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CNN,
PBS, The History Channel, MSNBC, NPR, The
New York Times,
and The Washington
Post were
among the sizable number of media outlets that devoted considerable
attention to the centennial of the Tulsa race massacre. The Tulsa
race massacre was a racially directed American pogrom that claimed
the lives of more than 300 people and annihilated the laboriously
amassed wealth of an entire community and that, save for sporadic
mentions, had gone largely ignored for 100 years.
From
May 31 to June 1, 1921, supporters of local and prominent Tulsa
political figures stormed into Tulsa’s Greenwood District,
better known to its admirers as Black Wall Street, burning, looting,
and destroying the entire neighborhood. This inhumane atrocity, for
which no one was held accountable, was one of the most horrific acts
of racial violence committed in the United States, and it is finally
being candidly discussed after more than a century of being largely
ignored.
The
truth is that the sadistic carnage that occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma
was not an aberration. Similar acts of racial barbarism took place in
New York in 1863, Memphis and New Orleans in 1866, Wilmington, North
Carolina in 1898, Atlanta in 1906, Springfield, Illinois in 1908, St.
Louis in 1917, Chicago in 1919, and Rosewood, Florida in 1922, just
to name a few. If we are being honest, there were plenty of other
places in America where armed mobs of unhinged Whites unleashed
searing amounts of unprovoked and unjustified violence on Black
citizens without suffering any consequences.
Mind
you, these were all mass acts of violence where White mobs terrorized
Black people. Add the deeply racially abominable practice of lynching
to the equation, and the number goes up by thousands.
It
was heartening to see President Biden visit Tulsa and acknowledge and
commemorate what was, without a doubt, one of the darkest moments in
our nation’s history. Such a gesture deserves fierce applause.
Not
surprisingly, many right-wing political, social, and cultural
journalists, radio hosts, politicians and others of a similar
persuasion are doing everything in their power to eradicate, or at
the very least, marginalize discussions on our nation's history as it
relates to race. The truth is that race, particularly as it pertains
to aspects of American history, is RAW, ROCKY, and RUTHLESS. The
American legacy, as it relates to race, is not one of blue skies and
apple pies.
Sentiments
like “We should let bygones be bygones,” “Let’s
talk about the things that unite us, not divide us,” “We
need to discuss examples of American exceptionalism,” and so
on… Please! These are examples of conservative, snowflake
ideology at its most pathetic!
Everybody
knows the standard right-wing narrative that if Black people worked
harder, did not do so many drugs, did not have children out of
wedlock, went to church more often and refrained from indulging in
their habitual levels of hedonism, then they, too, could partake in
the fruits and rewards of the American dream like anybody else. Such
fabricated, false rhetoric drips with denial at best and willful
ignorance and intellectual dishonesty at worst. It is a perverse
“blame the victim” sort of argument that has little, if
any, basis in reality.
The
irrefutable reality is that systemic and systematic racism have
deeply affected Black America (and other indigenous populations) in
the areas of finance, education, environment, health, and every
measurable social index available. These social ills have plagued and
tortured Black America long before 1921 and have been doing so ever
since. To pretend otherwise is to reside in a perverted fantasy
devoid of reality. It is due to these factors that it is imperative
that the Biden administration support reparations.
There
have been many individuals, me included, who have written on the
topic of reparations; thus, anyone who wants to familiarize
themselves with the multiple debates surrounding the topic can do so
with relative ease.
I think the deftest, succinct, and precise argument in support of the
policy to date has been written by sociologists Rashawn Ray and Andre
Perry, both senior fellows at the Brookings Institution.
“In
short, a Black person who can trace their heritage to people enslaved
in US states and territories should be eligible for financial
compensation for slavery. Meanwhile, Black people who can show how
they were excluded from various policies after emancipation should
seek separate damages. (…) To determine qualification, birth
records can initially be used to determine if a person was classified
as Black American. Economist Sandy Darity asserts that people should
show a consistent pattern of identification. Census records can then
be used to determine if a person has consistently identified as a
Black American. Finally, DNA testing can be used as a supplement to
determine lineage.”
Spot-on
analysis! While Tulsa and similar tragedies may be part of the past,
the residual effects of such atrocities are still reverberating
within us more than a century later. Thus, President Biden must move
with dogged speed to unabashedly support reparations, critical race
theory, student loan forgiveness, and criminal justice reform and
tackle voter suppression, chronic health care disparities,
discriminatory housing laws, environmental racism and other mounting
injustices that plague far too many communities of color. He must do
so with unalloyed aggression and without apology. The feelings and
opinions of White bigots and other forms of White fragility be
damned!
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