LIVING IN THE BIG LIE

by Ruth A. Sheets

It is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the United States of America and the nation declares its reverence for Dr. King once more.  The irony is that only 12 days ago, white supremacists decided to attempt to take over our government on behalf of “White America.”  That, of course is completely antithetical to everything Dr. King stood for, but when a group of people is living a lie, it is hard to present any kind of reasonable argument they can hear. 

A book and article I read this weekend point out that people choose to live within lies.  The best part for them, they don’t even need to acknowledge that the lie has such an important role in their lives because the lie is so ubiquitous and often the origin is lost or has been misidentified.

The article I read is “Why Democrats Keep Losing Rural Counties Like Mine” by Bill Hogseth, December 1, 2020 in politico.com.  The Book is Red Summer, The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America by Cameron MCWhirter.  At first glance, it might seem these writings have nothing in common, but I suspect that with a little thought you can see that both are about one group and its incessant need for priority, even supremacy. 

In the politico article, rural Wisconsinites can’t seem to vote for Democrats any more because Democrats didn’t give them everything they felt and feel entitled to.  They jumped on the Trump train because his lies fed into their big lie.  Whatever has happened to them was caused by someone else, in particular the elites with the subtext, Blacks, immigrants, and others who just don’t understand them. 

The book presented the events of 1919 when white mobs all over America did their very best to inflict as much harm and fear as they could on Black citizens.  Why?  They believed Black people were just getting too uppity.  They were taking what white men were led to believe was their birthright.  Whites joined in killing-mobs because there is safety in numbers and one is less likely to be held accountable.  But really, the accountability they wanted was with their friends and neighbors who saw their brave stand against those awful people who are trying to usurp white power.  And, they knew they had the “law” with them. 

The difference between the rural whites of 1919 and those of the 21^st century is degree.  Now, white Americans don’t have to do harm to Black Americans in person, they just have to vote for and support a racist president and his entourage who would take care of those pesky folks who get every advantage while the rural white people  are in their rural county suffering.  The lie is still the same.  White people deserve the best of everything and Black Americans deserve only what is left over.

Few white people would actually say that out loud and most probably try hard not to think that, but it is buried deep in the white American psyche. 

It was no accident that I never learned about the white mob violence of 1919 and again the destruction of Tulsa’s Black community two years later.  We white students were expected to believe that Black people were often poor because of their own actions, laziness, and lack of motivation related to education.  We were fed the lie that the American civil war was about “states’ rights” and slavery was just a side issue.  Slavery was pretty good; slaves were fed and clothed for their work.

There are many who still believe the lie and continue to incorporate it in their actions.  We saw the result again on January 6, 2021.  The mobsters of that date were avowed white supremacists but if asked, they could not identify any ways they are actually superior to Black people or other persons of color.  They don’t have to defend their stand because they just know they’re superior.  They just know they deserve whatever they want.  If they say they won an election they clearly lost, they can righteously take over anyway. 

The rural voters of Wisconsin knew exactly what Donald Trump was, yet voted for him anyway.  It means they still maintain the lie and will likely pass it on to their children into the future.  It is comfortable to think/believe you are right and those others are wrong or irrelevant.  If you have a bunch of like-minded residents of the lie, you can do almost anything and be furious if someone wants to hold you accountable for it as the attackers of our Capitol may be.  The mob participants paid no price in 1919 for the hundreds of lynchings and murders they perpetrated. because the lie was far more pervasive then.  Even the governments supported their actions and officials often participated. 

Lies can feel good if they reenforce what we already think or want to believe about ourselves and our place in the world.  However, lies are destructive.  They keep us from seeing who we really are and what we can positively contribute to our communities, our nation, and humanity.  Lies let us hide behind walls that divide and don’t really protect. 

The big lies are also an attempt to shield us from being afraid, but they actually make people more afraid.  The lie can promote fear of us in others which could put us at risk in the future (or we think that’s what could happen). 

Dr. King and so many others have called out the lie.  He directed our attention to systemic racism which kept Black Americans from fair housing and good jobs.  He showed how war disproportionately impacts poor people and people of color.  That was clear in 1919 too, when Black soldiers were not accorded the same respect as white soldiers. 

Dr. King pointed out that the criminal justice system is inherently unjust for Black citizens, perhaps only a little better today than in 1919.

The citizens of the rural counties of Wisconsin know of Dr. King and probably invoke his name at this time of year (if they don’t actually resent him).  They have at least heard the “I Have A Dream” section of Dr. King’s most famous speech, but have they considered why Dr. King would have had to hold these ideas as a dream?  If they think it through they might see that it was a dream because it was so far from reality at the time King described it.  I can’t help but wonder what their dream is for their children.  Is it similar to Dr. King’s or the same as the dream of Mr. Trump and his supporters, power over rather than power to do good. 

