Feb. 21, 2007
The Dark Side Of White History
The Nation: More Honest History About White Racism Is Needed
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Black, American History
Morgan Freeman tells Mike Wallace he is against black history month because it separates black history from American history and is part of a labeling process that abets racism.
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Dungy, Smith Make NFL History
Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy and his Chicago Bears counterpart, Lovie Smith, are opening doors for other African-American coaches. Teri Okita reports from Miami.
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Race Factor In 2008 Campaign
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., are competing for a major block of the Democratic Party - the African-American vote. Michelle Miller reports.
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Rosa Parks rides on a Montgomery Area Transit System bus in this undated photo. She was 42, a seamstress, when on Dec. 1, 1955, she defied segregation by refusing to give up her seat to a white man. (AP (file))
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A look back at the key people and events of the civil rights movement.
Whatever happened to James Blake? He is probably the most famous bus driver ever. And yet when he died at age 89 in March 2002, the few papers that bothered to note his passing in an obituary ran just a few hundred words of wire copy and moved on.
Given that February is Black History Month, it is worth taking a moment to ask how such a crucial figure could be so cruelly forgotten.
Blake was the Montgomery driver who told a row of black passengers: "Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats." Rosa Parks was one of those passengers. She made her stand and kept her seat. The rest, as they say, is history.
Well, black history anyway. We know how African-Americans boycotted city transit for thirteen months until the segregationists caved in. We know how the boycott launched the career of a previously unheard-of preacher called Martin Luther King Jr. and made Parks an icon. In schools, bookstores and on TV there is an awful lot of talk about them in February. But nary a word about Mr. Blake. That's because so much of Black History Month takes place in the passive voice. Leaders "get assassinated," patrons "are refused" service, women "are ejected" from public transport. So the objects of racism are many but the subjects few. In removing the instigators, the historians remove the agency and, in the final reckoning, the historical responsibility.
There is no month when we get to talk about Blake; no opportunity to learn the fates of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, who murdered Emmett Till; no time set aside to keep track of Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, whose false accusations of rape against the Scottsboro Boys sent five innocent young black men to jail.
Wouldn't everyone — particularly white people — benefit from becoming better acquainted with these histories? What we need, in short, is a White History Month.
For some this would be one racially themed history month too many. Criticisms of Black History Month from cynics, racists and purists are about as predictable as the arrival of February itself. But for all its obvious shortcomings, Black History Month helps clear a space to relate the truth about the past so we might better understand the present and navigate the future. Setting aside 28 days for African-American history is insufficient, problematic and deserves our support for the same reason that affirmative action is insufficient, problematic and deserves our support. As one means to redress an entrenched imbalance, it gives us the chance to hear narratives that have been forgotten, hidden, distorted or mislaid. Like that of Claudette Colvin, the black Montgomery teenage activist who also refused to give up her seat, nine months before Rosa Parks, but was abandoned by the local civil rights establishment because she became pregnant and came from the wrong side of town.
The very notion of black and white history is both a theoretical nonsense and a practical necessity. There is no scientific or biological basis for race. It is a construct to explain the gruesome reality that racism built. But, logic suggests, you cannot have black history without white history. Of course, the trouble is not that we do not hear enough about white history but that what masquerades as history is more akin to mythology. The contradictions of how a "free world" could be founded on genocide, or how the battle for democracy during the Second World War could coincide with Japanese internment and segregation, for example, are rarely addressed.
"I am born with a past and to try to cut myself off from that past is to deform my present relationships," writes Alasdair MacIntyre in his book After Virtue. "The possession of an historical identity and the possession of a social identity coincide."
The purpose here is not to explore individual guilt — there are therapists for that — but collective responsibility. When it comes to excelling at military conflict, everyone lays claim to their national identity; people will say, "We won World War II." By contrast, those who say "we" raped black slaves, massacred Indians or excluded Jews from higher education are hard to come by. You cannot, it appears, hold anyone responsible for what their ancestors did that was bad or the privileges they enjoy as a result. Whoever it was, it definitely wasn't "us." This is one more version of white flight — a dash from the inconveniences bequeathed by inequality.
So we do not need more white history, we need it better told. Settlement, slavery and segregation — propelled by economic expansion and justified by white supremacy — inform much of what the United States is today. The wealth they created helped bankroll its superpower status. The poverty they engendered persists. But white history does not mean racist history any more than black history means victims' history. Alongside Blake, Milam and Bryant, any decent White History Month would star insurrectionist John Brown; the Vanilla Ice of the Harlem Renaissance, Carl Van Vechten; civil rights workers Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi, during the Freedom Summer of 1964; and Viola Liuzzo, murdered during the Selma-to-Montgomery march. It would explain why Ronald Reagan kicked off his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi; why George W. Bush chose Bob Jones University to revive his presidential hopes. It would tell the story of how Ruby Bates recanted her rape accusation in a bid to save the Scottsboro boys from the noose and how the Blakes never did reconcile themselves to the event that brought them infamy. "None of that mess they said was true," said his wife, Edna. "Everybody loved him. He was a good, true man and a churchgoer."
