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Americans black and white must speak and listen to each other
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I concur with Dr Barry Weisberg’s observations about the depths of continuing racism in the United States, which appeared in his column (“Zimmerman acquittal reflects deep racial divide” July 24, Shanghai Daily). I also agree that such is “an ongoing symptom” of American society’s “denial, delusion and deception about the racial divide.”
I do not believe that the vast majority of white Americans are racist in an overt, conscious sense. But what they think they know about the experience of black people in our country is often quite different from the reality experienced and perceived by black people.
On a few occasions in recent years, for instance, President Obama has done an extraordinary thing in publicly musing about the realities of being a black person in America, citing some of his own experiences as examples.
Responses from ordinary Americans after such remarks ranged from approval, to discomfort, to outright anger. “Why must we keep talking about race? Haven’t we done enough for them by now? What more do they want?”
On February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, was shot by George Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood watchman, who was acquitted on July 15, 2013.
With the perspective I have gained from my study of American history, I believe that the United States continues to wrestle with our centuries-long problem of not fully facing up to the many ongoing legacies of black chattel slavery.
The deep scars left by it have wounded black and white people in ways neither acknowledged nor understood by the other. Even after so many years have passed, deep psychological scars remain; incidents like the Zimmerman-Martin case bring them much closer to the surface, such as can be seen in the significant polarization of views denoted by whether one is defined as a “person of color” or “white.”
Eventual reckoning
The founders of the American Republic knew that their own inability to resolve the problem of slavery only postponed the eventual reckoning.
The decades between the American Revolution and the outbreak of the Civil War witnessed a steady escalation of tensions — and the consequent emergence of vastly different “stories” (ie, sectional narratives) — between North and South.
The South increasingly saw itself as standing for the maintenance of a superior way of life that was being threatened by the rapacious expansion of Northern economic interests. There was some truth in that view, and the North was as blind to many aspects of its own dynamics as the South was, in refusing to acknowledge that all of its celebrated way of life was based upon, and inextricably linked to, the slave system.
After the savageness of the Civil War (1861-65) ended (one out of six of the North’s young men had been killed or wounded, while in the South it was one out of 24), and a very brief effort was made by the federal government to fully enfranchise, educate, and support the recently freed black people, new myths about the “meaning” of the struggle quickly emerged.
In the South it was all about how they had struggled vainly to preserve a lost cause, a view in which the nobility of their way of life completely overshadowed the ugly reality of the slave system.
In the North, while most whites had come to believe that the institution of slavery was wrong, they were not much more likely than their southern cousins to view black people as human beings like themselves with equal claim to rights as full citizens. This, too, was mostly unacknowledged.
By the late 1870s, the restoration of Southern “values” was well underway, and the persecution, disenfranchisement, and re-subjugation of black people — including the terror tactics of the notorious Ku Klux Klan — rapidly grew in strength and impact.
I remember traveling in the South as a teenager, where it was common to see water fountains, rest rooms and waiting areas in public places set aside for white-only use.
‘Know their place’
Black people were expected to “know their place,” to always step aside for a white person, and to ride in the back of city buses. It was only in the 1960s that the modern struggle for Civil Rights began in earnest. And, while there has been considerable progress made since then, once again efforts are being made in many states (not only in the South) to make it much more difficult for minority persons to exercise the fundamental right of voting. This latest move is masquerading as “measures to guard against voter fraud.”
However — as such “fraud” is almost non-existent, and the impact upon minorities by these efforts disproportionately harmful — it is blatantly clear that the real goal is to preserve existing white control.
Americans are not a bad people, nor are we as different from other folks as we sometimes like to pretend. However, if we are to overcome lingering prejudices and resentments, we can no longer dodge the ongoing consequences of our shameful past.
The issue of justice and fairness for all Americans is not just a concern for people of color. All citizens must take ownership of what has been done in the past, and what is still ongoing today, as a means of diminishing and controlling others. We must speak, and listen, respectfully and honestly to each other.
Old wounds and resentments cannot be forever nursed, nor should offenses be allowed to continue. The Zimmerman-Martin tragedy could yet be a springboard for beginning such a long-overdue healing process.
The author has been a college teacher of American history and political science, the director of the US National Catholic Rural Life Conference. He was as a member of the Iowa State House of Representatives, and retired from public service in the Iowa executive branch in 2004. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
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