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The Southerner’s
reputation as a fighting man rested not only
on what others said
about him, or even on what he said about
himself, but also on
what he had done.
John Hope Franklin, The Militant South, 1800-1861
Three hundred and thirty-six million US
citizens. Three hundred
and ninety-three million privately owned
guns in the US.
The Washington Post, June 19,2018
I’m
not sure when I first heard about Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s latest
work, however, I recognized the author’s name since I read An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History) two years ago.
The title has a familiar ring to it, that is, if you are familiar
with the late peoples’ historian Howard Zinn’s work, A People's History of the United States . Neither in the titles of
both works nor in their subject, that is, history, is there anything
coincidental. When I attached the author, Dunbar-Ortiz, to the title,
Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment, I thought, here
would be a discussion of the existence of the Second Amendment,
beginning with the evolution of the militia, patrols of armed
civilians, instigating terror in the lives of Indigenous and black
people.
And Loaded doesn’t disappoint.
I’ve
long been suspicious about the Second Amendment. Why the fiery
insistence of Americans to “keep my guns.” Keep
stockpiles of guns, as if for the ready… Ready for what?
I
came across the late black historian John Hope Franklin’s The
Militant South decades ago while researching slavery in the Americas.
I hadn’t been told about the book, in fact, at the time, the
relatively slim volume was out of print. I had to set up time to read
Militant in the university library and eventually copy a few chapters
from it for later use. But it has always been an unforgettable book
because of the way it discusses what is often not discussed in public
debates about gun control or the Second Amendment or the right to
bear arms. Franklin writes about the formation of the civilian
militias, gun-toting citizens, surrounding the borders of US
plantations.
The Militant South begins with immigrants to
occupied territory in the so-called New World, that is, new to the
Indigenous populations throughout the landmass of the Americas. In
the Colonies, the European immigrant that becomes the Virginian and
Carolinian, writes Franklin, differs from his Puritan compatriots in
that the latter seeks to build a society radically different from the
Europe he fled. In contrast, the new arrivals to the Virginia and the
Carolina plantation life wanted to recreate a familiar world, with
“an agrarian social and economic system” where he,
originally a member of the common folks, could now pursue an
aristocratic lifestyle. In this world, the planter immigrant could
see himself “the central figure” in a narrative. A
dream.
There he was - a country gentleman, living in
“noble splendor, receiving the services of his coterie of
subordinates, and discharging the obligation that his ‘high
position’ imposed upon him.” How best to transform this
dream into a reality, where the old becomes the new, if not through
the enslavement of other human beings?
He learns, this
Europe immigrant, “the social and economic values of Negro
slavery.” Over time, the best of the Southern planters,
Franklin explains, the most successful, “emerge as
aristocrats,” and few concern themselves with the rumblings of
contempt from other white immigrants belong the station of the
planter. As Franklin writes, “egalitarianism” was maybe
important in American life but not in the Southern aristocrat’s
life. Whereas freedom was another matter—so long as freedom
meant freedom for the aristocrat planter.
The system of
slavery became a “cornerstone” of Southern civilization,
so long as the enslaved black remained in her place and, in that
place, remained “docile.” Even the poor whites could
dream of one day seeing themselves owning land and black slaves
(rarely coming to fruition, but possible). But for the black enslaved
for whom the enterprise of slavery for the colonies becomes “not
only a central feature in commercial agriculture but also a major
factor in the development of the South’s domineering spirit.”
Soon children became witnesses to the systemic brutality directed
toward black people, and thus it was common to see children, in turn,
abuse their black guardians, Franklin writes.
The idea of
white superiority is not only distributed across society but also
passed down to subsequent generations as a way of being any white,
planter or not. “That slavery tended to create tyranny in the
South was not merely abolitionist prattle.” As Franklin
explains, “the system provided the despot with extensive
prerogatives and ample opportunities for their abuse.”
And
the law? Well, the law was the slaveholder. And the slaveholder had
the right to do as he pleased with his property. And as he breathe
life into this right over property, including chattel slaves, the
planter aristocrat developed the “swagger of the bully”
who employed the “bludgeon” to solve disputes. Under the
law of the planter aristocrat, the “assassination” is
elevated to an art, and the “martial spirit” flourished
in this milieu.
In the culture! Deep in the culture!
And
so too is fear.
