Happy #BlackHistoryMonth !
You know the drill by now. I don't like talking about Black history. Americans know Black history. I want to talk about white American history. In other words, racism, and the erasure of both positive achievements of, and injustices suffered by, non-white people. That's what people don't know.
Try this: Ask your white US friends what the statue of liberty celebrates.
Now ask your Black friends. Or French folk of any color.
1/N
Hint 1: It's called the statue of *liberty*. Not the statue of immigration or statue of independence.
Hint 2: Broken chains on the feet.
Hint 3: Idea for the statue started in 1865. What else happened in 1865?
Hint 4: What the sculptor said it's for? OK that's not really a hint!
An abolitionist designed the statue. A group of abolitionists paid for the statue. There's a plaque at the feet telling everyone what it's for. They named it the Statue of Liberty. It's arguably the largest anti-racism monument in the US, and the most recognizable anti-racism monument in the world...
Except people don't even know it's an anti-racism monument. They think it celebrates the huge influx of white immigrants from Europe that came to the US.
People that got "As" in AP history, that didn't know this, are running to their favorite search engine right now to try and fact check this. Let's wait for them... ⏳
Why do US people not know their own history?
Before folks ask, "Why was I not taught this in school?!" Look at what DeSantis is doing to AP history in Florida. You know exactly why you weren't taught this in school. Because it's easier to get you to accept mistreatment of Black people, if you don't know white American history.
🧔🏿Is the confederate flag racist? Why did the civil war happen? Where were you born?
🧔🏻Not racist! States' rights. Alabama!
🧔🏻Super racist! Slavery, murder of Black folk. NYC
Can you be mad at Alabama dude when their history textbook (from the same publisher!) lies about this?
The same publisher prints two different versions of the same highschool textbook about the causes of the civil war: one closer to the truth, used in Northern states, and one that lies about the cause, taught in the South🤡
I don't want to talk about Black history yet. I want to talk about why if you grew up in the North or West, your high school history book likely talked about the "Articles of Secession,"
but if you grew up in the South, those parts are removed and lied about.🙂🙃
Disinformation.
You can literally go and read the "Declaration of Causes of Seceding States," primary documents written by confederates themselves, on why they are Seceding.
https://web.archive.org/web/19980128034930/http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html
Some schools refuse to teach this.
I used to live in Texas. I would get so mad at dudes I knew that downplayed the confederate flag, until I realized that their textbooks literally lied about the reasons for the civil war!
Showing them the articles of secession blew their mind. Some stopped rocking the flag. 👍🏿
Imagine how much less racist the US would feel if 10% of all confederate flags just disappeared. Disappeared!
Folks don't even know the reasons of the civil war or that the flag designer said "Let this be the flag of white supremacy!"
I bet 50% of them would drop it on learning.
NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Sr removed confederate flags from his car after learning about its true origins from a Black friend. His son, Dale Earnhardt Jr. vocally supported NASCAR banning the confederate flag. 👍🏿
Yes, some racists still like the flag after learning about it. But there are way fewer of them.
"... because the country is so huge... "
That's... Not why we can't teach people these things.
@Bruceg @mekkaokereke @Adoxograph Lies My Teacher Told Me was a big eye opener for so many ...
@fluffykittycat @mekkaokereke @Adoxograph
The vast emptiness of Montana (and much of "mid-America) is why we have trains there. 🙄
I wasn't taught in school that he the United Daughters of the Confederacy hold significant resposibility for those text books. They still exist and don't see the problem.
@timpalmer @mekkaokereke
They're also responsible for most of the Confederate monuments which have been in the news for the last several years. Every one of those need to be torn down.
UDC is listed at the SPLC as a Neo-Confederate hate group.
@mekkaokereke
Related, I highly recommend "Lies My Teacher Told Me", James W Loewen. It points out, in detail, how American history classes have completely failed us even in stereotypically "liberal" parts of the country.
Biased school boards and political structures have created American history textbooks and classes that do outright lie to students.
@mekkaokereke sadly it extends beyond the American border. The confederate flag regularly makes an appearance in Canada. Publicly, those flying it will claim it represents "rural rights" or other coded dog whistles.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/hamilton-home-confederate-flag-1.6431668
@jamesmarshall interesting.
Just FYI: I can imagine that, but at least it’s not common. I never saw that.
Greetings from a German who is watching them from the left side.
@mekkaokereke
And what a tragedy that the clowns running Florida just successfully pressured the College Board to water down its AP African American Studies course – education is one of the antidotes to racism, because as you point out, a good chunk of people will change once they understand the true history of those symbols.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/us/college-board-advanced-placement-african-american-studies.html
@mekkaokereke I feel like I've been yelling about this (and the consequences of this) for years. MAGA folks and their ilk didn't develop their views out of a vacuum, they were misled and manipulated and molded and then, sadly, made the best decision available to them based on piss-poor education and a lack of resources to correct that (which of course makes me a sound like a goddamn coastal elitist to say).
I was in the NCCC. I worked in the southwest region, and I remember my first deployment in Arkansas made my head spin. I was a "good white kid" from New England and the Midwest, and suddenly I was hearing old white men showing us around where we'd be working for the next two months and telling us the history of the "good slave owner" who's former property made up portions of Hobb's State Park. I heard the N-word used in real life for the first time, yelled at my team by a passing pickup truck with the stars and bars on the plate. Each time something like this happened I went into an indignant Yankee rage, and couldn't comprehend how these people could say and do such things when they were educated by the same country I was.
