We Wear the Mask – Still

As an African American, I find that I often walk around with a lump in my throat because this country does not, has not, and will not regard me or my people as human beings worthy of being treated as the American citizens we are.

When it comes to race, this nation has no honor.

The lump isn’t always noticeable; sometimes, it retreats and I can forget for a time that it is there. But no matter how long the lapse, it always comes back.

I first noticed the lump when I was in college. I was reading about the lynching of Emmett Till, and how the all-white jury acquitted the two white men who had killed him. How could that be, I wondered? How could a court ignore the guilt of two men who had clearly murdered someone?

The lump reappeared from time to time after that, but came back with a fury when I was in seminary and heard the story of one Dred Scott one Sunday I had, of course, heard his name before, and knew a little about his story, but I had never heard about the engagement and involvement of the nation’s highest court. It was in a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright that I heard the words uttered by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney in 1857 as he ruled against a Black man, Dred Scott, who sued in order to protect his freedom, gained when his owner took him into a free state. Scott had lived in the free territory of Wisconsin and the free state of Illinois before being taken back to Missouri, where he was again enslaved.

Scott objected. He knew the law and the law said that once a person was free, he or she was always free. He decided to sue in a lawsuit that made its way all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. After 11 years of litigation in its movement from lower courts to the country’s highest court, the decision was finally at hand. Scott was hopeful.

But his hope was dashed as Taney ruled against him. Taney wrote that because Scott was Black, he was not a citizen – and could never be a citizen -and therefore had no right to sue. Referring to the Declaration of Independence, Taney also said that “it is too clear for dispute that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration…”

Given all of that, Taney said, it had to be understood that “there were no rights of a Black man that a white man was bound to respect.”

What? I was stunned and can still remember being in shock as I heard those words. How could someone who was supposed to be about justice say such a thing? I later wept as I read the words for myself and realized in a new way that not even the courts do not protect us and could be counted on to bring justice to Black people, including the highest court in the land.

From the day that the lump formed it has risen from time to time, reminding me of the pain I carry about this nation having so little honor when it comes to race. That lump jostled me again today as I heard the decisions the U.S. Supreme Court made that clearly indicate that the justices are not interested in treating Black people as full American citizens with all the rights citizenship includes. The highest court in this land has yet again sanctioned ways to keep Black people disenfranchised. (https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/01/politics/voting-rights-act-supreme-court-ruling/index.html) (https://www.npr.org/2021/07/01/1004062322/the-supreme-court-guts-a-state-law-requiring-nonprofits-to-name-their-rich-donor.

And again, I wept.

From the courts to law enforcement to the media, this country has made clear how deeply embedded is the spirit of white supremacy. There are those who are bold with their belief in the inferiority of Black people, and others who remain quiet and do little to nothing as they see the system run roughshod over Black lives and yet declare that they are not racist. The latter group makes little to no effort to investigate and see why there is a Black Lives Matter movement. They refuse to open their eyes and see how the systems of this country have blocked African Americans for literally hundreds of years. Both the vocal and non-vocal racists remain steeped in fear, rage, and insecurity; they are afraid of Black people and afraid that if Black people ever got the opportunity to govern, they would do to white people what white people have done to them. They are full of rage because they believe Black people – who they still do not regard as human beings or citizens – have been “given” too much and are unappreciative, even as white people struggle in ways they do not believe they should be, and they are insecure because reports say that white rule will soon no longer be the case in America.

It is a difficult thing to keep on pushing for justice when the hard truth of the lack of honor of white people in power repeatedly hits you in the face. Black people get metaphorically slapped over and over, as arrogant critics tell us to get up and to “shut up and dribble,” as the infamous Laura Ingraham once said when NBA great LeBron James spoke out against police brutality.( https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fox-news-host-laura-ingraham-told-lebron-james-to-shut-up-and-dribble-so-whats-her-take-on-drew-brees-2020-06-04)

The evil of white supremacy in this country has never diminished, and at this point, it is more toxic and dangerous than it has been publicly for some time, but make no mistake: it and its toxicity have never been gone. This country still has a plantation mentality, wanting Black people and a whole lot more people whom the white supremacist adherents believe are less than human to “stay in their place.”

