Here, Tim is talking to his white Southern great aunt who has asked him if he thinks there is going to be a race war. Rather than answer yes or no, he says,
...we're already in a race war. It started several hundred years ago when white folks decided to exterminate Native Americans, and then continued when whites opted for the importation of slaves from Africa, ripping people from their homes, their cultures, their religions, their continent and bringing them to the land we were now on, so as to make Europeans wealthier. This was not what my aunt had in mind, needless to say, when she thought of a race war.
"No," she interjected, "I don't mean all that."The losers are supposed to let it go. Like the many American Southerners who have let go of the Civil War.
"All that" is the term whites tend to use instead of that other one: the one people of color tend to favor when speaking of the same thing. What's that other one again? Oh yeah. Genocide. Far preferable, "all that" pretty much sums up, in two little words, what most whites think of the extermination or enslavement of nonwhite peoples: as in, "Why are you bringing up all that." or "All that happened a long time ago; why can't they just let it go?" (pp. 57-58)
Well you might not mean all that, I noted, but from the perspective of black folks, which in her case was who she feared, all that, is the only logical starting point for any discussion about race war. Fact is, the war is on, we started it, and the only problem most whites seemed to be having was that the targets had decided to fight back. They apparently had forgotten or never learned the rules: the ones that said we were always supposed to win, to get our way, to run the show.(p. 58)Let's see. Who ended up victorious in most of the Hollywood cowboy and Indian movies?
Tim Wise will be in Anchorage Sept. 13-15 and will talk at UAA Tuesday the 14th at 7:30pm at Wendy Williamson.
[Disclosure: I am on the Steering Committee of Healing Racism in Anchorage, the organization that's bringing Wise to Anchorage.]
All good points. Another side of the coin is that in my experience sometimes a student of color is just as racist as a white student may be. Sometimes a black student will make a comment along the lines of, "Your people enslaved my people." At this point, I will interject with, "It didn't happen to you, and I didn't do it. Let's talk about what is going on today in America. Let's talk about the inequalities of opportunity and justice now. Do they exist and have we made progress as a society?"
ReplyDeleteMy students are startled to discover that slavery has been a part of every culture as far as I have been able to determine. Yes, blacks in Africa enslaved their captives as well. This does not and should not minimize what happened in America. This does not negate the inequalities today. However, shouldn't we be focusing on those injustices and trying to correct them rather than all whites today bearing the guilt of something we had no part in? It is frustrating to me to have the slavery issue thrown at me when I can do absolutely nothing about "all that". But I can do something in my classroom about the prejudice and oppression that occurs today to various groups. It is important to teach and remember the context of oppression, but we must focus on the current issues and work together as a nation to provide equal access to education, jobs, and positions of power. It is also important to remember that oppression is not just a black issue.
Perhaps if we started teaching to our children the truth about our past while they are in school. We were never taught about all the evil things we did to the Native Americans. The genocide which was brought upon them. It seems most of it has been left out of the history books.
ReplyDeleteI guess I should comment.
ReplyDeleteOn the bus the other day in London, I saw two Rastifarians salute one another -- I recalled it was Marcus Garvey’s birthday -- he’s quite the hero in Jamaica.
Most know Garvey for his 'Back to Africa' efforts in the early 20th c. But I gave pause to consider his work as later that day I discovered yet more relations of my grandmother in the Jutland peninsula. It made me think if I might ask Tim's great aunt, "Would it be so wrong to consider a 'Back to Europe' movement for white folk living in America?"
I think of the moment I realized just why a Native Alaskan friend had so many relations in SE Alaska – the same woman who had a bumper sticker that read, “American Indians had bad border control.” Her family went back (who-knows-how-many) thousands of years in Alaska -- just as mine does in northern Europe. Beowulf is no longer simply assigned reading in lit class but a mythic saga of my ancestors. Really.
How do we claim a place as ours; how do we make it ours? Tim Wise is not incorrect to tell us that in the Americas, Europeans did it by befriending, commerce, fraud and war.
Yet there are other ways. I once was ready to leave Alaska to help keep it wild, less peopled. I had reasoned that I couldn't have my cabin in its wilderness and preserve its wildness at the same time. Instead, I lived in Anchorage as penance for having violated my agreement until I found it could no longer be my home.
So Tim, it seems that the war is won but the peace is not. Say ‘hi’ to your great aunt for me, will ya?
