White America has a long memory when it comes to its pride, but a short memory when it comes to its shame.
Declaration of Independence? It’s history; remember it.
The fact that several signers of the “all men are created equal” phrase —including Thomas Jefferson, who penned it — owned slaves and were clearly racist? It’s history. Get over it.
The revolutionary war brought on, largely, by aftermath of the Tea Party, which was over taxation without representation? It’s history, and it has a lot of relevance for today. Respect it.
The fact that many of the people fighting against taxation without representation owned slaves? It’s history, and it has no relevance for today. Forget it.
The Constitution? Most valued part of our past, our foundational principles, our heritage. It’s history, remember it.
The fact that the Constitution allowed states to make it so that only white male property owners to vote, disenfranchising property owners? It’s history, forget it.
Etc.
And in South Carolina, resting place of the gunned-down Walter Scott, and in the midst of a long string of racist crimes against blacks, there’s a new wrinkle.
I’ve heard from several white people who have insisted, lately, that I forget about our racist past — that I forget about slavery; that I forget about the white-against-black race riots; that I forget about segregation; that I forget about all of the unarmed black individuals shot and mistreated by law enforcement; that I forget about a long history of racism that happens to this day in the realm of medical care, employment, social environments, law enforcement, the education system, the justice system, and literally every part of US society we’ve studied.
It’s in the past, they insist (or at least, 69% of them), even though it’s not.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQdMgtncpoE[/youtube]
When you do that, you’re telling me to forget my history. You’re telling me to forget my ancestors, who were slaves (yes, I’ve traced back the genealogy back about as far back as it can go — on both sides of my family, there’s a prominent trend of black slave and Native American ancestry). You see, I respect the slaves Thomas Jefferson and George Washington owned FAR more than I respect either of those racist slave-owners who were so steeped in hypocrisy they were willing to fight for their freedom WHILE OWNING SLAVES (yeah, I know they freed them upon their deaths — I’ve been told that a zillion times and I still don’t see how that exempts them — it’s what you do when you’re alive that matters. Duh.)
When I say they were hypocritical racists, I’m not advocating some fringe theory or taking things to an unnecessary extreme. They were people who advocated for their own freedom while owning slaves. This makes them, literally, hypocritical racists.
You’re also telling me to forget men and women like Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, Booker T. Washington, WEB DuBois, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr., for starters. These people were among my heroes. I do not respect the “founding fathers” — I respect those who fought against the racist country they put in place. That’s just logic. Why would I go out of my way to celebrate hypocritical racists?
That’s my heritage, my past. That’s the history I see when I look in the mirror, while you bow to your Constitution and your Declaration of Independence.
And I live here, too. I am American, too. That history is not just my history — it is American history.
To add insult to injury, many have the gall to defend the Confederate flag and Confederate statues and Confederate street names in the name of history, but tell me to forget about a history of racism in this country. The same who get so enraged about September 11th that they insist on racial profiling at airports say I have to forget that, according to our best estimates, black people are twice as likely to be shot while unarmed as white people so far this year. Seriously?
This business of remembering has become the height of white privilege. Black people, it seems, are cordoned off from touching the past and told to “get over it,” while others are free to get so drunk on their heritage that they don’t see the people it so deeply wounded. And if they do, they are free to crumple their tears and throw them in a waste bucket of “it’s in the past.”
It’s bullshit. You don’t get to restrict the past to the way you want to remember it. You’re not going to get away with relegating a whitewashed version of our past to one month out of 12 in the year. No. As one of my favorite atheists, Langston Hughes, put it, “I, too, sing America.” You don’t get to make me your embarrassing little secret in the closet.
And how do you expect to do that, honestly, when you’re flaunting your racist history in my face — not only with the Confederacy, but also going back to our nation’s founders — every day, with flags and the demand to respect national symbols?
No. I’m sorry. You don’t get to lock me up in America’s closet. Black America is beautiful. Black America is wounded and bloody and marginalized. And Black America is full of pride. And Black America is America, too.
And it’s going to sit at the table with the rest of you, bloody wounds and pride and all. And I’m sorry, you don’t get to tape our mouths shut or perform any lobotomies.
And if you have a problem with that, you’re just going to have to get over it.
And maybe once you do, through the shame you’ll see the beauty we see in ourselves.
[Image Courtesy of QUOI Media Group under Creative Commons License]
Thank you for reading.