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It feels like I say this every few years, but this nation loves to lie about the depth of its character. And some people love to pretend that racism is quarantined in the Deep South.
It’s not.
It’s not.
The dehumanization and oppression of Black people was not only built into the Constitution, it's a U.S. pastime that takes place under the Stars and Stripes. Violence against us is frequently sanctioned by government and rarely penalized by law.
Eric Garner was killed on Staten Island. Oscar Grant was killed in Oakland. Ramarley Graham was killed in the Bronx. Renisha McBride was killed in Dearborn Heights, Michigan.
Tamir Rice was killed in Cleveland. Mike Brown was killed in Ferguson. Natasha McKenna was killed in Fairfax, Virginia. Aiyana Stanley-Jones was killed in Detroit.
In some ways, for some people, it feels like the Confederate flag is a decoy. As if we’re to believe racism is solved if we could get rid of the Confederate symbols. White folks feel a sense of solidarity in screaming take it down, but won’t address racism in their NextDoor apps.
My father was an alderman in Natchez, Mississippi, for almost 20 years—as were three of my grandparents before him. Here he is talking about the confederate flag in 1993 in the Natchez Democrat, i.e., the Dixiecrat.
The fact that we’re even having this conversation almost 30 years later shows how complicit this nation is in the continued deification of the Confederacy. As Malcolm would say, “They’re in cahoots.”
It’s not that I don’t want to see Confederate symbols gone. I absolutely do. Starting with Mammy’s Cupboard in Natchez. Some of the “good white folks” still call her Black Mammy’s for short. This is a fully functioning restaurant.
I wrote about this here in 2014: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-art-of-black-womanhood_b_5463766
Not a day goes by that I don't wish every house, flag, and vestige of this anti-Black terrorism would burn to the ground. Still, whiteness would remain.