Poet Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote the poem, “We Wear the Mask,” the first line of which says, “We wear the mask that grins and lies; it hides our cheeks and shields our eyes. This debt we pay to human guile…”

We have been paying that debt for literally hundreds of years, and we still must.

The stupid lump in my throat is real today; I will work – as we all must – to swallow it back down into its bedroom that is in my soul. But it will rise again.

A candid observation …

The Tragedy of Being White, Wealthy, and Privileged

As I have watched and listened to people talk about how it is okay if some people die in order to save the economy, I have literally shuddered. Rep. Trey Hollingsworth (R-IN) said in essence that allowing some people to die in order that the economy might be saved was the “lesser of two evils.” (https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/14/politics/trey-hollingsworth-coronavirus/index.html)

Specifically, he said “…” it is always the American government’s position to say, in the choice between the loss of our way of life as Americans and the loss of life, of American lives, we have to always choose the latter.”

He has not been the only GOP lawmaker to have expressed such sentiments. Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said that lots of grandparents would be willing to die of the virus in order to save the economy. He also expressed his belief that American adults ought to be “willing” to sacrifice their lives for the economy. (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/dan-patrick-seniors-are-willing-to-die-to-save-economy.html)

The blatant disregard for human life in order to realize political goals has been mind-blowing. Some Americans – mostly, it seems, white, wealthy, and privileged – seem to be totally out of sync with what is going on in the lives of the masses of Americans. Not only are they doggedly determined to maintain their wealth and power, but they are also determined to stack the courts locally and federally who will assure their political points of view and values are instituted and saved. The footage of the GOP lawmaker in Wisconsin, covered from head to foot in protective gear to protect himself from the coronavirus as he assured voters and the media that the people standing in line to vote – not likewise protected – that they were safe, is a haunting image. (https://www.businessinsider.com/wisconsin-gop-leader-says-voting-safe-dressed-ppe-gear-2020-4). People were forced to participate in in-person voting in the middle of a global pandemic because the GOP wanted a Republican to win a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. People risked their lives and went to the polls and were able to keep that candidate from winning, but at what cost? How many Wisconsinians are going to come up sick with the virus because of the lack of care and empathy of the GOP?

Yet another lawmaker, Attorney General William Barr, said that it’s necessary for people to get back to work and to stop running home and “hiding under their beds.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/attorney-general-william-barr-fox-news-coronavirus/2020/04/09/dfda1f94-7a12-11ea-a130-df573469f094_story.html)

What these statements reveal is the complete lack of ability of the wealthy, white, privileged Americans to understand anything other than wealth and privilege. In their remarks can be heard the disparaging criticism of the shelter-in-place orders, and a glaring lack of compassion and empathy for the people who are dropping like flies because of this virus.

I have heard little compassion from any people in this group for the health care workers, for the transit and grocery store workers. Neither have I heard much concern about the fact that so many people are dying alone, leaving their loved ones without the opportunity to say goodbye, nor have I heard concern about the people who will inevitably get sick and possibly die because they cannot afford to stay at home.

It is mind-boggling. The only thing I really hear is a concern about the economy – which is important, surely, but not more important than the lives of the people whose labor has provided the work needed to create the wealth and the privilege of those who seem not to care one iota about what they are going through.

As I have listened to the comments from the president about how the number of ventilators being requested by governors is too high, and have heard reports about how there have been so few ventilators that sometimes one ventilator has had to be used for two patients, I have found myself wondering what he or any of the privileged wealthy would react if they were being treated that way. When I looked at pictures of health care workers wearing garbage bags to protect themselves, and I heard and read about how many of them have had to use the same mask for several days, I again wondered what the privileged would say had they been exposed to that kind of scenario.

