American Racism
If you think racism in America is a Southern problem, you are not paying attention. American racism has never been a Southern problem. Our federal government has always enforced racist norms. When Nat Turner rebelled, the federal government sent in the United States Navy to stop the uprising. Both the American Navy and Army were used to crush perhaps the greatest revolt against tyranny America has ever seen, the German Coast Uprising. The commissioners enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act were federal. Woodrow Wilson sent in federal troops during the 1919 riots in Washington, D.C….to quell Black folks attacked by white vigilantes. The Federal Bureau of Investigation targeted Dr. King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and they did it again with the Black Lives Matter movement. Federal force enforces racism.
It has always been so.
And it Matters Because…?
Because I’m weary of the idea that our culpability for American racism depends on whether our family personally enslaved laborers. It doesn’t. We have culpability as Americans. This is our group. America. Unless you don’t identify as an American. Then this post is not for you. You may have culpability as a member of another group, though.
You don’t like the strength of the word “culpable”? Substitute responsibility instead. As in, we carry responsibility as Americans for America’s actions. If that makes you chafe, consider: did you drop the bomb on Hiroshima? I mean, was your dad the pilot of the Enola Gay? No? So that sobering act doesn’t make you squirm? Or maybe you feel grief for America’s actions at My Lai or Abu Ghraib. Why? Were you there? It doesn’t have anything to do with you just because you’re American.
If I Try It On, It Feels Like…
To look at it another way, do you cheer at the Olympics for America? But if you aren’t the one breaking the tape at the finish line, what right do you have to identify with the team just because you’re American? Do you weep when Texans die in a flood? When a tornado devastates the mid-west? Is your heart with Hawaii? Are you proud of Jazz and Rock-n-Roll and the Blues and Kitty Hawk and Neil Armstrong and the Greatest Generation that defeated the Nazis? Can you feel tears forming when the colour guard passes with the flag because you are American?
If any of this feels familiar, then the only possible explanation for why we persist in refusing to identify with the American sins of slavery and racism is because we refuse to admit how embedded they have always been in America. They aren’t American, they can’t be. Or we would realize they must be ours grieve. Not just grieve. Like the outpouring of people eager to help Hawaii repair the devastation of the fire, ours also to repair.
American racism, FBI targets BLM, German Coast Uprising, racism, racism to reconciliation
emma
Ellen, no matter how much we say we understand, or how much we try to know our friends and neighbors who we may consider ‘different’ in any way from “us”, white people will never identify with what people of color feel or experience every day. We make feeble attempts; we go to racial reconciliation training; we make friends with those of other races and backgrounds – but the truth is that we will never reach a level of understanding that will put us in the shoes of “other”. How can we repair something that we have never ourselves experienced, let alone caused? We say to ourselves, that was a hundred years ago. But even now, as much as I know, and as much as I have read and experienced in my attempt to understand what people of color must feel, in my heart I know that will never truly happen. The mere realization and admission that this is true can certainly get us on the right road to some small understanding – dialogue surely will help us. That dialogue must never cease. We are all still a long way off. I only wish there was a fast track.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
Yes, admitting we can’t truly experience another’s trauma is key, I think, to letting go of our need to be in charge. I have come to believe in reparations funds that give the $ to those harmed for them to determine the best repair for the damage done. I know it sounds awkward—what Black folks? Who gets the $?—but people are figuring this out out all across the country. I’m hoping the Episcopal Dioceses I’m affiliated with will come to see the need for such funds, too. I’ve started setting aside $ for the time they establish the fund, to be ready. Thanks for walking with me on the journey of discernment.
Julia coggins
Well said Ellen. gogi Hee
Ellen Morris Prewitt
Thank you! 🙂
Joanne Corey
I know that my Irish and Italian fore-bearers were not considered to be really American or even white, despite their pale skin. (Their Catholicism didn’t help, either.) Because of their skin color, though, their children were able to be accepted. The members of my extended family who are Black, Asian, or indigenous Pacific Islander are sometimes assumed not to belong. Today is the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington. We should be further along the road than we are.
I grieve.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
I think this is the wildest thing about America’s belief in “the white race.” At various times in our history, people with white skin weren’t white. It makes it really hard to accept that the point is race and not a bigoted view of the superiority of your own group, however you choose to define that group.
Marie Bailey
Indeed, well said! What a perfect point you make. We (i.e., white Americans) are quick to embrace successes and victories because we are American, we are united in all the good things, but we quickly wash our hands of any of the horrible and tragic things our country has done. As usual, we whites try to have both ways.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
Both ways–exactly. ps. so glad the hurricane passed you by