about being black
Credo
Preface
I do not hate U.S. History itself. I just hate being tested on it in any way, shape or form. That includes but is not limited to tests, quizzes, in class essays and especially papers. That is generally because there are few historic things that I remember and fewer that I care to remember. Even these few are withering scraps of information. I remembered them because they were compelling to me at the moment that I learned them. I do not remember any famous acts, or proclamations or agreements etc. There are days that I am in history class and I’ll learn something, and it’ll hold my interest for some time. Then I typically forget about it. The facts I remember are usually useless, ie. I know that hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards and that can hover; and that a blue whale’s heart is about the size of a Volkswagen. Quite random. I don’t recall the foreign policy views of ex-presidents. I couldn’t tell you what year any war started or ended nor could I tell you one hundred percent surely why the U.S. entered them. It’s not that I believe that the information is useless. I just have a lot of difficulty recalling them. I guess there are plenty of people who already know or can make an educated guess as to why Carter lost the second election. Aren’t there enough people who can tell another person what the Progressive Movement was? The truth is that I’ll forget it for now and probably be told by someone later on in life and then forget it within two weeks of being told. I have never taken any history course out of my own volition. But since I am being made to write this paper tackling the serious ethical questions raised in your course, I am forced to scrape at the remains of fleeting historical knowledge not locked but floating loosely around somewhere in that gray convoluted cerebral matter that’s sitting on my neck. This is why I detest writing papers: with nothing to recall about the historical periods I am forced to review everything each time. That is a royal pain in the ass and takes more time than I have. Faced with this, every history paper I have ever written has been below my standards.
Dedication
I had a teacher who didn’t just teach. He didn’t just give powerful lectures and facilitate great discussions. He forced us to step out of our comfort zones by truly questioning our beliefs. By compelling us to undergo such self scrutiny as deliberating out values, we physically tore down the foundations of our decisions, inspected the ruins of our consciousness and re-built them -fortified with historical fact. This is truly strong medicine. Most people who truly know something can teach it to someone else. It takes a courageous and remarkable person to repeatedly reach into the conscience of a pupil, scramble the contents and reconstruct that material with a new might that only comes from completing and repeating the process. This teacher then charged us with using our newly discovered strength of mind to go into the world and do something about the things we cared about; to have moral conviction and to speak loudly to others through our actions; to let ourselves shine as advocates of change. I understand that my generation is an apathetic one; one that selfishly hides behind veils that allow us to judge and rebuke the actions of others without actually getting our hands dirty. These are bold but empty and hypocritical statements and actions made by a generation that is quick to judge and slow to act. It could be argued that at least those that we so rapidly adjudicate are taking a stand and doing something about what they believe in. Change does not come without struggle and some vulnerability on the part of those who desire it. This is a fundamental truth and one that I have truly come to understand under the guidance of this teacher. I can think of no better way to thank Mr. Noah Bopp, than to leave this place and to go out and put into practice the incredible lessons that he has instilled in me and that which will remain in me forever.
Credo
After much mental screaming and aggravation I have decided to pursue the question of who I am. I am black. What does that mean? Some would say it means that I am part of a rich and very compelling history. Why is that? Well practicing historians seem to think so. Every history textbook discusses the progression and deterioration of the societal position of African-Americans in whatever time period it covers. I believe that following the societal position of blacks this way is one method of defining the progress of the Untied States as a nation. How a nation treats it’s lowest class, I believe says something profound about the character of that nation.
Black people were first introduced into this country as the slaves of southern planters. At the end of the Civil War in 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation freed thousands of slaves. This was met with much hate. When the slaves were freed, they did go and kill all of their old masters. They rejoiced and only wanted some peace and quiet and a little bit of land for themselves. The old saying is 40 acres and a mule. Going from servitude to just 1 acre and no mule would have been perfectly suitable for most slaves. I personally believe they deserved more than that, but the sense of paying one what is due them has certainly changed over time. So then where did the hate come from? African Americans certainly did not bring it upon themselves.
Whites feared that once freed, the slaves would come and have their revenge. Seeing as that didn’t happen and was not the general sentiment among freed slaves, maybe that says something about the nature of whites at the time. That is to suggest that, had it been the whites that were enslaved for 200 + years and the blacks cracking the whips, and had it been the whites that were freed, that the whites would have taken the revenge they so “deserved”. An eye for an eye right?