It would offer white people options and role models and all of us inspiration while relieving the burden on African-Americans to recast the nation's entire racial history in the shortest month of the year. White people, like black people, need access to a history that is accurate, honest and inclusive. Maybe then it would be easier for them, and the rest of us, to make history that is progressive, antiracist and inclusive.
By Gary Younge
Reprinted with permission from the The Nation.
| If you like this article, check out www.thenation.com for more investigative reports, timely editorials and incisive columns |




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See all 94 CommentsPlease. It's more than sufficient. My neighbor's kid (12th grade) spent 4 hours last Friday in the school's auditorium listening to "whitey keeping da man down" rap music, then getting the rest of the day off....all to celebrate black history???? What a waste of time and money.
It's like getting MLK day off. Do something good for your community?? Nah....sleep late and go to the mall. These things probably only mean something to about 0.005% of the black population.
The Nation magazine, friend and allies with the Democrat party. Nation magazine your certainly not qualified to speak the truth.......
....historically it's been the Democratic Party that has kept Black Americans "down". From the 1860's to the 1960's they beat and murdered Southern Blacks to keep them in line........ they created an outlaw miltia called the KKK.....and the 1964 Civil Rights Act was nearly blocked by Senate Dems......... in the end nearly 40% of Dem Senators voted AGAINST the 1964 Civil Rights Act while nearly 90% of Republican Senators voted FOR the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
.........Even Al Gore's father .....Senator Al Gore Senior voted AGAINST the 1964 Civil Rights Act..............
Americans don't expect any truth from the Nation magazine regarding this "all too real history".......keep your left-wing propaganda comiing Nation......you have ZERO creditablity
Success will only be achieved when the black community starts looking forward.
Posted by triassic at 01:32 PM : Feb 21, 2007
....... Yeah and when they stop voting for the candidates with the "D" behind their name.....the their biggest problem.......no accountablity......from their pals the Dems.
It takes new generations of progressive thinkers to eliminate oppressive reactions to ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation.
American still has a way to go, especially in the mid-west and south.
They are the "spinners" of the right wing Republican Party and therefore are LIARS.
Americans don't expect any truth from the National Review magazine regarding this "all too real history".......keep your right-wing propaganda coming Nation......you have ZERO creditability.
(I know how to use spell checker! perception5 ought to do the same).
We can draw many observations and conclusions about such a broad topic. In the end, all decisions must be made on an individual basis. Use generalities to dismiss a race, a politic, a gender or any of the many categories we've put life into, and you are very much hurting yourself. You're doomed to stay in one place, and drag everyone around you down.
Our Fascist Government.
Without We The People believeing in the Mainstream "News" Propaganda and our Brainwashing Schools... Government is slowingly losing control over the Population.
There's enough HATE towards the Government to start a Second Civil War.
Must we AGAIN have the discussion about the difference between political parties vs liberal/conservative philosophies?
The fact that dems did all that is MEANINGLESS. It was CONSERVATIVES that did all that, regardless of their party affiliation of the time. LIBERALS were the ones who undid all the damage that CONSERVATIVES did. But today, in 2007, the repubs are the CONSERVATIVES and the dems are the LIBERALS. And black Amercians are going to get ZERO consideration from 2007 repubs. So, as usual, nice try attempting to make liberal dems sound like racists.
and to add to your comment, I'd just like to say, that it took years for the Democratic party to rid itself of racists and in doing so the Dems lost almost the entire southern vote to the Republicans, who were more than happy to except the new electoral votes.
This issue is way beyond Dem vs Repub or conservative vs liberal. Try to expand your narrow vision of the world. The solution to this and many other problems is not political.
I think the author is black or a self hating white man.
"So we do not need more white history, we need it better told. Settlement, slavery and segregation %u2014 propelled by economic expansion and justified by white supremacy"
What about all the white people who were decent people. The ones who took action. The ones who offered there homes and farms for the underground railroad. What about all those in the northern states who baned slavery. What about those who gave there lives in the civil war.
The author sounds to me as if he is a Black supremeicist. After all his idea of positive white history is some guy in harlem.
Why don't we call it human history and cut out the ***. Perhaps we could explore how there is good and bad in all of us. Perhaps we can show how greed is a powerful motivator. Perhaps we could show how we try to advance our culture above all others. Peerhaps we could explore the roots of slavery and give the black man his fair share of the blame.
Is that weed you are smoking that strong? The dems are just as racist; "Is Obama Black enough?" Hillary and her Ghandhi "jokes". Biden and his gaffe' about clean black guy. How pious. Republicans are racist too, Trent Lott, etc. We're all racist by the modern expanded definition of the word. Don't tell such self-serving lies.
So, the case goes to the Georgia Supreme Court and the conviction is upheld 4-3. All 4 justices who upheld the conviction were white, the 3 against upholding the conviction were black. Coincidence? You think if this kid was white, he wouldn't be playing football at Columbia (which in itself is sort of a sentence) right now?
