In normal times the full picture of Black existence in all its beauty and inspiration is largely invisible to Americans. It is a joyful and proud existence that is marred by deep pain. The American crucible, fired by over 400 years of subjugation, terror, and abuse, has produced a people that are uniquely resilient, bold, spiritual, insightful, creative, and unyielding. The truth of this 400 year history is also largely invisible to the majority of Americans. Segregated from the rest of American history. Relegated to one month, one man, one speech.
Incredible Black figures from Harriet Tubman, to David Walker, to Frederick Douglass, to W.E.B. DuBois, to Thurgood Marshall are titans of not just Black history, but American history. Fifteen minutes on Wikipedia could reveal to anyone that America would not be what it is, but for their invaluable contributions. And yet, instead of each one standing shoulder to shoulder with the founding fathers in the public’s consciousness, they are largely remembered as the names of high schools and streets in Black neighborhoods.
Tragically, even this source of Black pride is not free from Black pain. These larger than life figures, having endured the worst of America’s grotesque history of racism and violence, were unable to eradicate the injustices and indignities that are still sewn into the fabric of American society. American history attests to the simple truth that every push for freedom or justice by Black people, whether its the abolition of slavery, Reconstruction, the civil rights movement, or the election of the first Black president, has been met with fierce resistance and violence.
Black people were here long before the founding of the United States. Their blood and sweat covers the foundations of our society. It is from this position that they became America’s conscience. Pushing and dragging it towards its ideals. Overcoming the twin foes of white apathy and white resistance at every step. In the end, when America listens to its conscience, when Black people are victorious, everyone benefits.
History does not look favorably on those who have resisted the Black push for equality.
Those that ignore their conscience do so by remaining willfully ignorant of their country’s history. They deny their own agency in perpetuating the system of racism on which this country was indisputably founded. They conjure up Black pathologies to scapegoat the consequences of their privilege.
Today we can draw a straight line from the Middle Passage to George Floyd’s murder. Americans have a choice about what side of that line they stand on. More and more Americans of all stripes, perhaps more than at any other time since the Civil War, are literally in the streets, bruised and bleeding, joining the Black struggle for equality. Participating in Black history. American history.
Do not be distracted. The historic problem we face in this moment is not a protesting problem. It is not a looting problem. Antifa didn’t kill George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, or Breonna Taylor. America’s original sin remains its most urgent problem.
This moment will pass. Black pain will go back to being invisible on your TV and your social networks until the next tragedy. But if I could be your conscience, I would tell you to remember this pain when you make decisions about which causes you give your time and money to. Remember this pain in November. Remember this pain when you elect your next mayor. Your next school board. Your next prosecutor. If you remember, we can relegate Black pain to Black history.