The hate is a product of that fear and is passed down by white generation to white generation. White kids are told that they are superior in every way to blacks and because society doesn’t teach them otherwise, they believe it. Most of these white youth would never personally experience something so profoundly racist and inhumane to make them change their minds. They might not grow up to be KKK grand wizards, supreme chancellors or even members like their fathers and grandfathers may have been. They may not even be vocal advocates for segregation or white supremacy. Whatever moral conviction might have been in them, in spite of parental influences, was beaten out by peer pressure and just by living day-to-day where everything told them that they were better. I propose that many people were silent racists: whites, whose prejudice tendencies were only apparent in their small talk, voting choices or any other public poll. Still they too become racist and their actions and values are absorbed by their children. Southern society doesn’t combat this consequently the vicious cycle repeats itself. But in the north, a ray of light began to penetrate the darkness that had shrouded the black community since the Emancipation Proclamation. It was a rebirth of artistic genius known as the Harlem Renaissance.
The Harlem Renaissance, started in the early 1920s was a major period of advancement for African-Americans in art, music, literature, and for their social image as well. W.E.B. Dubois, arguably the most famous black intellectual of the period, considered in his acclaimed literary work, The Souls of Black Folk, the ideal for African Americans in the country at that time: “He [the Negro] would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible to for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.” The task of being accepted as being simultaneously black and American is a struggle not as fierce today as it was then. Dubois eloquently describes it as he following: “One ever feels his two-ness, -an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” He reminds me though, that this country does have prejudices and does have problems with change. The simple fact that it was necessary to be written shows that even when on the rise, African Americans still felt the tight grasp of racism on their lives. In the north, the views are slightly different: the people are somewhat less racist. But in the north, another fear is present. One that is based more on society, than family values. Here is a situation:
The year is 1962. A few years earlier, in 1954, in Brown vs. the Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that states could not segregate schools. Johnny is a black boy who attends a non segregated school in a peaceful town. His family is not very wealthy but he is a nice kid and has many friends at school that are both white and black. His best friend is a young, somewhat wealthy, white girl, named Alice. He visits Alice’s house sometimes after school. Alice’s father gets to know Johnny and genuinely thinks he is a very nice boy. This continues all throughout elementary school. Later on, in high school, Johnny and Alice are still great friends. Johnny begins to realize that he loves Alice, and he tells her how he feels. She feels the same way about him, but their relationship is still kept somewhat quiet. Johnny takes Alice out to movies, but her father thinks they’re just going as friends. Senior year comes and Johnny and Alice both graduate and go to separate colleges in the north. They continue their relationship though, seeing each other on breaks and the occasional visit. The summer after they graduate from college, Johnny goes to ask Alice’s father for her hand in marriage. Alice’s father looks at him, slightly astonished. He has come to know Johnny almost as another son, but he knows that he could never tell his family that he has a black son-in-law. The guys at work would never talk to him again and society itself would not approve in the least. He’s ok with Johnny being friends with Alice, but marriage is out of bounds. Alice’s father tries his best to explain to Johnny that marrying Alice is not possible but it comes out as him flat out saying no. Johnny can’t believe what he’s hearing. He leaves the town, without saying a word to anyone, and moves to the city to start a new life without Alice. The question here is: Was Alice’s father racist? He genuinely thought Johnny was a great guy and thoroughly enjoyed his company. He may have even said yes to Johnny, had he been white. But he doesn’t dislike black people. He just couldn’t show his face in public again. Some would say Alice’s father isn’t racist because he did genuinely love Johnny and that it was just his insecurity and fear that kept him from saying yes. Others would argue that by succumbing to society’s racism, he in turn was being racist. The truth is that situations like this did occur. It shows that while the north was more open, the most basic forms of racism were still prevalent. Society still held it’s influence on parents even though the day-to-day actions didn’t hint at their racist tendencies.
