justice than all those whose brazen criminal conduct caused the devastating financial carnage of 2008’s Great Recession.
For a nation so sensitive to property damage, it should be a national scandal that precisely one banker received jail time in the US. Then there are the individuals trusted to rate securities who knowingly slapped AAA grades on junk. But, I digress.
Back to Why This Black History Month?
Do a quick word association with the phrase “race riot” and the majority of responses will be Watts in 1965, or Detroit or Newark in 1967. Not a glimmer of recognition is likely to be found of the unrelenting racial terror and violence aimed at Blacks by Whites that preceded (and undoubtedly had a cumulative role in provoking) Watts, Detroit, and Newark. Or that, to this day, white people are doing the worrying and black people are doing the dying. Cluelessness precludes the context and perspective needed.
That’s nothing new. What seems kind of new in 2022, though, beyond the usual passive acceptance of history’s whitewashing, is a dogged, active, almost desperate pursuit of ignorance. Ignorance is the stated goal, and knowledge is the enemy. Lately, we have the specter of teachers, school board members, librarians, election officials and other public servants fearing for their lives for doing their jobs and speaking plain truth.
It’s bad to not know. It’s worse to not try to know. It’s worse yet to not want to know. This, however, is active, proud, explicit advocacy for ignorance. It’s lying, and wanting to be lied to. Unsurprisingly, the “advocacy” bears little resemblance to rational debate. They can’t prove that facts are false, so they just attack those presenting the facts.
That’s not to say falsehood advocates can’t be clever. It’s strategic genius to cast the fight as being whether parents can have any say over what’s taught in school, for example. Of course, parents have a role in curriculum, but that role can’t be to insist their children be shielded from knowledge. Yet, this was the difference in Virginia’s last race for governor. “Parents’ Rights!” is a much more appealing rally cry than “Keep our Kids Dopey like Us!” or “Teach ‘em the Lies We Need!”
With startling clarity, the last thing these parents want is for their children to be taught the truth in school. Nope, slaves were treated like family. The Civil War was really the War of Northern Aggression. It was fought over states’ rights, you see, not slavery. All these minorities have to do is work hard, but they won’t do it. All this affirmative action crap is unfair. In fact, we’re the victims here. Oh, how I long for a color-blind society!
Calling All Patriots
Here’s one more reflection that ran through this white guy’s brain during and since Black History Month. It was the iconic scene from the movie A Few Good Men. Tom Cruise’s JAG officer, Lt. Kaffee, cross-examining Jack Nicholson’s Col. Jessup, has asked whether he ordered the Code Red.
Jessup: I’ll answer the question. You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I’m entitled to them.
Jessup: You want answers?!
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessup: You can’t handle the truth!
Actually, we can handle the truth; we must. Averting our eyes from the truth does not alter reality; it just hampers our ability to cope with it.
Our choice is not between being ”woke”, or patriotic. It’s between loving America enough to consider all of its history (including the painful parts), in order to unleash all of its incredible potential – or not. Real patriots categorically reject what keeps America from attaining its full promise. They repudiate the sinister sequence of Ignorance>Fear>Hate.
Ignorance is not bliss; it’s misery. Centuries of needless misery aren’t over just yet. The FBI is hot on the trail of those responsible for a wave of bomb threats at more than one-third of the nation’s 101 historically Black colleges and universities throughout this Black History Month. (And why did America need HBCUs? Oh…) How’d you enjoy those Senate confirmation hearings for soon-to-be Justice Jackson? Black lives mattering is a controversial notion?
This is not a call for white people to wallow in guilt or self-loathing. Rather, the suggestion is actually to mean what we say when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance:
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: One Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Then behave like we mean it. Imagine what we could achieve together if we simply ensured that every American family knew they had a real, reasonable shot at success.
Time To Unshackle Ourselves
America’s true greatness lies in the liberty, justice, and opportunity it offers. (No wonder we have immigration challenges.) Yet, utterly at odds with such lofty core values, there’s been this tragic, senseless interweaving of white supremacy. Why not rid ourselves of the latter by discarding what has never belonged? Could there be a better way to celebrate our 250th birthday on July 4, 2026?
Pipe dream? Maybe not. A quarter-page ad in the real estate section of a recent Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer led with “This Ad Won’t End Discrimination In Real Estate. People Will.” Continuing:
“If recent events have taught us anything, it’s this: we have more work to do. Racism is real, tragically so. Discrimination in all its forms still casts a long shadow in this country, and too many are being denied the opportunities that all Americans deserve.” There follows a description of the group’s code of ethics, and then:
“As the Bucks County [PA] Association of Realtors we believe that fairness is worth fighting for, and we won’t stop until the fight is won.” Then, in bold, there’s an urging that any discrimination be reported to hud.gov/fairhousing. From a segment of an industry once in the middle of restrictive covenants and redlining, it’s a step.
Is a quarter millennium long enough to wait before fulfilling the promise of our American Experiment and its truths, self-evident since 1776? It’s certainly long past time to undo completely the horrendous mistakes flowing from that deal with the Devil in 1877.
Ken Bossong
© 2022 Kenneth J. Bossong