I recommend A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn as a good starting point to get some perspective on all of this. It's quite an eye opener.
ReplyDeleteI am a lifelong Southerner, now living in the beautiful state of Alaska. My heritage includes heroic people who fought and died for what they believed in, in their case, the Confederacy and State's rights. I consider myself a patriot. No, not the myopic cartoonish post-911 self-styled "patriots", but one who loves his country and what it stands for, and who accepts it, warts and all, with open eyes and an open mind. America is like family. We all have skeletons, marriages gone wrong, bastard children, abuses, abandonments, and the like. We also, like family, have love and a desire to progress toward a better life for us and those who follow. Like with family, denial serves no purpose. Let's all help each other grow up, learn from our mistakes, and move forward. That's what family is for.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 7:09am - Your response is one that Wise refers to often in the book. In fact, I'd say he wrote this whole book to respond to you.
ReplyDeleteBut first, I apologize if my introduction to the quote wasn't clear. Wise brought 'all that' up to his great aunt to contrast the white meaning of "race war" to the non-white meaning of "race war." A key message is that we live in different realities - that is, we interpret the meaning and significance of things differently.
His goal, as I understand it, is not to make people feel guilty, though that might happen. His goal is to get people to see that disparity today is the natural legacy of disparity in the past. A past which most whites dismiss as 'over' but which non-whites know too painfully well still affects them.
Wise argues that white folks - in general - inherited wealth and position because their grandparents and great grandparents gained advantage from African Americans not having equal access to education and jobs and status and who were often not allowed to compete with whites for the rewards of living in America that whites took for granted. And in the case of slavery, their wealth came directly from the free labor of their slaves who got just enough to stay alive and strong enough to work.
Because whites dominated all positions of power in the US the history of the US as well as our modern myths (images we see on television, in movies, in advertising, in headlines, and what we learn at school) are written from the white point of view.
His book goes into great detail about how white Americans have privilege that non-whites don't have in every aspect of their lives and how we have to acknowledge and understand this if we are going to ever achieve equality.
His point, again, is not to blame, but to say, as A Southern American says above, "denial serves no purpose." (Actually, I think Wise would say it serves the purpose of keeping things as they are.) If we say, "Hey, that was in the past, but today we are all equal" that misses the privilege that whites have inherited which keeps non-whites at a disadvantage. Even whites like me who are the first generation in their families to be born in the US.
The book I quoted from is called "White Like Me." It deals directly with the points you raise. You sound like you are seriously concerned about this issue. And since you are a teacher, you influence the next generation. Just in case Wise's points are closer to the truth than yours, I'd encourage you to read the book. It's around $7 on Amazon. Or free at the library. I dare say, Wise has been studying this issue for most of his life, and certainly understands it better than I do.
Zinn's book, which Lynne above recommends, shows the impact of the victors writing the history.
Thanks, Anon, for commenting. This is an important issue which requires non-judgmental, but serious reflection. (And it's one that pushes my buttons, so I apologize if I haven't been able to keep my tone non-judgmental here.) Wise includes a number of stories in which he himself suddenly realizes that he has not 'gotten it' as when he led a college campaign to get Tulane University to divest stocks of companies in South Africa. A black student asked him, "So, you're doing all this for South Africa. What have you done to help with the racial strife here in New Orleans?"
Steve,
ReplyDeleteSome of Diane Benson's theater works directly address these same issues. You might consider asking her to participate in the Tim Wise event, if she hasn't been already.
Steve, I'm not sure I'm getting your whole point, but let me clarify mine. I am white, and I absolutely believe that there are different realities about race based on our cultural experiences. We must teach the history of racism and provide context, and as akbright suggested, that should include but not be limited to the cruel, evil treatment of Native Americans. But let's not stop there; we need to include the treatment of immigrants and people practicing non-Christian religions as well. From that base we must focus on what is happening today and what can be done to rectify it. I don't apologize for being white, but I also don't view it as an accomplishment. I am an accident of birth, pure and simple. It is not something of which I can be proud as I did not earn it. Same with being American; I was blessed with being born here. It doesn't make me better than anyone else in the world. What counts, what distinguishes us as human beings is our character. Unfortunately, humanity often empahsizes accidents of circumstance (nationality, skin color) over character.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 3:33 - is it reasonable for me to assume you are the same person as Anon 7:09? If not, forgive me. I don't disagree with anything in the 3:33 post.