So here’s a recap. The Union wins the Civil War which frees the slaves. Then, the Ku Klux Klan is formed in 1866 to fortify white supremacy in the nation. Hate crimes increase. Next, in 1896, in Plessy vs. Ferguson, states are given the right to segregate public spaces and Jim Crow Laws come into affect. This prevents blacks from drinking from the same water fountains, eating at the same restaurants, shopping at the same stores, etc. as whites. Under the direction of Dr. Martin Luther King, the Civil Right Movement begins as a non-violent oppositional rally against this injustice in the south. All the major violence seems to be coming from one side of the racial divide. The fact is that blacks who were not originally vengeful, adopted a nonviolent way of fighting against the prejudices that kept them down and were a result of their being freed. I being a conscientious objector am in agreement with this form of opposition. This history exhibits what I’d like to believe would be my tendencies in a similar situation: when facing the task of overcoming adversity that I would choose non-violence as the means. Violence is never justifiable. To think that there isn’t another way of solving a problem is a defeatist mentality.
Living in this day and age is no doubt easier than life in the 20s or 60s. My sense of two-ness though, is not the same as Dubois’. Instead of wanting to be recognized as both Black and American, I sometimes want to eliminate one half of the joint identity. There are times when I hate to call myself American: researching the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, hearing of the war in Iraq; watching Michael Moore unveil the dark sadistic secrets of America’s involvement in tyrannical countries in “Bowling for Columbine” and seeing the pictures of the torture of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison. There are times when black people anger me too: seeing kids skip school to play basketball; hearing black people using improper language unknowingly; having sex at young ages and abandoning the mothers; watching them doing, and selling drugs only to get caught and go to jail. Tupac Shakur once said, “It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact/ the penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks.” Mostly it is when I witness those around me confirming by action the stereotypes that pertain to them. Americans are stereotypically arrogant, obnoxious, ready to force their beliefs on others, quick to judge and slow to change. Blacks are stereotypically lazy, dangerous, uneducated and have poor family values. I was always raised to combat these stereotypes. I have tried to live every moment of my life, not conforming to the mold to which society might try and fit me. And throughout it all, it feels like I have been the only one. I have always felt aware of everything around me from a very young age, and have come to consider myself an anomaly. I realize that before I was an American, I was black, and before I was black, I was a human being with a soul and a conscience. I am myself before all other labels. The values that have been instilled in me have taught me this, and I’ll continue to be who I am and to shatter the stereotypes that seek to categorize me and to make sense of me.
Preface
I do not hate U.S. History itself. I just hate being tested on it in any way, shape or form. That includes but is not limited to tests, quizzes, in class essays and especially papers. That is generally because there are few historic things that I remember and fewer that I care to remember. Even these few are withering scraps of information. I remembered them because they were compelling to me at the moment that I learned them. I do not remember any famous acts, or proclamations or agreements etc. There are days that I am in history class and I’ll learn something, and it’ll hold my interest for some time. Then I typically forget about it. The facts I remember are usually useless, ie. I know that hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards and that can hover; and that a blue whale’s heart is about the size of a Volkswagen. Quite random. I don’t recall the foreign policy views of ex-presidents. I couldn’t tell you what year any war started or ended nor could I tell you one hundred percent surely why the U.S. entered them. It’s not that I believe that the information is useless. I just have a lot of difficulty recalling them. I guess there are plenty of people who already know or can make an educated guess as to why Carter lost the second election. Aren’t there enough people who can tell another person what the Progressive Movement was? The truth is that I’ll forget it for now and probably be told by someone later on in life and then forget it within two weeks of being told. I have never taken any history course out of my own volition. But since I am being made to write this paper tackling the serious ethical questions raised in your course, I am forced to scrape at the remains of fleeting historical knowledge not locked but floating loosely around somewhere in that gray convoluted cerebral matter that’s sitting on my neck. This is why I detest writing papers: with nothing to recall about the historical periods I am forced to review everything each time. That is a royal pain in the ass and takes more time than I have. Faced with this, every history paper I have ever written has been below my standards.