Their lack of awareness or concern about the health care workers and their patients again caused me to pause. Because they remain isolated from “the rest of us,” they are too frequently divorced from what the masses go through. They have convinced themselves that crime is relegated almost exclusively to the poor, discounting the white-collar crime that has helped make many of them wealthy or that crimes of sexual deviance and assault are as common within the wealthy privileged set as it is with the poor. They live in a world within “the” world, seeing what’s “out there” as being impossible to ever stain their lives.

But of course, it does.

Wealth, with its attendant privilege, has created a class of spoiled human beings, narcissistic, self- serving humans who seem incapable of caring or even thinking about those less fortunate, instead blaming them for their financial fragility. While not all wealthy people deserve this description, enough of them do. In the case of this pandemic, just as was the case during the Ebola crisis, they seem not to understand that germs and illnesses do not care about one’s wealth, race, or political affiliation. They also do not seem to understand that if the poorest of us are not healthy or free, none of us are. The virus that begins in the slums eventually makes its way to the suburbs. The virus doesn’t care.

It’s strange that they don’t get it. If the president reopens the government on May 1, and people on Navy ships and in senior citizens’ homes, and in prisons, in the grocery stores and pharmacies and on the subway are still getting the virus, the very wealthy are going to get it, too.

Their lack of empathy and concern for others will cause damage to and the deaths of so many humans that this country could have avoided.

But their wealth blinds them to that truth, and because of that, many more people – including them and their families – are going to suffer.

A candid observation.

Defying Voter Suppression

Long Lines 2

My heart sang and my spirit soared when, on Super Tuesday, the media covered stories about the long lines at polling places.

It’s called voter suppression, and black people have had to deal with it for some time. In the absence of poll taxes, literacy tests, and things like reciting the Constitution from memory and/or being asked how many jelly beans are in a huge jar, more sophisticated methods of voter suppression have become more and more common.

Voting officials say – and have always said – that long lines “are due to a number of factors,” but part of the reason for the long lines is the lack of working voting machines or too few machines for the number of people expected to vote.

Rep. Stacey Abrams, who ran for governor of Georgia, points the ways that voter suppression is practiced in this country. Her video, “Fair Fight,” does an excellent job of showing all of the tactics used in Georgia – and presumably in other states – to keep people from voting. (https://www.npr.org/2020/02/20/807665148/stacey-abrams-spearheads-campaign-against-voter-suppression) (https://www.bravenewfilms.org/suppressed)

Among the tactics highlighted are long lines, most of which are found in black and brown neighborhoods. People in those neighborhoods have typically stood in line for hours, sometimes for so long that they give up. They have to go home to get medicine or leave to pick up children, or …go to work, because if they miss a day of work they do not get paid.

In addition, with the closing of polling places, the long lines become even more problematic, because people are forced to travel increased distances, out of their neighborhoods, making them have to take into consideration to and from the voting booths in addition to trying to get their children to daycare and then get themselves to work.

But black and brown people are tired of being walked over and being denied the right to vote by such tactics. A friend of mine wrote that black people are “used” to this type of voter suppression, and are advised to take folding chairs, sunscreen, pack lunches and their medicine, and whatever else they need to do in order to cast their ballots. A man who works two jobs who on Tuesday stood in line for 7 hours, said he wasn’t going to leave, in spite of the long wait. (https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/election-2020/2020/03/04/362610/its-worth-it-the-last-person-in-line-at-tsu-waited-six-hours-to-vote-on-super-tuesday/) (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/03/04/super-tuesday-texas-man-waits-six-hours-vote/4952084002/)

The reports that long lines were experienced in white neighborhoods are significant; whenever black and brown people experience a shortcoming of democracy, the reaction of the public is generally lukewarm, but when white people experience the same situation, there is considerable more outcry. Such was the case, it seems, on Tuesday. (https://www.propublica.org/article/these-voters-had-to-wait-for-hours-it-felt-like-a-type-of-disenfranchisement)

The efforts to keep people who typically vote Democratic are only going to increase. Studies have shown that people classified as “minority,” be that in reference to gender, race, sexual orientation, economic status, and more, tend to vote Democratic. Efforts are made to keep them out of the process, in defiance of the 15^th Amendment, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Lawmakers who say that this a country of the rule of law fail to mention that what they mean is that “the law” matters as long as it does not threaten their power. In the quest for achieving or keeping power, “the law” means little.

