The Veiled Confederacy of Insanity
We seem to be, at this moment in time, so deep in a void of empathy that we can’t even hear each other anymore. The rate at which public discourse is breaking down seems to be accelerating in much the same way our galaxies are accelerating away from each other, leaving a vacuum in their wake. In the vacuum of real dialogue there is only gaslight and salty, unhealed wounds.
We see this happening every day on Facebook. I encountered this personally about a week ago when a family member spent twenty-four hours telling me that I was a poor communicator while admittedly ignoring everything I was saying and calling me intolerant of anyone else’s opinion.
My intolerance only extends to others’ intolerance, and racism is not like, an opinion, man.
It seems like this vacuum in which we currently exist is devoid of all kinds of facts and contextual analysis and only empathy for one’s own intolerant opinion—we’ve lost the ability to listen. Like, for example, what we in St. Louis witness every year at this time. For those of you not from St. Louis, or who aren’t aware, we have this thing called The Veiled Prophet and every Fourth of July comes with the parade of the VP. And every year someone posts a picture of the utter brazenness of the organization, and lots of yelling ensues. The Veiled Prophet is essentially a secret (though, not quite so secret anymore) society historically made up of our region’s most elite class of white, male business owners and began during reconstruction, a year after a general strike had stopped business as usual in this city. It was organized to be an open show of power to put the working class in its place, and to divide the poor whites from the poor blacks. Sound familiar? It’s also worthy of note that the costumes for the organization were plucked right from the fashions of the Klan. The message was clear, and reminded black people in this town of where they stand in the power structure. Fast-forward 150 years and the message is still pretty clear.
Here’s where the yelling comes in. Two days ago, during the parade, the white male color-guard for the VP—wearing helmets and vests and carrying long lances—were followed by a crew of older black men carrying brooms and dust pans literally tasked with cleaning the VP’s shit off the streets. Just think about the image, and for one second imagine what that possibly may make a person of color feel.
When someone tells you how something makes them feel, please just listen. Inevitably, that’s not at all how it goes though. A bevy of male defenders (mostly white) jumps to the rescue of the embattled organization, every single year.
But, the organization is now diverse!
But, that image is unfortunate but we are very philanthropic!
But, see the first point above, there are black people in the organization, how can it be racist now?!
But…
But…
But…
Every time we rebuttal someone’s real experience we erase their voice. What happened at the parade two days ago is not a PR issue, though I’m sure there are some white men trying to strategize the organization out of that mess right now. New found diversity in an organization founded on the southern strategy, or any other organization meant to uphold the patriarchy is nothing more than harmful tokenizing—a pat on the back for a prophet of power. And the claim that the organization is doing something good for the city by revitalizing our independence day festival? I’m not buying it. The 4th is a celebration of white-male landowners declaring war on a king who was taxing their tea. Never was independence intended for all. They built a nation on the backs of African slaves whose descendants are now reminded each year that their humanity still makes no difference, but their help is certainly appreciated when there’s shit to shovel.
No, you no longer get to defend such an organization that effectively dumps salt into the collective wounds of our black neighbors each year. No, you don’t get to pretend that you can’t hear their voices when they try to tell you what that feels like. No, you don’t get to be the loudest voice in the room anymore.
The Veiled Prophet is unfortunately part of St. Louis’ troubled history, and that can’t be ignored or forgotten. But as we saw very recently with the Confederate Statue debacle, troubled histories do not need to be openly on display if they cause real harm to so many people. We are essentially having the same argument over and over. Whether the subject is a statue, or an organization, or the victim of the latest police shooting, matters little to the monotonous herd. When we fail to hear those who are harmed most by our individual actions or by our institutions and fall into our comfortable patterns of yelling at each other, we go insane—thinking that the same behavior will achieve different results. I’m really growing tired of feeling insane all of the time. I’m really tired of our collective gas-lighting of each other. Sometimes I’m optimistic that we are progressing as a species and society, sometimes. Mostly, I just feel like we’re perpetually jumping the Great-White Shark and as we know, once that happens the happy days are gone to stay.