It's because they weren't. They "knew" everything they knew in the same way I did, because the information and world views I had been preloaded with at that point came from people and institutions in my life that I implicitly trusted at the time, as they must have.
My time in rural America in general confused the hell out of me for a while, because while the people I interacted with said and believed awful things, most of them were wonderful people. It made my head spin. I had never once experienced the same hospitality in the city anywhere near on the same level I had in rural America, in New England as well. The folks in Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona would invite us into their homes, feed us well, absolutely roll out the red carpet, then say some of the most goddamn ignorant shit to my black team mates, who all had much more grace than I (because of course they did, that grace was a matter of survival to them). I couldn't understand the people saying those things, and I couldn't understand how my black team mates could just take it in stride. These weren't good people. They couldn't be, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
I've been living in the Boston area for the past decade now, occasionally getting work somewhere rural for a season or too in an attempt to maintain my sanity. I don't know what the solution is. All I do know is most of the city people around me seem real willing to write off our current problems as a rural disease, and be content with the possibility of amputating them from our consideration and national identity at the first possible opportunity. Never mind that strangers from those regions took me in and fed me at the drop of a hat, and when I was struggling in the city the most I ever got was a "that's tough buddy, good luck!" from my closest friends... They are the problem and if we could just move on without then we'd be a better nation!
They are us. And the only way we get out of this and bring them on board is by maybe being humble enough to admit we don't have it all figured out either. Maybe we all need to learn from each other instead of just assuming our other half has nothing to offer us.
I feel uncomfortable leaving it there, as lot's of people are under existential threat from folks I am encouraging empathy for. Your empathy is not more important than your survival. But maybe, if you can afford to, if you have the privilege to have these interactions safely, use it.
I am not the person who should be taking up space this month on this topic. This is a time for people like me to listen, but I was also taught active listening involves contribution and support. I hope I managed to provide that and not detract from the conversation.
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@sayrer Yeah, they used the Confederate battle flag, and only for about 4 years.
Rachel and Ross were dating on the TV show "Friends" for longer than either of the Confederate flags were a real thing. 🤷🏿♂️
@mekkaokereke I am an immigrant and I have always been very interested in US history. As someone that went looking for the books to learn it, it always puzzled me how states would have the confederate flag in/as their flag, the people that defend it, and the monuments built to the confederacy.
Reading your threads from the last few days has been very eye-opening, thank you.
I didn't grow up here. I visited the Statue of Liberty and I consider myself fairly well informed about American history. Yet I did not know this. Thank you for sharing this.
To me ridicule and mockery are great tools to fight racism. They work pretty good.
There's a lot of unintentional self-mockery: hold up a particular flag -- say something stupid.
Racism is bad, mockery of racism is a legitimate good (imho).
I am from that "culture" [quite a word to use here]. When you know literally nothing else from birth it can take quite a struggle to SEE it.
Some good mockery exposes the stupid to the light.
Mom always said hate the sin not the sinner.
Recommended: "Vernon, Florida" (
#errolmorris) and certain #louistheroux documentaries.
@mburr
Careful here. It's very easy to mock poverty when you mean to mock ignorance.
Same as when people make fun of Trump for being overweight. He won't see it, but some of their friends (or would-be friends) who struggle with their weight definitely will.
Another great thing about it is it requires interpretation.
Poverty wasn't on my mind at the time.
I update my definition of "actual good" to include not being bigoted yourself in the process.
@mburr @mekkaokereke
Imo
"hate the sin, not the sinner"
… is just another way of giving perps a free pass to drop responsibility for their harms.
Can sin happen by itself with no perp? No? Then drop the illogical quotation.
Also imo, the only people who get to say what response to perps is acceptable, are those the perps harmed. Btw I've heard the above quoted by _none_ of those.
I think all others have Zero rights to that quotation & may now drop it plskthx.
> Imo
> "hate the sin, not the sinner"
> … is just another way of giving
> perps a free pass to drop
> responsibility for their harms.
I agree with you. Believe it or not I was mocking my mother because she would say this.
I don't think she believed or didn't believe it but rather knew that it was a thing to say to that often had the effect of scoring her a point, apparently, at least to herself.
@mburr @mekkaokereke
People who say words just to say them (echolalia etc aside) alert me to broken NT brains to keep a big distance from.
Same for repeat travellers on the inflammatory-escalation-IS-the-desired-outcome road e.g.
Me: "[Do a part-of-your-job task] please?"
They: "[gaaaaasp] You're so rude!"
Me: "Oh kaayyyyy, will you do it or not?"
They: "[gasp] I will not be spoken to like that!"
Me: "If you won't do it just say so already, jeez."
:(
@mburr @mekkaokereke
Re your mother,
After anyone abandons the logic I can work with, I'll say things like
"Wet water, green grass, boots fence moo cows squirrel"
After they shake their heads & say
"That's … wait, whaaa …?"
… they shut pretty much all the way up. So, result! :)
This method works pretty much every time.
I suspect your mother uses that nonsense phrase for precisely this purpose.
But I like mine a lot better, it's kinder I think.
mekka okereke 
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