Dedication
I had a teacher who didn’t just teach. He didn’t just give powerful lectures and facilitate great discussions. He forced us to step out of our comfort zones by truly questioning our beliefs. By compelling us to undergo such self scrutiny as deliberating out values, we physically tore down the foundations of our decisions, inspected the ruins of our consciousness and re-built them -fortified with historical fact. This is truly strong medicine. Most people who truly know something can teach it to someone else. It takes a courageous and remarkable person to repeatedly reach into the conscience of a pupil, scramble the contents and reconstruct that material with a new might that only comes from completing and repeating the process. This teacher then charged us with using our newly discovered strength of mind to go into the world and do something about the things we cared about; to have moral conviction and to speak loudly to others through our actions; to let ourselves shine as advocates of change. I understand that my generation is an apathetic one; one that selfishly hides behind veils that allow us to judge and rebuke the actions of others without actually getting our hands dirty. These are bold but empty and hypocritical statements and actions made by a generation that is quick to judge and slow to act. It could be argued that at least those that we so rapidly adjudicate are taking a stand and doing something about what they believe in. Change does not come without struggle and some vulnerability on the part of those who desire it. This is a fundamental truth and one that I have truly come to understand under the guidance of this teacher. I can think of no better way to thank Mr. Noah Bopp, than to leave this place and to go out and put into practice the incredible lessons that he has instilled in me and that which will remain in me forever.
Credo
After much mental screaming and aggravation I have decided to pursue the question of who I am. I am black. What does that mean? Some would say it means that I am part of a rich and very compelling history. Why is that? Well practicing historians seem to think so. Every history textbook discusses the progression and deterioration of the societal position of African-Americans in whatever time period it covers. I believe that following the societal position of blacks this way is one method of defining the progress of the Untied States as a nation. How a nation treats it’s lowest class, I believe says something profound about the character of that nation.
Black people were first introduced into this country as the slaves of southern planters. At the end of the Civil War in 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation freed thousands of slaves. This was met with much hate. When the slaves were freed, they did go and kill all of their old masters. They rejoiced and only wanted some peace and quiet and a little bit of land for themselves. The old saying is 40 acres and a mule. Going from servitude to just 1 acre and no mule would have been perfectly suitable for most slaves. I personally believe they deserved more than that, but the sense of paying one what is due them has certainly changed over time. So then where did the hate come from? African Americans certainly did not bring it upon themselves.
Whites feared that once freed, the slaves would come and have their revenge. Seeing as that didn’t happen and was not the general sentiment among freed slaves, maybe that says something about the nature of whites at the time. That is to suggest that, had it been the whites that were enslaved for 200 + years and the blacks cracking the whips, and had it been the whites that were freed, that the whites would have taken the revenge they so “deserved”. An eye for an eye right?
The hate is a product of that fear and is passed down by white generation to white generation. White kids are told that they are superior in every way to blacks and because society doesn’t teach them otherwise, they believe it. Most of these white youth would never personally experience something so profoundly racist and inhumane to make them change their minds. They might not grow up to be KKK grand wizards, supreme chancellors or even members like their fathers and grandfathers may have been. They may not even be vocal advocates for segregation or white supremacy. Whatever moral conviction might have been in them, in spite of parental influences, was beaten out by peer pressure and just by living day-to-day where everything told them that they were better. I propose that many people were silent racists: whites, whose prejudice tendencies were only apparent in their small talk, voting choices or any other public poll. Still they too become racist and their actions and values are absorbed by their children. Southern society doesn’t combat this consequently the vicious cycle repeats itself. But in the north, a ray of light began to penetrate the darkness that had shrouded the black community since the Emancipation Proclamation. It was a rebirth of artistic genius known as the Harlem Renaissance.
