The year is 2006. Coretta Scott King was laid to rest today having done what so many have regarded as noble: she fought the good fight (in life and for civil rights) and she stood by her man. Most pointedly, she did both at the same time and was always a lady (at least as it’s appeared to me in pictures and history books). Yet still, somebody is burning churches, deep in the heart of our South, my beloved South, and while irony seems to be the word that best highlights the timing of these events, there are other words for which I reach.
Also today, while listening to the local evening news I hear that skinheads are on the rise in Delaware County (PA). Meanwhile, a McDonald’s commercial comes on commemorating February as Black History Month, but I wonder what there really is to celebrate.
People, somebody is burning Black churches in the South … still. I’m not so naïve as to suspect that we have overcome, but isn’t that the trouble? In a day that I’m certain my great-grandparents, grandparents and even my parents could scarcely imagine, I can do the simplest most every day sort of things without nary a thought about what the consequences might be were I say, just to lean against a public water fountain.
I don’t even drink from public water fountains because I think they’re gross and “there’s no telling what some nasty person has done to it,” or when it was last cleaned. But I can. I could if I so desired, and it puts me in a certain place in my mind to realize (not just to have read or seen pictures, but to also have 1st person testimony) that as little as 40 years ago, I could’ve salivated and nearly died of thirst ogling that same water fountain and yet would’ve had no permission even to touch it. And just to think that I should ever even need permission. My, it makes me feel entitled, such a simple thing as this.
I’m no conspiracy theorist, but as I prepared to hit the hay I found myself just thinking about all of these things at once and I’m still stricken.
Four churches, four black churches, burned yesterday in Alabama – a state full of so much of our nation’s storied civil rights history. Five other churches (all of them Baptist), burned last week, and I’ll note that four of those five churches have predominantly white congregations. It’s definitely worth wondering who’s doing it and why and I hope one day we’ll find out. But again, I can’t just overlook that this certain violent action has direct ties to back in the day – the real day – when lives were being fought and lost just so I could live some kind of life in this world.
I’ve never made much of a point in discussing racial issues; in fact, I’ve spent the majority of my life either making light of it (to appease the discomfort of trying always to fit in) or being as indifferent as possible to it (to try and appease others who perhaps were more aware of my color than they’d ever admit).
The truth is I’m utterly ambivalent about speaking too much on the issue because as good a storyteller as I believe myself to be, this is perhaps the hardest thing for me to explain, to illustrate or convey. Besides, those of you who read this page I don’t really feel require any explanation most of the time.
Yet the plight of black people (and it is a plight) in this country is such that I cannot help but feel simultaneous contradictory feelings about racism being that I find myself in the mix wondering where and how I fit in at all. And the premises on which to discuss my thoughts and opinions vary, and within each there are contradictions in my own viewpoints for which I cannot readily articulate a logical or coherent explanation (which is why I don’t go here often). It’s also worth noting that part of my inability to articulate is a result of my not being well-read enough. I think it’s important to know what has been said before me, especially since what I feel and have to say, I am certain, is not new.
I could argue that racism persists systematically in our political system, thereby permeating our social consciousness (or is it vice versa?) to such a degree that no person black, white or otherwise “colored” can free themselves of the indelible impression of racism in America. We all carry our respective views on the degree to which blacks are inferior (or suffering from inferiority complexes), the unfathomable injustices incurred (for those of us young enough not to have lived through them), and the sheer, confounding reality (at least to me) of racism being labeled as covert and overt.
Both of those persist today, rampantly, in racial profiling and crime reporting, imprisonment track records and the fight for and against affirmative action, among others. Yet it’s that last bit, affirmative action, which for me is like door #1. What’s behind it really, and how badly do I even want to know? I wonder if other black people regard affirmative action like I do (this is one reason why I need to read more) … as the hand that (possibly) either feeds you or feeds you and then chokes you.
What I mean is that it’s very hard to look back and wonder at what points might I have been regarded as a means to a quota? I’d rather not know, I think most of the time, because as someone who’s worked very hard and still doesn’t feel I’ve “made it,” I’d like to think the how I got to where I am just isn’t nearly as important as the fact that I’m here. It’s also easy to say, well, if I am here by way of affirmative action, then it’s not my fault, it’s not exactly by my doing, and that’s where it gets heated for me, and others, too, I think. The fact that when the phrase is mentioned today, considering all the debate and legislation in recent years, and the question surrounding it is posed to a black person, speaking for myself, I almost immediately feel as though I have to defend myself. So I ask, can anyone be held accountable for affirmative action? And if so, exactly what shall they be held accountable for and by whom? If not, how did we get to the point where we even have to discuss it? Why do I even feel the need to look for someone to be accountable – maybe it’s that in any case where I feel compelled to defend, I feel attacked and someone has to be blamed for the attack.
There’s even talk about the mere possibility that Congress won’t renew provisions of the Voting Rights Act (1965) under the guise that such provisions are no longer needed. Sure, we’ve done away with grandfather clauses and poll taxes, but the murmurings surrounding re-districting plans in Texas (currently a Supreme Court case) and New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, should beg Congress to reconsider.
I’m an all-or-nothing-at-all sort of person and as much as I’d hope for racism in this country to follow that same course, I know better, but I still hope. I haven’t poured over history books and such to know exactly where the civil rights leaders would actually stand, but in my heart I believe they were pushing for all or nothing, too. Otherwise how else could they risk their lives and others’ lives fighting for equality?
I don’t know how but I hope the authorities do find out who’s burning churches. (Sorry to return to it again, but I can’t shake it.) Beyond burning places of worship and the religious and spiritual ramifications for such an act, obviously I’m stuck on the symbolism that these acts represent, particularly when juxtaposed upon our history. Like the “n-word,” burning churches today, just the 20-second mention of it on the news, carries the weight of many, many years of burned churches. But mostly for me, it brings to mind the church bombing in Birmingham in ’63 where 4 little innocent black girls lost their lives. Is that where we’re headed … again? Or perhaps worse, is that just where we still are and have been, even after all this time?
Am I now not so unlike Dr. King to want to witness this world – our world – freed from the trappings of prejudice and hatred? Will I, too, die before it can be? Again, I hope not. Who will our next Martin, Malcolm or Medgar be? We surely do need one.