There were white people who stood up for Black citizens back in 1919 but not enough.  There are more white citizens demanding rights for Black people today, but not enough.  Too many of us still live with or in the lie.  Maybe this Dr. King Day, we need to break out of the lie and live with the pain of the truth for a while.  We need to hear how we can act on behalf of those whom white America has stomped down for generations.  This could be the year when enough white people stand with Dr. King instead of just invoking his name.

WHITE PRIVILEGE

 by Ruth A. Sheets

This past week, National Public Radio (NPR) presented interviews with white and Black voters separately.  I noticed some interesting differences between those interviews. 

The white interviewees were to a person, Trump supporters. They claimed “promises made, promises kept.”  I hear that line often, but no interviewer I have heard has asked them to clarify which promises made and kept.  In fact, there is no depth of questions or follow-ups at all, as if these people are children who cannot find depth in what they are thinking.  The interviewers allowed the interviewees to spout Trump phrases like “it is the Democrats who are causing all the violence, the Democrats are against the police, it’s Trump who really cares about us.”  The latter is possibly true, but even that is not supported with much evidence.  Where is the follow-up like “What gave you the idea that it is Democrats who are responsible for the violence, which Democrats would you say are against the police and how do you know, what makes you think Mr. Trump supports you?”  One of the interviewed said how she likes Trump even though her farm is suffering from the trade problems.  Trump is going to make it better, she added.

The interview with the Black persons was really quite different.  That may be because they were not monolithically attached to a particular candidate.  The man interviewed, hinted he might support a third party candidate, but not which one.  These interviewees were asked their response to what is going on and what the upcoming elections could do for the Black community.  They were encouraged to explain and clarify.  Their answers were not blaming, but looking for answers themselves.  The women said they would vote for Biden-Harris with reservations and described those reservations.  Their concerns were about the protests and that they demand and end to the systemic racism in the nation.  The interview was a bit uncomfortable for me as a White person who feels somewhat helpless in the face of their honest critique.  My discomfort with the all-White interview was the lack of depth and the unsupported loyalty to a known racist while blaming the victims for their opposition to the racism.

 The difference here shows part of the divide we as Americans face.  White Americans interviewed by journalists have rarely been expected to defend their thinking or actions, particularly if they had some prominence.  For generations, what White men wanted or said, especially if they had money and power, even in a small sphere, was gospel.  No one asked the white murderers of the African-Americans whom they lynched, why they did it.  Actually, they were rarely even charged.  All kinds of excuses were made up if it was even suggested these White men had committed crimes.  We know the lines, they were protecting their women.  They were securing their way of life.  Those N****rs deserved it; they were getting too uppity.  Those White folks never had to look deeper at their own fear that maybe they were not the be-all-to-end-all they wanted everyone to believe they were.  Keeping others down could make them feel bigger, smarter if they even thought about it at all. 

 This approach to White life has not disappeared over time.  The current White emperor is now in the white house.  He has surrounded himself with like-minded white men and a few women so they can keep up each other’s courage and share new ways to discriminate while calling it something else.  He sprinkled a few Black persons like Ben Carson into positions for which they are completely unqualified so he can point to them – look at the great things I have done for Black people.  “There is no president who has done more for Black people than me.”  His White supporters smile because now they know they are off the hook and are not racist at all, their leader said so.  Donald Trump isn’t racist either.  Those Democrats should stop saying he is.

The uncertainty and lack of trust expressed by the NPR Black interviewees is real and comes from a history of betrayal, exclusion, abuse, and dismissal.  Those in positions of power whose responsibility it is and was to protect  and serve the American people  have decided over time that Black Americans (as well as other people of color) are not worthy of that protection and service.

 White Americans have the privilege of actually blaming Black people without evidence.  We can claim things that are untrue because that’s how it has always been done.  Even White people with few resources or little education are heard with more weight than Black Americans at any income or education level.  White people in power will not acknowledge this because they honestly believe, again, without evidence, that they are the ones experiencing the racism by those Black “rioters,” those Black “troublemakers.”   It has been said that to those who have privilege, equality seems like oppression, and a lot of White people are feeling oppressed right now as people point out their privilege. 

 It is time journalists who choose to interview members of a privileged group in whatever setting go against trend and dig deeper, even if it means introducing or reintroducing the interviewee to an uncomfortable concept.  White people, in general, do not appreciate our privilege.  It comes to us at birth and we breathe it in with the air.  We see it in so many places we hardly notice except when we think we have been cheated in some way, not gotten our due.  White Americans have learned to find someone to blame for any exclusion:  not getting into the college we want, not making the deal we should have made, not winning the contest we should have won, and most of all, not getting the job we applied for.  When the person who got it is Black, we are privileged to be furious and to proclaim it to the heights.  Does anyone ever ask us “Why do you think you should have that rather than the person who now has it?  Not likely!  We commiserate and cry “token” or “affirmative action.”  And, we feel furious, then, resentful because we lost to someone we have been taught to consider inferior.