The Harlem Renaissance, started in the early 1920s was a major period of advancement for African-Americans in art, music, literature, and for their social image as well. W.E.B. Dubois, arguably the most famous black intellectual of the period, considered in his acclaimed literary work, The Souls of Black Folk, the ideal for African Americans in the country at that time: “He [the Negro] would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible to for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.” The task of being accepted as being simultaneously black and American is a struggle not as fierce today as it was then. Dubois eloquently describes it as he following: “One ever feels his two-ness, -an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” He reminds me though, that this country does have prejudices and does have problems with change. The simple fact that it was necessary to be written shows that even when on the rise, African Americans still felt the tight grasp of racism on their lives. In the north, the views are slightly different: the people are somewhat less racist. But in the north, another fear is present. One that is based more on society, than family values. Here is a situation:
The year is 1962. A few years earlier, in 1954, in Brown vs. the Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that states could not segregate schools. Johnny is a black boy who attends a non segregated school in a peaceful town. His family is not very wealthy but he is a nice kid and has many friends at school that are both white and black. His best friend is a young, somewhat wealthy, white girl, named Alice. He visits Alice’s house sometimes after school. Alice’s father gets to know Johnny and genuinely thinks he is a very nice boy. This continues all throughout elementary school. Later on, in high school, Johnny and Alice are still great friends. Johnny begins to realize that he loves Alice, and he tells her how he feels. She feels the same way about him, but their relationship is still kept somewhat quiet. Johnny takes Alice out to movies, but her father thinks they’re just going as friends. Senior year comes and Johnny and Alice both graduate and go to separate colleges in the north. They continue their relationship though, seeing each other on breaks and the occasional visit. The summer after they graduate from college, Johnny goes to ask Alice’s father for her hand in marriage. Alice’s father looks at him, slightly astonished. He has come to know Johnny almost as another son, but he knows that he could never tell his family that he has a black son-in-law. The guys at work would never talk to him again and society itself would not approve in the least. He’s ok with Johnny being friends with Alice, but marriage is out of bounds. Alice’s father tries his best to explain to Johnny that marrying Alice is not possible but it comes out as him flat out saying no. Johnny can’t believe what he’s hearing. He leaves the town, without saying a word to anyone, and moves to the city to start a new life without Alice. The question here is: Was Alice’s father racist? He genuinely thought Johnny was a great guy and thoroughly enjoyed his company. He may have even said yes to Johnny, had he been white. But he doesn’t dislike black people. He just couldn’t show his face in public again. Some would say Alice’s father isn’t racist because he did genuinely love Johnny and that it was just his insecurity and fear that kept him from saying yes. Others would argue that by succumbing to society’s racism, he in turn was being racist. The truth is that situations like this did occur. It shows that while the north was more open, the most basic forms of racism were still prevalent. Society still held it’s influence on parents even though the day-to-day actions didn’t hint at their racist tendencies.
So here’s a recap. The Union wins the Civil War which frees the slaves. Then, the Ku Klux Klan is formed in 1866 to fortify white supremacy in the nation. Hate crimes increase. Next, in 1896, in Plessy vs. Ferguson, states are given the right to segregate public spaces and Jim Crow Laws come into affect. This prevents blacks from drinking from the same water fountains, eating at the same restaurants, shopping at the same stores, etc. as whites. Under the direction of Dr. Martin Luther King, the Civil Right Movement begins as a non-violent oppositional rally against this injustice in the south. All the major violence seems to be coming from one side of the racial divide. The fact is that blacks who were not originally vengeful, adopted a nonviolent way of fighting against the prejudices that kept them down and were a result of their being freed. I being a conscientious objector am in agreement with this form of opposition. This history exhibits what I’d like to believe would be my tendencies in a similar situation: when facing the task of overcoming adversity that I would choose non-violence as the means. Violence is never justifiable. To think that there isn’t another way of solving a problem is a defeatist mentality.
Living in this day and age is no doubt easier than life in the 20s or 60s. My sense of two-ness though, is not the same as Dubois’. Instead of wanting to be recognized as both Black and American, I sometimes want to eliminate one half of the joint identity. There are times when I hate to call myself American: researching the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, hearing of the war in Iraq; watching Michael Moore unveil the dark sadistic secrets of America’s involvement in tyrannical countries in “Bowling for Columbine” and seeing the pictures of the torture of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison. There are times when black people anger me too: seeing kids skip school to play basketball; hearing black people using improper language unknowingly; having sex at young ages and abandoning the mothers; watching them doing, and selling drugs only to get caught and go to jail. Tupac Shakur once said, “It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact/ the penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks.” Mostly it is when I witness those around me confirming by action the stereotypes that pertain to them. Americans are stereotypically arrogant, obnoxious, ready to force their beliefs on others, quick to judge and slow to change. Blacks are stereotypically lazy, dangerous, uneducated and have poor family values. I was always raised to combat these stereotypes. I have tried to live every moment of my life, not conforming to the mold to which society might try and fit me. And throughout it all, it feels like I have been the only one. I have always felt aware of everything around me from a very young age, and have come to consider myself an anomaly. I realize that before I was an American, I was black, and before I was black, I was a human being with a soul and a conscience. I am myself before all other labels. The values that have been instilled in me have taught me this, and I’ll continue to be who I am and to shatter the stereotypes that seek to categorize me and to make sense of me.