ReplyDeleteI realized in my initial response that I wasn't doing an adequate job of explaining, which is why I suggested the book. My initial response was elicited by:
"Sometimes a black student will make a comment along the lines of, "Your people enslaved my people." At this point, I will interject with, "It didn't happen to you, and I didn't do it. Let's talk about what is going on today in America. Let's talk about the inequalities of opportunity and justice now. Do they exist and have we made progress as a society?"
A key point Tim Wise makes (and I hope I do him justice) is that even though you didn't do it and he didn't receive it, you (and I) still have inherited the benefits of being white and your black student inherited the disadvantages of being black. Even though neither party was directly involved in the past, you and I have many privileges your black students don't have.
In the book Wise details the privileges he had (using hindsight) due to his being white. His point in that section I quoted was that whites tend to say "all that" and then say, but it's in the past and there's nothing we can do about it.
Except, just one example, that black men are far more likely to be in prison than white men, much of this being a legacy of disadvantage on the part of blacks and a legacy of racial discrimination on the part of whites and a legal system that all combine to let whites say that racism is over and it isn't discrimination because they had a choice and they broke the law and . . .
I think Wise would say that many if not most white Americans would echo your advice to your black student, but that advice, which suggests, 'all that' was in the past and we had nothing to do with it personally, denies your black student the acknowledgment of what he experiences daily - that it isn't in the past.
Yes, things are much better. Yes, individuals can take actions to do well despite the odds. But society is still structured in many ways so that young black males have more obstacles to overcome than young white males.
Perhaps, and I'm not sure here, you might have responded to your young black student with a question rather than an answer. "It's true white people owned black slaves in the past. How do you feel that still affects your life and mine today and what should we do about it now?"
As I look back at your quote on top, I realize it's reasonable for you to respond, "That's pretty much what I said." As I try to figure out the difference, I think it's
1. the acknowledgment - "Yes, you're right" - of the student's emotional and factual reality
2. the connecting, in my revision, of the slavery to the inequities of today.
In yours, you 'interjected' [Oxford online dictionary: say (something) abruptly, especially as an aside or interruption] in a way that contradicted him instead of validating the truth he tried to articulate. (Your people enslaved my people - that's true. Acknowledge it for him.) As I read it, your response didn't acknowledge it and sounded like, "Don't blame me, I didn't do it." OK, I realize I'm reading a lot into this, but I only have your words to go by.
Anon, you obviously have thought about this stuff and you are trying to do right by your students. None of this is easy. What I find Wise to be saying, "This stuff lies deeper in all of us than any of us imagines until we look at it really carefully. We're all victims of racism and deconstructing the legacy of racism today is necessary to really move to a more equitable society."
[For some reason blogger is limiting the length of the comment. So I will continue this in the next comment.]
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ReplyDeleteMy mother received reparation payments from the German government for the loss of the family property, and the opportunities she lost by being kicked out of school and being forced to flee for her life. The Germans have made a valiant effort to at least symbolically apologize for and acknowledge what they did in WW II. What have Americans done to apologize and make amends for slavery and the genocide of Native American people? We have made reparations to Japanese-Americans interred during WW II. Even though these reparations couldn't replace what was lost, at least they were official acknowledgment. When reparations are raised for African-Americans, the cost is always seen as an insurmountable obstacle. So, we continue to let the victims bear all the costs. Americans may tell the Chinese to get out of Tibet, but I see no signs we are going to give the Indians their land back.
Our answer implies, well, yes, we stole your land (Native Americans) and your labor and freedom and opportunities (African Americans) but that was all in the past. Here we are today and we still have all your stuff, and we're not giving any back, but let's just go on from here. Now, tell me what we can do to make things better?
I can't imagine Americans giving everything back - thinking about how to document and calculate losses would be pretty hard at this point - but at the very least we can acknowledge what we did.
If I've still left you scratching your head, well, Wise took 150 pages to make his points, which is why I recommended getting the book rather than trying to figure out my ramblings here.
As to be expected, this is a difficult conversation. It's a bit like a 'skip' in a DVD. The image gets scrambled and we lose part of the story. It's also when we face a decision: We must 'click' past it or we must decide to see it.
ReplyDeleteOur problem is it’s so easy to hit ‘forward’.