While it's great that Georgia has three black supreme court justices to begin with, it doesn't mean that the playing field is level everywhere, all the time.
Race doesn't matter? My a$$ is doesn't matter.
I am talking about this country! Read your history books that were written by white people! Everything that I wrote came from American History books! I did not make it up! From the Wilmington Race Riots to The Burning down of Oklahoma to Rose wood in Florida! It is in your history books! Do not pity me, I am a Millionaire!
Isn't that racism? but, no, I'm sure you have some blah blah blah to explain why that is Not racism, but just fairness and justice. Right?
Right and being so rich you have nothing else better to do than write hate on this board..And by the lack of command of the english language you must have been given you money for you surely couldn't have earned it yourself..Or maybe your wife gave it to you!!! LOLLOLLOL
Please show me what hate I am spreading? I only stated what I have read in your American History books? I may not be as smart as you but I am *** sure richer! LOL
Posted by cryonbrian
Whoa pardner, wait a minute!! I grew up in Oklahoma, Oklahoma history was a mandated subject, when did it burn down?
Posted by cryonbrian
So am I, and my kids are too... but nobody cares about that. When did Oklahoma burn down... I still have kin there!! You're scarin' me.
How many of you have those postcards they use to send in the early 1900's of black people being lynched?
How many people know a full blooded Indian?
Have you seen pictures of Hiroshima?
I'm starting to understand Racism.
Unfortunetly, our Government Propaganda just wants to divide the races. makes us easier to control. Divide and Conquer. Even though we have a mutual enemy:
Our Government.
Sounds like anothereason for white people to feel guilty about things people living hundreds of years ago did. It serves no real purpose to highlight these things. People are well aware of past inequities. How about the African tribes still existing today who sold their brothers as slaves hundreds of years ago. Or the fact that as slaves of anglo saxons they were still better off than slaves of bloodthirsty Congo tribes. Lastly how about the never-acknowledged fact that being brought to America was the best thing that could have happened to these people. Whether its politically correct or not, all this is true. Have you had a look at life in Africa lately? Its not going so well.
Leave the past, lessons have already been learnt. Look to the future.r
You write "Criticisms of Black History Month from cynics, racists and purists are about as predictable as the arrival of February itself. But for all its obvious shortcomings, Black History Month helps clear a space to relate the truth about the past so we might better understand the present and navigate the future."
What future? White on black crime is nonexistent.
How are we better off each year with more black on white crime? What message is creating that, because it needs to end.
Lead the way CBS our diversity is what makes us strong. Of course nobody knows why but thats all we hear from your propaganda megaphone.
Also another story dealing with WWII Korean women forced into prostitution by the Japanese, included a line that it serves no purpose to dig up old wounds. Isn't that Black History Months purpose to continue to pick at old sores?
Bogged down by those cliche's, the writer went part way to the starting line. The true situation cannot be improved with pre-starting-line information.
1) "White" and "black" are not technical terms.
2) The groups known as "white" and black" were not formed or classed according to healing, intelligent criteria. They were originally assigned those labels by ignorance of humanity and of history. We should not play that game.
We go out of our way as a nation to keep race as a divider. My family came here in the 1900s. We didn't own any slaves - coming to the US after the fact - and my own father picked cotton in the summer to pay for his school clothes in rural Mississippi in the 1950s. Did I mention we're white?
Race is just an excuse to keep people from having to actually make an effort to get along. That's pathetic.
We spend way too much time talking about color in this country. What's the point?
What makes one black? I know many black people who have lighter skin color than me, so skin color can't be it. Is it family origins that can be traced to Africa? I think that pretty much sums up the human race as Mama Africa is the origin for all humans. Does it mean tracing your family back to slaves in the US? Well, how would Barack Obama and other families of African immigrants after slavery was abolished fit in?
Enough of this black vs. white stuff. I just want to be a human being.
In the words of Rodney King: Why can't we all just get along?
When I tell whites my grandfather had to leave the south because he hit a white man, I get responses like, "I think it was wrong to hit any man". Then I must explain how this white man had stolen, cheated and disrespected my grandfather. My grandfather had no legal recourse. White man's word against a black man...
We surely need more white history. Not talking about the role of the white racists fuels the myth that blacks can just pull themselves up by thier bootstraps like other immigrants.
Thanks for this article. It shows your courage.
is not a historical figue...
ever watch the dave chappele show??
he says it best....
+ their were hundreds of people before her that probably did the same thing on the bussess as she did. she just got lucky
It always amazes me how some people claim to be anti-racist while in the same breath talk about racial "collective responsibility" and "racial history" - an inherently racist concept. I cannot imagine the backlash if someone were to suggest that during Black History Month we should focus on black racism against whites, or the problems they have with crime, welfare, illegitimate children while praising a few successful black people for 'getting it right' - how'd ya think that'd go over?
I happen to be white... and I cannot hold individual blacks collectively responsible for the actions of other blacks - I am told this time & time again by people like the guy who wrote this article - I accept this notion... In the same way, I do not accept collective responsibility for the actions of other whites.
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