But that reality should not stop black and brown people, and others who vote Democratic, to step up their defiance of voter suppression tactics. It’s almost like people have to have a “voting preparedness” regiment set up, as a country should have an “emergency preparedness” program in place to deal with unexpected disasters. Being prepared is a smart move, something necessary, it seems, to fight amoral, immoral, and unjust tactics to keep people from voting.

So, we in our neighborhoods should talk about what we may face and get ready, because all elections matter, but the fall elections matter perhaps more than they have in a while. On the local and national level, it will be voters who protect the rights and interests of people who too many people seem not to care about.

A candid observation …

Mourning the Loss of a Democracy That Never Was

If there was one thing I took away from my high school civics class was that America was a democracy, brilliantly constructed by men who were determined that under no circumstances could this country become an autocracy or a monarchy.

The system of checks and balances was perfect in my mind. The three branches of government would check each other to keep the power on the highest level evenly distributed and applied. Given what I had read about monarchies and Nazism and Fascism and about tyrannical rulers, I was comforted. Even though I as an African American had real and specific concerns and complaints about this government, at least it had the blueprint to be fair to all of its people.

But if we define a democracy as a government which is ruled by the people, something has been wrong from the beginning. A formal definition of democracy is “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.” A democracy, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “government by the people, especially the rule of the majority.” That’s what I learned in high school; that’s what I thought I was being taught.

And I was …except that it was an erroneous lesson from the beginning. The Founding Fathers didn’t intend for this government to really be “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” They wanted this to be a government where a few people – notably, white, wealthy, male, Protestant landowners, to rule the many. They didn’t include in their formation of this government any intention of ever including everyone. Some people were more worthy of governing and some’s place was to “be governed.”

The right to vote – I thought the right of all Americans to vote – was at the heart of what made this government different. One person, one vote became the ideal for fledgling democracies all over the world. But from the beginning of our existence as a nation, the right to vote has been compromised, messed with and messed over. The recent mid-term elections, with wide-spread voter suppression, is not a new thing – which says to me that while some of us are alarmed at what is going on in our federal government, the cry (my cry, specifically) that our democracy is in danger of failing, is not true.

We have celebrated a “democracy” that never was.

From our beginning, people in power – most specifically white men – have done all they could to keep the masses from voting. Ari Berman, in his excellent book, Give Us the Ballot, describes the brouhaha that developed after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It seems that many white folks were appalled at the notion that black people should have the same right to vote as did white people and they did all they could to keep that from happening – in spite of the VRA. President Lyndon B. Johnson, who pushed for the passage of the VRA in spite of the huge price he paid politically, said that “the vote is the most powerful instrument devised for breaking down injustice.” But if my reading of history is correct, a large contingency of white people in general, and white politicians in particular, had little to no interest in breaking down injustice, and in spite of claiming that they lived in a democracy, and in spite of taking oaths to defend, preserve and protect the United States Constitution, they had no intention of doing so.

I was always appalled at the tricks devised and carried out to keep black people from voting, but as I have learned more about the efforts to keep America’s power in the hands of white people, my anger has only increased. In Berman’s book, he describes black people going to the polls to vote – people who had previously voted – only to be told that they were no longer eligible. There were no more jars with jelly beans to count, and no more literacy tests, but the schemes to keep black people out of the “I am an American and I vote” club were there. In his chapter entitled “The Counterrevolution (II),” Berman recounts several of these instances, including that of one Willie Steen, an African American who was a Navy vet who served in Operation Desert Storm. He took his 10-year-old son with him, but when he got to his polling place to vote, he was told he could not vote because he was a convicted felon.

He was no such thing.

He tried to clear up the confusion to no avail. He left the polling place that day angry and embarrassed, concerned about how he would explain all of this to his son. It turns out that somehow, he had been confused with a convict named “Willie Osteen,” who committed a felony at the same time Willie Steen was serving in the Persian Gulf. Berman says that same type of thing was happening to African American voters throughout the state of Florida.