 To emphasize  Donald trump’s ignorance of his own white privilege, on September 5, 2020, he ordered that no Federal agency can use government money to pay for trainings that address white privilege, or anything that deals with race at all.  That is the cry of a scared White guy (SWG) who is afraid to face the fact that everything he has, came to him because of white privilege.  He would never have been able to get the loans he got for his properties.  He would never have been a public media figure.  His name would never have been worth money on the international market, and he would never have been elected president had he not been white.  That is really scary.  Donald Trump has few skills but lots of family money he could throw around to get whatever he wanted, particularly unwarranted media notice.  Now his power gives him that access. 

 Mr. Trump did not find out about these sensitivity trainings on his own because it is certain he never participated in one himself.  He was clearly informed by a Scared White Guy (SWG) who was “forced” to take the course.  He, possibly she was offended that anyone would even imply that he/she didn’t get where they are now totally on their own personal merit, but that whiteness most likely played a part, probably a pretty significant part.

 Black Americans know what they have been through.  They know about “the talk.”  They know about the looks they get in stores and the rejections they receive that are clearly based on race.  Houses and apartments have been denied them due to their race.  They have been the victims of people crossing to the other side of the street to avoid passing too close.  They have felt the pain of being considered inferior and informed they only got the job, the assignment, the place in college, etc. because of affirmative action.  And, they know their White colleagues resent them for it and regularly show it.

 It is we White people who don’t know.  We can read about the 400 years of physical and social bondage, the fear of but need  for the police, the prisons stuffed with Black husbands, sons, and brothers.  But, we cannot feel what that constant fear and rejection does to a person.  We can say “Black Lives Matter,” but we often feel the push of “all lives matter.”  Donald Trump and his base don’t want to be called racists, but generally do what racists do.  They believe white is better than all even though science tells us all that skin color determines nothing but skin color and the slight tendency to a few diseases.

 So, White people, we need to unite in listening to Black people, to believing their accounts of life among White people, in working to change our own attitudes and beliefs to move from our cultural racism.  We must take and support those training classes that expose white privilege and cause us to look at White privilege head on.  We need to take White off as the default setting for our lives.  We may not have created the white privilege society we live in, but we are certainly benefiting from it, yes, even the poor White folks among us. 

 It is time we work with Black Americans to move us all toward equality and fairness. White Americans are obsessed with the “pledge of Allegiance” but many of us forget the final words “liberty and justice for all,” not just White conservative Americans

 White privilege is real and impacts every person in this nation.  The task is to acknowledge it in all its forms, then note and face our fear and uncertainty, then stand up with Black Americans and shout to the heavens, “Black Lives Matter, and we are going to prove it by encouraging Black people to lead us all into a future where there will be no privilege because we will have lived up to our Truth that all of us are created equal and endowed by our creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  OK, fellow White Americans, take a deep breath, I know we are scared, but we can do this.  Remember, this is “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

MOVE THE STATUES

By Ruth A. Sheets

It's time to acknowledge that the Civil War was really totally about slavery, slavery in one part of the country, which affected and infected the whole.  It is also time we remove from public spaces, the statues of the men who decided that slavery was more important than the union.  We now need union more than ever. 

It is also time we as a nation acknowledge that we have seen and understood African-Americans as less than human and that this vision keeps us from truly knowing African-Americans as our equals in every way. 

For these reasons and so many more, the statues must go.  They belong in museums, cemeteries and national parks, where people can remember that human beings can and should be better than the worst impulses our biases and prejudices would give us.  We can remember that people can be brave in causes that are unjust, but should not be celebrated for that.

Perhaps removing the stone and bronze remembrances can allow our nation to acknowledge our racist past and a present built on the beliefs and prejudices, as well as the money that came from a slavery economy and its Jim Crow aftermath. 

There are many among us who continue to see African-Americans as inferior and design laws, neighborhoods, poverty programs, education systems, a justice system, and economic policies to prove it.  White people declare "We are not racist," without ever having to examine why it is our kids are in the "good" schools and they get in the "good" colleges and live in the "good" neighborhoods.

Do we White Americans really deserve all our privileges while so many Black Americans languish in deep poverty, isolated from technology, trapped in schools with inadequate resources, stuck in food deserts, where there is never sufficient money to demand a livable environment.  Do we really think all we have, came our way  just because we worked so hard?  Of course most of us do.  Why not?  We are told that all our lives.

The statues of Confederate soldiers are a reminder to Black Americans that those rebels are more revered than they are and more valued by the culture. 

Those statues must be moved from our public spaces to remind us that black lives do matter and that we as a nation need to start living as though they do.