Quick Hitter

With elections approaching, President Obama's "otherness" has once again become a topic of discussion.

I can't really generate enough interest to write too much on a topic I've discussed far too many times, but this New York times article gives a breakdown of some of the tactics. If you check out the article, I'm sure this paragraph will jump out at you just like it did for me:

The latest controversy over Mr. Obama’s identity involves — once again — Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who this week accused Mr. Obama, whose father was a Kenyan economist and spoke out against the occupying force in his country, of exhibiting “Kenyan, anticolonial behavior.”


Now, I'm no expert on history, or politics, or pretty much anything. I have a little knowledge, but I wouldn't call myself an expert. That said, when did "anti-colonial behavior" become a negative? Did I miss the memo that said that colonialism was a good thing? Does that mean that the so-called forefathers of America were displaying regrettable "anti-colonial behavior"?

What the hell?

It's like folks are just saying anything these days and hoping something sticks. Reminds me a lot of the actual campaign. Seriously, the day when it becomes cool to colonize countries is the day when it becomes cool to enslave humans, and that's officially the day where this lunatic starts capping back. Because Lord knows that if they try to bring slavery back, they are going for the black folks first.

Seriously though, anti-colonial is bad now? Somebody who agrees with Newt, please explain what he was talking about here.

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Don't Know What To Think

Some of you may have heard that it's been revealed that well-known Civil Rights photographer Ernest Withers was an informant for the FBI as he snapped the pictures that would be his legacy. Check out the Memphis Commercial Appeal stories complete with a host of related information.

I must admit, I'm deeply conflicted.

This expose is pretty damning. If you read the Commerical-Appeal's information Withers' had no problem supplying all kinds of information to the FBI and apparently went out of his way to provide as much damning personal information as he could discover. Withers may have been capturing some of the most powerful moments of the movement on film, but he was also capturing many members at their most vulnerable and delivering that information to the FBI. The files are filled not just with details, but also with his own thoughts and speculations on the motivations and character defects of the people he encountered.

First off, I want to acknowledge that I don't have much trust for the FBI today, and I have no trust for the FBI of the past. So, these files could be exagerating what Withers did, and I find it somewhat suspicious that he was "outed" by a former FBI agent. That said, there is no denying that if the FBI is framing Withers, they are doing a bang up job because I don't think I've seen a more troubling collection of information about a prominent black icon. Well, maybe the news released about James Bevel was more disturbing, but only because of the nature of the crimes he was accused of commiting.

My mistrust of the FBI, along with my questions about the motivations of the Commercial Appeal and that paper's own history with the movement, make me unsure about how to view Withers. I find myself wanting to find some sort of information that will exonerate him from these accusations, and in the back of my mind I don't want this to be true. It feels like this sort of betrayal is an indictment of the movement as a whole, and just one more blackmark on what many blacks think of as their shinining accomplishment in this country.

Honestly, that's the real problem. Black folks, through the efforts of the school system and the media, have had our entire contributions to America reduced to slavery, Jim Crow and Civil Rights. That's how we have been taught to define ourselves, and while the first two items generate an endless reserve of anger, the last one is often a source of pride. This mindset leads us to reject negative information about the movers and shakers of the movement and cling to the most positive of portrayals.

That is a mistake.

Black people have contribued far more to America then any historian has ever been able to catalogue, but we also need to embrace the idea that flawed actors can still be heroes. Human beings can do good even if they themselves aren't admirable people in other ways.

For too long black people have tried to create this mask of perfection to present to the white world because we are afraid that they will judge us too harshly if they see the reality. It's an offshoot of the common belief of the past that black folks had to "earn" their rights as American citizens instead of having them bestowed upon us at our births. It's a stupid, stupid way to live.

Ernest Withers apparently was a snitch. Nobody knows exactly how he started his career as a snitch, or what his motivation was for supplying the FBI with information. We don't know how he felt about his actions and we don't know how he felt about the movement that he spent so much time chronicling. All we have are these FBI files and the amazing and powerful photos he took of those times.

It's up to us to consider every thing before we decide what to think.







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Sweep, Sweep, Sweeping

America is a nation of closet cleaners.

One of the abiding cliches found in movies and network television shows is the conniving child who, when ordered to clean up his room, instead comes up with a bright idea. Rather than put things where they belong, the child crams them all into the closet, only to have those same toys and clothes come tumbling out at the most inopportune time. The child is then stuck with an even bigger mess than before, and the added stress of angry parents.

See where I'm going with this?

When it comes to issues of race, Americans have become so adept at sweeping things under the rug that they've convinced themselves that the floor is actually made with those unsightly lumps.