We all saw what happened in the midterms; we have all heard the charges of voter fraud levied against Democrats by some members of the GOP, in spite of there being no evidence of the same, while at the same time there is massive evidence of voter fraud in several locations, including North Carolina. (https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/north-carolina-early-voting-midterms-a-diabolical-new-republican-ploy-to-suppress-black-turnout.html) Those who believe that African Americans and other members of other ethnic groups are not worthy of voting have continued to do all they can to make sure they keep things like they want them – which does not include people of color.

That being said, in a country where all its citizens are not encouraged or even permitted to vote, democracy has to be called a sham.

We have all been duped.

Some kind of way, however, we have to right the wrongs and try to make this country live into the words penned by the Founding Fathers – words which, ironically, not even they intended to apply to everyone.

We are in mourning some of us, for a democracy that never was.

A candid observation …

Truth Rises, Always ..

Truth, crushed to the ground …always rises.

Perhaps it is happening that our nation will begin to open its ears and hear the stories of the way it has treated too many of its citizens, because their voices are rising.

In her work investigating the stories of African-Americans, primarily males, who have been killed by police and/or vigilantes, SpiritHouse Project co-founder Ruby Sales receives stories from mothers and relatives of slain and all-but-forgotten husbands, brothers and sons who met their deaths in that way.

They call looking for help as they seek answers or justice or both. Sales, who has been looking into these murders for a while, takes each case with care, concern and outrage that so many have been murdered with local, state and federal governments looking the other way.

This week, she received notice that on Sunday, November 10, there will be a memorial service for a man named Isaiah Nixon, a black man who at age 38 was killed by two white men in 1948 after he had exercised his right to vote.

Nixon’s death has been being investigated by the office of Margaret Burnham, who is a professor of law and the Director of Civil Rights and Restorative Justice at Northeastern University in Boston. Christopher Bridges was a law student at Northeastern working with the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice project when he resurrected the case. He uncovered the story, and, after two years of work to nurture interest in Nixon’s death, Burnham’s his work has resulted in awareness and interest in this man and his situation.

According to Bridges’ work, , Nixon, a United States military veteran, returned to his home in Alston, Georgia, after voting in the Georgia primary election. Shortly thereafter, two white men who were also brothers, showed up at Nixon’s house and ordered him to come to them. When Nixon refused, the two men shot him three times – as his wife and six children looked on, horrified. He was taken to the hospital, but died 48 hours later.

The two men were tried and acquitted of Nixon’s murder and a fund was launched by a local newspaper and the NAACP to relocate his family to Florida.

Isaiah Nixon, who had fought for his country, was shot and killed and nobody seemed to care.

Burnham’s office said the memorial service to be held on November 10 in Mt. Vernon, Georgia, was planned intentionally for that date – as Nixon was a war veteran.

Sales, who says white and black America has bought into the myth that black people are “thugs and animals,” has solicited the expertise and help of Burnham as she investigates deaths such as Nixon’s. These types of murders, she said, are a part of social control wielded by law enforcement.

“Somewhere in our souls, we have given up our children,” Sales said, recalling the ways she remembers personally how police used to terrorize black children and youth. There is a difference between people now and then, she said. Back then, she said, “our parents refused to give our children up.” Today, parents have given into the myth that says black people are …”thugs and animals.”

At Sunday’s memorial service for Nixon, relatives will attend. Although nobody knows where Nixon is buried, there is a move in Alston to construct a permanent marker in his memory.

Some 60 years after his murder, that is good.

But the troubling thing is that for so long, he lay buried somewhere, all but forgotten. He was lynched by gunshot…and forgotten.

Sales believes there are many, many more like Nixon. She is working to make sure the SpiritHouse Project uncovers as many as possible, giving voice to voices that were cruelly silenced just because they were the wrong color.

Truth, crushed to the ground, always wiggles its way out of the dust. It always comes out, always rises. Nixon’s voice is rising.

A candid observation …