“Our new government
is founded…upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man;
that slavery…is his natural and moral condition.”- an excerpt from a speech by
confederate Alexander Stephens, vice president to Jefferson Davis, at the beginning
of the civil war. This quote is from the book “THESE TRUTHS” by historian Jill
Lepore.
Unfortunately and
depressingly, the founding of our nation is rooted in unconscionable moral
depravity which is still alive and well in the hearts of many. While visiting
the memorial park at the Edmund Pettus Bridge
in Selma, Alabama,
sight of police brutality against civil rights protesters on March 7th,
1965, I met one of the marchers who proudly showed me a scar on his forehead
where he had been clubbed by a policeman all those years ago. He told me that
the week before my visit someone had placed confederate flags all over the
park. I told him that I felt like I had to apologize for the entire white race.
Regardless of the
wonderful progress that has been made in civil rights, it is clear that some persons
would prefer that things remain as they were. Empathy and consideration for blacks
is not at the forefront of their thoughts. Rather, tribalism and narrow beliefs
overshadow any larger sense of unity. This fundamental division in people’s
moral sense of right and wrong is the reason that families split apart and
brother fought brother during the civil war, and it is the cause of so much
bigotry today. Back then, martyr John Browns failure to start an uprising
across the south during his attack on Harpers Ferry caused Robert E. Lee to
label him a “fanatic or a madman.” At his trial before being hanged, Brown said
“If it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of
the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children
and the blood of millions in this slave country, whose rights are disregarded
by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit.”
As a white male I
am well aware of my white privilege. I have been privy to some of the
conversations in the boys club of men in power. They were talking about their favoring
of men over women when considering corporate advancement, but I suspect that
anyone who would so dismiss an entire gender for the sake of business would
discriminate against blacks if given the choice. Still, I do not know how to
change the hearts of men, and fear it is as trying to change human nature.
Black people themselves sometimes judge one another by the darkness of their
skin, although that may be an ingrained reaction against trying to survive in a
white dominated world. If it is not skin color corrupting moral integrity, it
is religion, or money, or some other manufactured reason humans discriminate
against one another. In that regard human beings are a woefully immature
species.
I shall be on the streets if nothing changes,
and I pray that wiser people than our present leaders will prevail and that genuine
progress will arise from the present protests. When whites can recognize that
it is not them who are being choked and shot in the back by police, and admit
that the acquittal of O.J. Simpson by a mostly black jury was a predictable retribution by a
victimized people, then we can move forward. POSTSCRIPT: The book is a detailed explanation by a career law enforcement black man of how police and societal systems in this country are dysfunctional and why the 'Black Lives Matter' movement is so important. It was written in 2018 before George Floyd's murder in 2020 awakened white people to the decades long injustices.