Take Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, who is angling for a presidential nomination in 2012. Barbour recently unveiled a recollection of how the South became majority Republican that was so completely and utterly divorced from reality that I wouldn't have been surprised if he was high on 'shrooms when he said it.

He basically said that the people of his generation--mind you Barbour is 63-- rejected the Democratic party because they just couldn't abide by the enduring racism of southern Democrats, and the Republican party provided a refuge. He downplayed the well-known "Southern Strategy" which entailed Republicans openly playing to the racial bigotry rampant in the South to gain votes. Nope, the move to Republicans was all about embracing equality, not protecting a supremacy built on lies.

Those are some kick ass shrooms, right?

I don't know why Barbour trotted out this alternate version of reality. Maybe, possibly, he did switch from the Democratic party because of concerns about the racism among Southern Dixiecrats, but there is no way he examined history and truly believes that most folks made the switch for the same reason.

All he had to do was consider the rhetoric used by Republicans to draw in supporters to see the truth. But, it's a good bet that Barbour has purposely avoided examining history's ledger and instead decided to draw on his own anecdotes and faulty memory to create his new reality. Life is easier that way, you know?

Many folks don't want to deal with the problems of the past before they march boldly into the future. They'd prefer to just sweep all those ugly details aside and get on to the fun stuff. After all if the room looks clean, why do you need to go looking in every crook and crevice to make sure it actually is clean? That's seems like a lot of work for very little pay off, right?

Wrong. Clean is clean. Shunting problems to the side doesn't solve them, it only delays dealing with them. Refusing to acknowledge the true history of this country, and deal with the effects of that history in modern times, is the reason why only limited progress can be made with regards to racial issues. It's like putting Old Spice on a funky body. You just create a new, more creative brand of funk.

Barbour and his audacious lies or faulty memories is a big part of the problem. It's particularly galling because he's one of those people who loves to propose sweeping policy changes based on his bad information, and that's a danger to me and everybody else. Before he wants to solve the world's problems as president, he needs to figure out how to solve his own problem with discussing the reality of this country's racial history.

Sweep around his own front door, before he sweeps around mine.



 




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Ignorance is Bliss

Have you ever learned something that you immediately wished you could forget?

Some tidbit of information that changes your entire view of a situation? My best friend and I often joke that when women meet men they should keep information about their past to themselves no matter how much a man may beg and plead for the dirt. Both of us can remember times when we've developed feelings for a woman only to have her let some nugget about her past drop in casual conversation that causes a terrible sinking feeling in our guts. When this happens it's hard not to wonder if the woman's whole persona, or rather the persona we created for her, is based on a series of lies and fabrications.

You can never unlearn the truth.

I thought about that recently while reading a book by Douglas Blackmon called "Slavery by Another Name" on how de-facto slavery continued in America long after the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War. I'm just beginning the book, but already I've learned stuff that's made it hard for me to see the world in the same light. How many northern conglomerates, like U.S. Steel, were built on the backs of black men sold into indentured servitude because they happened to be walking down the wrong street on the wrong day? Not only did black folks have to contend with widespread domestic terrorism in the form of the KKK and other groups, but now I learn that they had to deal with the disappearance of loved ones who spent some of their most productive working years slaving in dark coal mines to re-build the Southern economy that was decimated by the war that granted them their freedom.

Can you imagine that existence?

The book's author notes that many black people have contacted him and thanked him for providing them with a reason for the slow march of progress in the black community in the decades following Reconstruction. For them, there was always the hidden fear that all the lies told about black people's inherent inferiority were somehow true, and the proof was in our failure to advance once the slaveowner's manacles were loosed. In his book, Blackmon reveals that those manacles were actually in place up until World War II in a variety of forms.

The thing is, while it's good to learn these types of stories because it fleshes out my understanding of the lives my ancestors lived, it is still jarring. It's tough to know that authorities used crimes like vagrancy, or loud talking, or curfew violations to imprison black people, and then tacked on unfair fines to force them back into slavery. I wasn't ignorant about the venal nature of humans, but I was still shocked that I could live so long in this country and never really understand just how widespread and longstanding this practice once was.

More importantly, it has some uncomfortable similarities to our current prison system. I can't help but notice which crimes black prisoners are overwhelmingly incarcerated for, and how their bodies are used once they are imprisoned. I can't help but see the connection between vagrancy and loud talking and crack possession and three strikes laws.

Sadly, it's obvious that while some of the surface details have changed, the mindset and underlying aims of the power structure has not. I always suspected, but with this new information it's just been confirmed as truth.

And sometimes the truth doesn't set you free, it just weighs you down.





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