What Should January 6th Mean to African Americans!
President Biden recently announced that the U.S. might be ready to get back to a “close to normal” Fourth of July celebration. Sadly, the use of the word “normal” sticks out like a persistent pimple. A glaring example of the disregard given to disparities COVID, like so many other societal ills, has illuminated. For, even if the nation is accomplishing so much good in the fight against the pandemic this year’s celebration of patriotism will justifiably be overshadowed by mourning. Mourning the loss of over a half a million U.S. citizen souls, many needlessly and disproportionately poor, elderly, Native and African American. Mourning privileges given by ethnicity and socioeconomic status that determine values for life and justice. And mourning the loss of blindness to extremists within.
Tragically, still, the “unity” that patriotic celebrations hearken serves as more story line for many than fact. A story line eroded by history and the January 6th Insurrection undermines. Five hundred years of conflict over who should be the beneficiaries of democracy’s rewards have been called into question by those who desire to perpetuate white supremacy, nationalism and privilege.
To that very point, have you noticed differences in the way many African Americans talk about the January 6th Insurrection and the ways many Whites do. It’s like White folks say, “Oh no! This can’t be! Not in America!” And Black folks say, “History repeats itself! Chickens come home to roost! Amerikkka!”
Adding validity to the latter’s voices, the treatment of January 6th’s violent insurrectionists for many, again, exemplifies the colorization of citizen rights Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) affirmed when he said, “If the mob had of been Black Lives Matter protestors, I might have been more concerned.”
How blatant! How true! Not just for him. It’s the way many feel. The kinder gentler regard given to Whites, like the riotous mob causing mayhem, injury and death attempting to halt a free and fair election, stands in stark contrast to peaceful protestors confronted with violence for calling attention to the violence committed against communities of color is both striking and a painful reminder, to many, of what “Make America Great Again” really means.
January 6th’s Insurrection is a karmic reminder that returning to an almost normal Fourth of July means returning to celebrations where many will bear witness to the brand of “patriotism” that drives desires to overthrow the democracy. Others will observe the ideals penned by those who forged by genocide and slavery an imperfect union. And many will mourn the injustices that drove Frederick Douglass’ profound oratory, The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro, July 5, 1852.
It was an oration that confronted the country with the belief that at the very hour of his speaking the United States was the cruelest nation on earth. That being a patriot meant giving reason to genocide and the theft of property from other nations. That being a patriot meant standing silent in the kidnapping, rape, abuse and murder of those enslaved. That being a patriot meant cheerleaders those who amass fortune without regard or regret for how their gains were made. That believing the lifestyle gained from chattel slavery, indentured servitude, forced labor, colonization and profiteering are the rightful rewards of the patriot is an affront to one’s faith. That one’s religious freedom justifies their intolerance of others’.
This, I project, is exactly why mounting a commission to determine the full extent of support for the January 6th Insurrection, and their co-conspirators, is a non-starter. There are too many bones buried by those coalescing around perpetuating privilege more than democracy. Too many who support being a traitor to the nation’s ideals as secondary to being a patriot to their right of supremacy. The appeal of a time when, as Mr. Douglas reminded them, that “…gross injustice and cruelty to which (African Americans) is the constant victim.” is a backlash history tells us asserts itself when the arc of justice swings too profoundly towards democracy’s ideals: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Reasserting a return to white privilege informing policy and enforcement is a ship that has sailed with way too many now on board. For this reason, my imagination tells me, the pain enveloping Mr. Douglass’ words are no less soul disturbing than the pain many feel today. For at its core, his response to the Declaration of Independence, illuminates how today’s racial divide is born from a most fundamental existential question: if white nationalism defines patriotism, where do I (an African American) belong?
So, paraphrasing Mr. Douglass’ oration, to think African Americans would wholly feel the indignity whites feel (about January 6) attends not to the accumulative impact of injustices committed. Like we don’t, now I will quote Mr. Douglass, see…”your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”
Such was the reality of Andrew Jackson’s presidency. His, and his cronies, reversal of Reconstruction’s promises turned democracy’s ideals into a cruel joke bore by former slaves. Worse, instead of holding secessionists responsible for their traitorous behaviors they were enlisted to roll back laws and policies giving slavery and oppression a new face instead of true eradication.
When African American communities like Rosewood, the Greenwood District, and Springfield rose to prosperity, the response was arson and murderous terror. Red Summer (1919) was so named because of the amount of blood spilled by White racist mobs who rained terror on African American communities across the country.
However, let us not pretend, that when the flames died so did the atrocities. T.V., movies and radio began shaping our collective consciousness around definitions of good, evil, criminal, pure, and more. Skin color coding became a tour de force, drowning popular culture in seas of intractable white washings that defined what was expected of a real patriot. And who was not.
And let us not forget that Civil Rights legislation still needed Freedom Riders, sit-ins, boycotts, church bombings, a historic March on Washington, the Black Panthers and too many Bloody Sundays to bring democracy’s promise to millions of African Americans. How true was Mr. Douglass’ reflection a hundred years before, “They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor.”
As if proof of that statement is needed, White supremacists and privilege mongers whipped up by Reagan’s “Southern Strategy” trumpeting “Let’s Make America Great Again” shepherded the reversal of legislative and policy gains while facilitating one of the greatest transfers in wealth to the already wealthy in U.S. history. The toll taken swelled poverty rolls and cemeteries. And then came Clinton with Welfare reform and Mass Incarceration.
Paradoxically, it’s been African Americans who, from emancipation to the Georgia run-off that sent Ossoff and Warnock to the Senate in 2021, have carried the country’s democratic ideals far more than the dominant culture has shown reasons why we should. But that is true for many victims of domestic abuse. As Ms. Jennifer Rae Taylor, Senior Attorney, The Equal Justice Initiative, The American Bar Association explains in “A History of Tolerance for Violence Has Laid the Groundwork for Injustice Today“ (March 16, 2019) the belief that things will get better has been the undoing of many.
For, as history teaches, each time hopes have been raised; each time hard work and resilience began to pay off; each time dreams began to come true, promises of a better life were snatched away. The repeated denial of African Americans from the country’s vision of itself has had insurmountable impact. The pain of this society’s rejection, has been too much to sanely bear. Progress, backlash, progress, backlash!
The accumulative result of systematic alienation coupled with the terroristic enforcement of a skin color based caste system has turned many unconscious. How insightful was Frederick Douglass, when he said, “Oppression makes a wise man mad.” Psychotic at times! How else can one explain African Americans abusing themselves, Asian Americans or dancing in Native American garb for a sport’s team whose nickname is a racist slur. Proof positive that white supremacy is a disease running through the veins not of people but of a culture, a country, that institutionally, intentionally, infects its people. For in these words, “There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States…” Mr. Douglass brilliantly foretells Dr. King Jr.’s conundrum: the fear of integrating into a burning house.
How difficult is it to hold unto a love who revels in your talents, often with passionate joy and envy, and then, unexpectedly, turns as frigid and as deadly as a winter storm. This is the conundrum that epitomizes the conflict many African Americans feel when confronted with calls for unity. When the Fourth of July is anticipated as another of democracy’s milestones! When we are called upon to venerate the Nation’s Capitol! To feel ire for the desecration of the People’s house, a building built in large part by an inhuman institution that interred millions within a chattel slave system for centuries!
Why would an assault against a land that has repeatedly rejected our love, simply, because it came from us, cause in us the same pain it breathes into those who have been nourished by the milk and honey of privilege?
To quote Mr. Douglass, “Do you mock me?”
