So, by now we've all processed the run-in on the National Mall by the MAGA hat wearing high schoolers from Covington Catholic High School and Black Hebrew Israelites and Native American marchers. The initial 20 second clip was all it took to jump to conclusions about what happened. A lot of people rushed to judgement. I did. But, like everything else in 2019 America, the truth wasn't as clear cut as it first look. I apologized for jumping the gun and piling on the young men from Cov Cath. Upon further review, it seems as if there was a lot of blame to go around from a lot of different people that day. Just because I regret piling on, doesn't mean that I think those young men were without culpability. Again, everyone saw and still sees what they want to see.
America doesn't mean the same to everyone. Every group has had a different experience in America depending on its collective experience. Native Americans have been subjected to certain circumstances. So have African-Americans. Just like the German, Irish British and Dutch Americans as well. The same could be said for Asian Americans. Each group's relation with America begins with how they were introduced to the America. That's what makes the African-American legacy in America wholly and completely unique. While other groups willfully immigrated to America, the majority of black Americans can trace their lineage back to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, i.e. kidnapping.
I'm 41 years old. My parents were born and raised in pre Civil Rights Era America. The story of America that I was taught at home was far different than what was being sold to me at school and in media. In the 1980s, when the country was looking wistfully back at the 1950s, my dad told me that the good old days weren't good for everybody. The sanitized, watered down version of yesteryear that was being peddled, and to some extent still is, was dramatically different than the first hand stories I heard from family members. So, the lessons that I and most of my black friends and schoolmates were taught were quite different from those of our peers. It wasn't due to hatred of America, the lessons were about survival in a land that has been historically hostile to black people.
My father was born in 1937. The first major legislative success of the Civil Rights Movement was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Among other things, the Act guaranteed black people the right to vote. My father was 27. After the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was passed. This Act provided protection for fair housing, forcing neighborhoods to integrate. My father was 31. My brothers turned 8. In your own life, think of how much of a person you are by the time you turn 31. Imagine 31 years of living in a country, your homeland, and being denied the basic rights that everyone else seemed to be getting. Those are the lessons I and the the other black kids of my generation were taught. Those are the things that color our perception.
To be clear, my parents were not anti-white. In fact, my mother and father went out of their way to point out that the abolition of slavery and the end of Jim Crow could not have happened without a lot of good white people that sacrificed everything they had, up to and including their lives, to make sure that America was a better place for all. Individually, they'd say, we are all God's children and you should love everyone for the person on the inside, not what their outside looks like. That was a lesson I was also taught. That being said, systemic racism is real and must be defeated.
In 1973, my father, James N. Brown, Sr. and Shelby Lanier sued the Louisville
Police Department for discrimination. Their case was based on the lack of promotion opportunities for black officers and their general treatment. They were fired. My parents had to make financial sacrifices and were harassed while the case worked its way through the courts. Eventually, in 1974, the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Council took over the case and won, which forced the city of Louisville to change the way it handled all city employees. When I asked my father why he would take such a stand, he responded with the same answer he gave when I asked him why he would join the US Navy in 1954 when he couldn't even sit at a lunch counter: "You do things not to benefit yourself, you have to do things to make things easier for the next man."
I have said for a long time that the biggest reason that race relations are in their current state is because my parents' generation was basically told by America to "get over it." Even in the 1980s, when I was growing up, talking about the Civil Rights Era was always chalked up to that period being in the past. No reason to talk about it because some laws got passed and now we're all good. That's not how this works at all. Sometimes the only way to move forward is to acknowledge past mistakes and have a dialogue about what's next. And that it what's missing.
We're living in a time where there's a need to
"both sides" an issue, as if there's a flip side to every situation worth discussing. Not only does it happen with current events, many people look backward on past events and apply the same logic. The most often logic is when a historical person is said to be "a product of their time." To be clear, there are some absolutes: Driving Native people off their land was wrong, as was American chattel slavery, as was denying women the right to vote as was rounding up all Japanese Americans during World War 2. Those events were wrong in real time, no need to rethink or examine anything further.
There's also a need to saddle every criticism as being a part of outrage culture. Are there frivolous things that people get mad online about? Sure. I assure you that black people didn't wake up on President Trump's inauguration day and decide to be upset about Confederate Monuments. That fire has been burning for a long time. it's just what then most of the monuments and statues were being built, that was also the time period where thousands of blacks were being lynched, hung from trees as some sort of spectacle. The time period was not conducive to protesting statues. The difference is now that marginalized groups that had no voice in the American marketplace of ideas now has found their voice. That's the inclusive America we should all want.
As the world is changing and everyone now has a voice, it is incumbent on all of us to listen to people different from us. It is important to listen with open ears, open hearts and open minds. To know better should also mean we should do better. Just as we no longer dump our waste into the city streets, as was once customary, we must grow and learn and do better. That means admitting our own biases and changing our own behavior. My high school mascot was the Redskins and we did the Tomahawk Chop at sporting events. It wasn't until we had a Native American come speak to the school that I understood just how offensive that was to him and his people. I stopped doing it and haven't done it since. It shouldn't be hard to do the right thing.
I'm still not perfect. I'll read a story on the internet and jump to conclusions. I will see a 20 second clip and make decisions based on my own experiences. The key to individual growth and real systemic change is that we collectively re-examine ourselves and our own biases. We all have them. Whether it's race or class or area of the country, we all have preconceived notions about our fellow Americans. The key is understanding our biases and learning how to change them. Like it or not, we're all in this thing together.