The Southern storytellers wrote of
plantations populated with happy blacks. The poor whites, many unable
to read these dream-like narrative, witnessed from afar black people
neither not so happy nor complacent. Images of black faces, runaways,
appear on posters near the homes occupied by the women and children
of poorer whites living in town or rural areas. The planter
aristocrat worried about the loss of property, that is, in terms of
money, but occasionally he feared retaliation in the night, while he,
wife, and children slept, by disgruntled blacks looking to execute
revenge before escaping the plantation. For all his swagger, the
slaveholder could never be sure the enslaved human being would remain
docile. In place. Cruelty might put some blacks on the run or worse!
What about uprisings?
Fear unifies so as to instigate a
myriad of injustices against victims of systemic violence. Franklin
explains, “the South’s greatest nightmare was the fear of
slave uprisings; and one of the most vigorous agitations of her
martial spirit was evidenced whenever this fear was activated by even
the slightest rumor of revolt.”
And those posters
viewed by the non-slaveholding whites gave voice to the narrative of
fear. In plain language, citizens read aloud:
Let it never
be forgotten, that our Negroes are freely the JACOBINS of the
country; that they are the ANARCHISTS and the DOMESTIC ENEMY; the
COMMON ENEMY OF CIVILIZED SOCIETY, and the BARBARIANS WHO WOULD, IF
THEY COULD, BECOME THE DESTROYERS OF OUR RACE.
For the
well being of the crucial economic and social system, the planter
aristocrat turned to the community for “cooperation.”
Cooperation
took the form of the patrol, which in time, “became an
established institution in most areas of the South,” writes
Franklin. It was demanded of all white men to own firearms, to carry
firearms, to patrol the “beat.” The “beat,” a
night-time job, required men white men to apprehend “any and
all Negroes who were not in their proper places.” If “free”
or runaway, the person is “taken before a justice of the
peace.”
The citizen patrols were joined in time by
the military. In South Carolina, the patrol system evolved into the
militia, Franklin asserts, “making it a part of the military
system.” Soon, the patrol wasn’t confined to plantations;
the patrol came to be seen as a “preventative check” to
keep “‘all thoughts of insurrection out of the heads of
the slaves, and so gives confidence to those persons amongst us who
may be timorous.’” A good number of the citizen militia
were seafarers and thugs, armed with “muskets and bayonets”
as they made the “rounds” of Negro quarters. Committees
of safety flourished as did more and more “military patrols and
guards.”
The unification of slaveholders and white
non-slaveholders wasn’t always welcomed, according to Franklin,
who discusses uncomfortable relations between kin—that is,
those who owned plantations and those who didn’t. Class
mattered, even among family! The owners insisted that race mattered:
at least the poor white relations isn’t black! But the poorer
relations recognized class, too. It wasn’t long before the
establishment of organizations such as the Neck Rangers, the Light
Infantry, and the Corps of Hussars. For large-scale plots, such as
those of Gabriel, Vesey, and Turner, writes Franklin, “there
was a strong show of military force” consisting of hundreds of
militiamen.
“The citadels [Virginia Military
Institute, Citadel Academy at Charleston], sentries, ‘Grapeshotted’
cannon” and minutemen became familiar and integral parts of the
South’s landscape, writes Franklin, so that the evolution of
the militia is the institutional safeguard for the preservation of
the “cornerstone” of Southern civilization.
I
challenge myself last weekend to view for the first time No Country
for Old Men, the Coen brother’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s
book by the same name. I read reviews from “notable”
critics of the 2007 film, including A.O. Scott and the late Roger
Ebert. I didn’t find myself “squeamish,” and I
viewed the film on two consecutive nights, untroubled by the presence
of an Anton Chigurh. But I wondered about the sheriff, Sheriff Bell,
so “overwhelmed” by the cold-blooded violence of a
“principled” serial killer.
The sheriff is
sympathetic to a townsmen, Llewelyn Moss who just stumped upon two
million in cash and dead Mexicans. A drug bust gone wrong. Moss needs
to stay a step or more ahead of Chigurh and his killing contraptions
and the poor sheriff is trailing them both. Not to mention, the
accumulating dead humans and a couple of dogs.
