A Brief History Lesson regarding BLM

A Brief History Lesson
by
Phoenix Hocking

I am writing this to give some sort of context to the current affairs in the United States for those folks who live in other countries.  You probably only get the horrific news on television, and may think we are a nation of rioters and looters.  So, let me see if I can explain, just a little, what brought about the rage you are most likely seeing on your evening news.

The first black people brought to this country came in the year 1619.  So, for the sake of brevity, we’ll just call it four hundred years ago.  Slaves were bought, sold, raped, tortured, starved, beaten, and lynched.  Children were sold away from their parents, never to be seen again.  They were forced to work on large plantations, with only the barest accommodation and minimal food.  Their names were changed to sound more “white,” and their original cultures were banned and beaten out of them.  Black women were often raped by their white masters, and any resulting children were rarely acknowledged, and were often sold away just as readily as any other slave.  Attempts to run away from their harsh lives were met with beatings, dismemberment of limbs, or often, even death. 

 

  The civil war began when the Confederates bombarded Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. The war ended in Spring, 1865. Robert E. Lee surrendered the last major Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Ah, finally, Freedom!  Right?  Not so fast.

With freedom came the right to move around as they pleased, right?  But where were they to go?  With no money or skills beyond picking cotton or something similar, many simply stayed where they were, “share-cropping,” and their plight remained pretty much the same.

Black people were still kept segregated from white people.  Their schools were sub-par, if children were allowed to go to school at all.  If a black man even looked at a white woman, he could be lynched, and no one would think twice about it.  Black women were used a “guinea pigs” in medical experiments; black men, too.  The knee on the black man’s neck remained, even though black people were “free.”  Good jobs went to white people, not to black people.  Crappy, low-paying jobs went to black people.  Good health care went to white people.  Black people simply had to make do with whatever they could come up with.

“Colored” segregation was common, and not only in the South. 

   

 The civil rights movement was an organized effort by black Americans to end racial discrimination and gain equal rights under the law. It began in the late 1940s and ended in the late 1960s.  You may have heard of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was a leader in the nonviolent movement to gain equality. 

During this time, children who attempted to integrate white schools were shouted at, spat upon, and had stones thrown at them.  Black people who attempted to sit at white lunch counters were reviled and beaten.  Black men were still being lynched for the most minor of perceived offenses.  Black women were still being raped.  Any attempt at gaining equality under the law was met with vicious dogs, fire hoses, and beating from the police. 

Things settled down, a bit, after the sixties.  But inequality was, and still is, rampant. 

Black people are stopped and arrested more often than white people.  They are incarcerated at a higher percentage than white people.  If two people commit the same crime, the black person is more likely to go to jail for it than the white person. 

The police, by and large, are not seen as the black person’s friend.  Just a short list of some black people who have lost their lives at the hands of the police include:

Eric Garner had just broken up a fight, according to witness testimony.
Ezell Ford was walking in his neighborhood.
Michelle Cusseaux was changing the lock on her home's door when police arrived to take her to a mental health facility.
Tanisha Anderson was having a bad mental health episode, and her brother called 911.
Tamir Rice was playing in a park.
Natasha McKenna was having a schizophrenic episode when she was tazed in Fairfax, Va.
Walter Scott was going to an auto-parts store.
Bettie Jones answered the door to let Chicago police officers in to help her upstairs neighbor, who had called 911 to resolve a domestic dispute.
Philando Castile was driving home from dinner with his girlfriend.
Botham Jean was eating ice cream in his living room in Dallas.
Atatiana Jefferson was babysitting her nephew at home in Fort Worth, Texas.
Eric Reason was pulling into a parking spot at a local chicken and fish shop.
Dominique Clayton was sleeping in her bed.
Breonna Taylor was also asleep in her bed.
And George Floyd was at the grocery store.

It was the video of George Floyd, being killed by a white police officer who kneeled on his neck, as Mr. Floyd struggled, saying, “I can’t breathe,” that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Polite requests for equality seemed to do little to stem the tide of racism, and especially acts of violence by the police.  The rage built up from 400 years of injustice boiled over, and have resulted in what you see today.

That being said, most of the protests are peaceful.  Hundreds of thousands of people protest every day, calling for justice, peacefully.  But peaceful protests don’t make the news, especially internationally.  What makes the news are riots and looting and murder.  Yes, that is certainly happening, some co-opting the Black Lives Matter movement for their own ends.

Just as an aside, the implied word in Black Lives Matter is “too,” not “only.”

First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says:  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Peaceful protestors are exercising their First Amendment rights, and are often met with rubber bullets, tear gas, and beating.  One protestor’s face mask was pulled off and he was sprayed in the face with pepper spray, by the police.  Peaceful protesters were forcibly removed from in front of a church, using tear gas and rubber bullets, so that the president could stand in front of the church and hold up a Bible for a photo.

Sadly, the president has done more to divide this country than any other in recent memory.  Before he was elected (NOT by popular vote, but by the Electoral College, which is a whole other issue), he called Mexicans “murderers and rapists.”  He calls White Supremacists, “good people.”  He calls the current coronavirus the pejorative, “Kung Flu,” while people continue to die at an alarming rate.

And meanwhile, black people continue to die, continue to be persecuted by the police and by the racism that is systemic in our country.  Black people continue to speak up for themselves, and white folks, who may not even recognize their own racism, don’t like it. 

Recently a white woman called the police on a black man because he asked her to leash up her dog in a park.  Another white woman called the police on a black woman who was simply sitting on a park bench.  A black man was killed by vigilantes because he was jogging in a white neighborhood.  Another black man was killed by police when he was walking home from the store, because he wore a face mask due to a medical condition.  A white woman called the police on her black neighbors who were building a patio in their own back yard.  I could go on, but you get the picture.

Implied racism is rampant in this country.  Wal-Mart routinely locks up beauty products meant for black people, but not those for white people.  People call the police on black people who “aren’t where they’re supposed to be.”  White people still cross the street to avoid a black person on the sidewalk.  Black people are still followed in grocery stores, while white people are not.  A black doctor may be applauded while wearing his scrubs, but suddenly becomes fearful when he’s wearing his hoodie. 

Okay, let me talk about monuments for a moment.  Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you’re a Jewish person, and every time you walked down the street you had to pass a statue of Hitler.  How do you think you would feel?  Well, it’s just the same, when there are monuments to slave-holders and Confederate generals all over the place. 
 Painful history shouldn't be forgotten. But it also doesn't need to be shoved in our faces on a daily basis. That's what museums are for. Erecting monuments to people who raped, tortured and abused other people should not be tolerated. Existing ones need to be removed to appropriate museums. Take a page from the Holocaust Museums, who do not sugarcoat the history, but don't glorify it either.

So, there you have it.  This isn’t a full account of 400 years of misery, but maybe it will give you some context as to what today’s protests are all about.