Racism

We're all aware that it exists; it's a good idea to read a powerful piece like this one now and then, just to remind ourselves of the ugly history that lies behind today's struggles for racial equality.

Click here for an excellent post on the subject by Denise Oliver Velez, at Daily Kos, entitled "My 'identity' can get me killed." She says:

I’m a black woman. I’m not a quiet one, or a passive one, and have spent most of my life fighting against racism and sexism and for civil and human rights. I'm uppity and proud of it. My opinions and actions have placed me in jeopardy of losing my life more than once. Over the course of the last 69 years I’ve lived though many of the phases of change in this—my country. My parents and grandparents raised me to never give up and to never abandon hope that things were getting better, bit by bit. I’m actually glad, at this point in my life to see the racial animus that infests us out in the open again, rather than being hidden from the public eye. Yes, I’m glad that some people in this nation elected a black man—twice—as POTUS. That election did not eliminate racism. In many ways it obfuscated it. What disturbs me is that some of those people who profess liberalism or progressivism keep ducking what is core to my view and experience of the world we live in, from my position as a woman of color.

She writes of how her great grandmother, Amelia ‘Milly’ Weaver, was born into slavery in Virginia. She was determined that her children would be educated, and they were. She tells how her grandfather and his brothers, with shotguns, faced down a group of white racists. Her grandfather Dennis was a Pullman porter -- and the black union of Pullman porters was not recognized by white trade unionists, but a strong belief in trade unions helped the family to relative prosperity. She tells of how her great uncle Joe, a doctor, "... went out and about on his medical rounds—always armed. My mom told me Aunt Martha used to walk through the house at night, barefoot, carrying a rifle—on defense." She says:

They never forgot where they came from and the perils they faced as a proud black family who no longer lived in the South. They knew that racism in America had no geography. Those black folks who prospered knew that they were targets of hate. Black families in America knew about the Tulsa Massacre and the Destruction of Black Wall Street. They knew of the other black communities wiped out by racist, envious, resentful whites. They knew of the lynchings, rapes, and cross burnings. Yet, they persevered and multiplied. They never returned the hate, but were mighty particular about which white folks they could trust.

Her father was a pilot who flew with the famous Tuskegee Airmen, but even with that elite group, racism presented a mortal danger:

During a break in training he went home to Chicago and returned to Alabama on a bus with a childhood buddy, another airman, also black, but there was one difference. Daddy looked too white. The two buddies, leaving the bus, were spied by a group of 10 or 12 rednecks, who seeing them together, arm in arm – both in their uniforms, spat out epithets of "nigger lover" and proceeded to try to kill my dad and his friend. Two against many was impossible odds, and my father – who took the brunt of the attack, was hospitalized. A rumor got back to the base that my father had been killed. The Airmen were ready for battle; they broke out equipment from the armory and were headed into town to extract revenge. My father was quickly removed from the hospital on a stretcher to prove that he hadn’t been killed to quell the revolt. For this incident, my father was court-martialed for "inciting a riot". Years later, his record was cleared.

She goes on to say:

As a result of those trumped up charges my father, like many other black men, did not benefit from the G.I. Bill. The program was essentially a massive affirmative action welfare program for white men which built what we now refer to as “the white middle class.” Years later, with the help of a lawyer, he finally got his due.

More after the jump.

She tells of her childhood in Queens, New York City:

After attending sixth grade in Hollis, I wound up going to a new junior high school in Springfield Gardens, Queens. I was bused there along with several other gifted black students from my local public school. The first day of school there was an ugly race riot. The nice working-class white folks of Springfield Gardens didn’t want us N-words at their school. Life was horrid for all of us who were bused there. We faced open racism daily, from students and teachers. As a result, I joined the local NAACP youth group. We fought back against the open racism at area schools.

Like all other African-Americans in New York City in the 1980s, she became aware of Donald Trump at the time of The Central Park Five controversy:

In the ‘80s my mom was teaching at a school in Howard Beach, Queens. She was the only black teacher there. Howard Beach was the scene of the death of 23-year-old Micheal Griffeth, who was fleeing a group of racist white teens and was struck and killed by a car. By the end of the ‘80s the black and Puerto Rican community in New York City was reeling from the Central Park jogger case. The witch hunt against the defendants was spearheaded by Donald Trump. More virulent northern racism ensued.

She discusses a term we've started to hear more about recently, "identity politics":

The term identity politics has been used in political discourse since at least the 1970s.[3] One aim of identity politics has been for those feeling oppressed to articulate their felt oppression in terms of their own experience by a process of consciousness-raising. For example, in their germinal statement of black feminist identity politics, the Combahee River Collective said that "as children we realized that we were different from boys and that we were treated different—for example, when we were told in the same breath to be quiet both for the sake of being 'ladylike' and to make us less objectionable in the eyes of white people. In the process of consciousness-raising, actually life-sharing, we began to recognize the commonality of our experiences and, from the sharing and growing consciousness, to build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression."

Identity politics as a mode of organizing is closely connected to the concept that some social groups are oppressed (such as women, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, etc.); that is, individuals belonging to those groups are by virtue of their identity more vulnerable to forms of oppression such as cultural imperialism, violence, exploitation, marginalization, or powerlessness. Identity politics starts from analyses of oppression to recommend a restructuring of the existing society.

Of problems in a Trump/Pence America, she says:

We can’t predict the future, and no matter how strong we are, we know that we are targets. We had the confidence that our big tent party—no matter the loss of the election—would remain a safe harbor from the Trumps, Pences, and the Klanvention. But the current rumblings leading in the opposite direction are worrisome. The right has launched, yet again, its rants against “identity politics” and “political correctness.” That right-wing assault has also found a voice among some elements of the “left.” I hear far too often a “left” push back against immigrants, against feminism, against Muslim refugees, against the defining and acceptance of “white privilege.” Talk of privilege or white supremacy can get you falsely accused of ‘hating white people.’

The battle now rages between and among Democrats, slyly egged on by vile voices from the supremacist right—like this National Review piece titled, “Can Democrats Quit Identity Politics?” It was written by Rich Lowry and seconded by so-called liberals like Mark Lilla in his New York Times piece on “The End of identity Liberalism.”

She quotes a passage from Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "Letter from a Birmingham jail," citing King's concern about "white moderates":

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

She concludes:

I walked away from the socialist and communist parties here in the U.S. because of their inability to deal with racism. In their book, class always trumped my race and my gender. I threw in my lot with Democrats, no matter how flawed (and there are plenty of flaws) because of the ever-expanding tent. I refuse to waste one second of my time chasing the people who knowingly voted for policies and behavior that deny my humanity.

Those who want my body and reproductive rights suppressed.

Those who advocate forced conversion of LGBT folks.

Those who want to build walls, not bridges.

Those who are both Islamophobic and anti-Semitic.

Those to whom I am an N-word.

Those who want to make America white again, who will never admit that this entire edifice was built on stealing the land and attempting to wipe out its original peoples.

As long as my identity can get me (and mine) killed in this country, I will continue to fight those of you who want to change course while donning blinders, refusing to see what has just happened. The white supremacist right has to be fought by all of us. We must call it out, and refusing to look away from the stark reality that some of you have only recognized recently (and others of you are still denying) won’t make it go away.

It’s real. I’ll be damned if I will give up. There are more of us in the rainbow than there are of them, even though they’ve stacked the deck.

If my great grand mother Milly could survive enslavement and fight for her dreams— so can I. I don’t give a damn if I live to see the end of the journey, but I’ll be damned if a bunch of bigots are gonna make me turn back.

Moving forward together is stronger than all the forces of the haters.

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?