Carson
Wells, in his suit and cowboy hat, all swagger, tells Moss that
Chigurh is pure evil. Terror. The latter is out of control. Someone
needs to rein him in. That would be Wells, of course. Chigurh is too
big for Moss. But Moss, acquiring swagger, thinks he can kill the
killer off. Keep the money and kill him off. But Moss, in over his
head, is killed by representatives of the drug cartel. Carson Wells
is killed first, however. A direct blow of the contraption by
Chigurh.
Times have changed, for the worse, Sheriff Bell
grumbles. He can’t figure it out. All the violence is all about
money and drugs. Yeah, and when did it all start?
Chigurh
is a mere apparition on a screen, scary, for the innocent, for just
about two hours.
But when the real thing appears at your
door, he may smile that strange smile of his. But he’s not
funny because he’s “principled,” remember. Nine
times out of ten, you will be killed. It must happen: your death.
It’s out of his hands. Your death, bloody death, is to be
expected with his arrival at your door. Many a grandparents and
great-grandparents remembered those days. As migrants know them now.
No life form gets in the way of taking control of that money!
At
the end of the film, Chigurh’s all bloodied, but he’ll
just keep on.
That much is real.
I thought
about all the kinds of “principled” folks who had a duty
to fulfill, and showed up on the door steps of many Indigenous and
black homes. Before the Declaration of Independence. And after the
Emancipation Proclamation. Sheer terror visited upon peoples who had
no recourse. Not even a Sheriff Bell on their side.
One
hundred million Indigenous people, according to Dunbar-Ortiz. Dead
from disease. Or deliberately starved to death. Many shot dead. A
matter of principles. Quoting historian John Grenier, Dunbar-Ortiz
reminds readers that the origins of military culture began with the
spilling of Indigenous blood. Whole civilizations were wiped out, one
family at a time. One resister at a time.
Lebensraum:
Living space for white America. Long before fascism takes hold in
Europe!
The Declaration of Independence (1776) symbolizes,
writes Dunbar-Ortiz, the “beginnings of the “Indian Wars”
and the ‘westward movement’ that continued across the
continent for another century of unrelenting US wars of conquest.”
No more playing it nice. No more trade in goods or
friendship.
War!
In Loaded, Dunbar-Ortiz,
citing Grenier’s analysis of US colonialism in which he argues
that it’s not racism that leads to the hatred of Indigenous or
black people, but violence, war, conquest with impunity that leads to
the systemic practice of racism within US borders and on foreign
lands, points to how deep-seated violence is in American culture.
“Unlimited violence”! Dunbar-Ortiz recognizes in
Grenier’s study of US warfare, the advancement of the US “way
of war.” What else were those “special operations”
and “low-intensity conflict” carried out in Afghanistan
and then in Iraq after 911 if not the advancement of the US “way
of war,” first applied “against Indigenous communities by
colonial militias in the British colonies of Virginia and
Massachusetts.”
How many thousands of blacks
lynched? Burnt out of their homes and communities between the Indian
Wars and the wars in the Middle East?
The object of these
operations is to “destroy the collective will of enemy people,
or their capacity to resist, employing any means necessary.”
Attack civilians. Attack their support systems. Their essential
resources.
Summarizing Grenier, Dunbar-Ortiz writes, “the
out-of-control momentum of extreme violence of unlimited warfare
fueled race hatred.” It is not that the US exercises an
exceptional amount of violence. No. The British were equally
genocidal in Canada, Australia, and in New Zealand. In terms of the
US, however, the practice of conquest is accompanied by “historical
narratives”--those stories that lie, contradict reality.
Deliberately! We are engulfed within these narratives today. It’s
these narratives, stories, that offer a distinction between “the
civilization” of the US and the “savagery” of the
enemy.
There are “enemies.” Anyone or any
group opposed to US wars of conquest.
Once the wars
against the Indigenous begins, the Second Amendment comes very handy
“not just in terms of a right to bear arms,” writes
Dunbar-Ortiz, but also as a requirement to bear arms.
And
the firearms industry is “among the first successful modern
corporation.”
Settler-militias is key to being white
in America!
In 1836, Dunbar-Ortiz writes, “nearly
forty thousand U.S. Americans, almost all of them Cotton Kingdom
slavers, had moved to South Texas.” The year before, the ranger
militia accompanying these slaveholders, “were
institutionalized as the Texas Rangers.” As a state funded and
sponsored militia tasked with eradicating Texas of the Comanche
Nation, the Rangers played a role in the invasion of Mexico between
1846-48. This ethnic cleansing campaign involved the use of a new
killing machine, writes Dunbar-Ortiz. The new killing machine: the
“five-shot Colt Paterson revolver.”
The
militias referenced in the Second Amendment, Dunbar-Ortiz argues,
“were intended as a means for white people to eliminate
Indigenous communities in order to take land, and for slave patrols
to control Black people.”
These patrols didn’t
end with the 13th Amendment but continued as a form of “organized
terrorism, which was founded for that very purpose nineteen months
after the Civil War ended.” Not long afterward private rifle
clubs, consisting of “elite white Southerners,” that is,
some 240 clubs, appeared to serve as “voluntary militias.”
No
country for old white men to fantasize. In Loaded, Roxanne
Dunbar-Ortiz unpacks commonplace mantras and outright hypocrisy.
Americans don’t tolerate bigots. Bigotry. America is a land
founded on the idea of inclusion.
America,
principled.
After eight centuries of warfare between
European Christians and Muslims, what begins with the Papal Bull, and
the division of the new world between Spain and Portugal flourishes
as unlimited violence in the Americas. Specifically in the US, the
descendants of British settlers and Northern Europeans are currently
members of a gun lobby devoted to the Second Amendment, Dunbar-Ortiz
argues.
Land already cultivated for centuries with various
crops were stolen from the stewards of the land who didn’t
believe in private property. But, according to British settlers,
particularly Calvinist settlers, the land and ts agriculture, were
won from “alien” and “evil” forces. “Once
in the hands of settlers, the land itself was no longer sacred, as it
had been for the Indigenous. Rather, it was private property, a
commodity from which to earn profit—capable of making a man a
king, or at least wealthy.”
Land no longer nourishes
the many but enriches only the few.
The on-going
normalization of perpetual violence, put in words and song as land
became country, flag, military, “‘the land of the
free.’”
“This land is your land.”
James
Madison drafted the Second Amendment and it was added to the
Constitution, writes Dunbar-Ortiz, in 1781. Not until the 1960s did
Americans recall the Second Amendment. And wouldn’t you
know—the 1960s was the height of the Civil Rights Era in the
US. The “political, social, and economic shifts,” she
writes, opens “nearly everything to question in the 1960,
particularly segregation and anti-Black racism.” So there is
that US Constitution, writes Dunbar-Ortiz—that “sacred
text of the civic religion.” What is it but “U.S.
nationalism!” And it’s that nationalism that is
“inexorably tied,” she argues, “to white
supremacy.”
After over a hundred years of “freedom”
from enslavement, after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed
racial discrimination, the National Rifle Association (NRA) saw an
increase in membership in the following years. The Ronald Reagan
Americans recall now in light of Trump’s presidency, isn’t
Reagan, standing before cameras in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the
town where three civil rights, Schwerner, Goodman, Chaney, were
brutally killed by white supremacists, announcing his candidacy for
president. That Reagan, Dunbar-Ortiz recalls, indulged the John Birch
Society. That Reagan winked at the NRA as membership continued to
rise in the 1980s, giving the gun organization a substantial voice in
shouting down any opposition calling for gun control
legislation.
Trump addresses NRA in April 2017. It’s
members at the convention cheered and cheered. Even 30-40 percent of
Americans cheered as Trump reminded them that he was the only
candidate who came to speak to them. And now as president, he
wouldn’t forget the NRA. “‘I am going to come
through for you.’” Trump—the self-proclaimed
“nationalist,” the president who acknowledges “fine”
people in the white nationalist movement, who still believes the
Central Park Five guilty of rape, still believes Obama was born in
Africa, and calls any one black who opposes his racist mentality “a
low-IQ individual”--reminds some Americans of the good ol’
days when Ronald Reagan was president! (Last year, I heard late night
talk show host Stephen Colbert hark back to Reagan).
What
are Americans readying themselves for?
So many Americans
have no idea who they are.
In Loaded, we revisit the
legacy of the Black Panthers, discuss the frequency of mass
shootings, police shootings of black citizens, as well as movements
such as Black Lives Matter and Indigenous campaigns to saving life on
Earth.
Change must consist of a radical rebuke of white
supremacy, toxic masculinity, and capitalism. Climate devastation is
happening now. It won’t wait!
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