A Social Studies teacher's perspective about Black Lives Matter & D-day

We are living in a moment that will be recorded in History. As a Social Studies teacher and mother, I feel it and am trying to process it. I also practice yoga and meditation and am trying to take things in, get curious, not judge, let go of attachments, but I'm human so of course, I still get attached and want to talk about things from my perspective. Here are some of my streams of consciousness on the issue as it pertains to History. . . 

Reconstruction. . . 

In April, Anna Cate's remote learning assignment was about Reconstruction and I thought it a good time to take my friend Dorinda's suggestion and watch the PBS series on it.  Since I grew up in the South, the story I got about Reconstruction was that it was bad...as bad as the war, maybe. But after watching and learning, I developed a theory based on a question BJ has asked: "why is it that Germany admits the horrors of the Holocaust in a shorter amount of time than the American South has been able to for slavery? Why has Germany outlawed Nazi flags but we allow Confederate flags?" 

I think I got a glimpse of the problem in learning about Reconstruction. I learned (or relearned) that for a few years after the war there were genuine efforts at helping the newly freed black people. There were promises (eventually broken) of 40 acres and a mule. There were efforts of equal opportunity in government for newly freed black people and even African Americans held offices in Congress, but it seems that ultimately the nation (the North) didn't really do what needed to be done because they themselves didn't want to enforce those same laws in their states. And this is where my own attachments get triggered. 

Our country has gotten by on this narrative that racism only exists in the South. But the North had their chance to right the wrongs after the Civil War, but they didn't. The Great Emancipator himself didn't foresee an integrated society. The US (the Northern states) didn't want to enforce black people equal rights in Alabama because Illinois didn't want to have to do it either (I just chose two states as examples randomly). Also, I'm embarrassed to admit that Tennessean President Johnson completely botched the efforts by being swayed by white landowners to "set up shop" themselves. Johnson said the states could decide what to do, which is so odd to me since isn't that what the war was fought over? Didn't the NATION fight and WIN over the right to decide? But the southern states were allowed to do what they wanted when it came to rebuilding, which ushered in Jim Crow.  So, black people didn't become protected by the federal government until the Civil Rights movement with the 1964 federal legislation. Some call The Civil Rights movement The 2nd Reconstruction. 

So what I'm trying to say is that yes, Southerners were on the wrong side of History in enslaving black people, but the North/United States missed the opportunity to rectify society, politically and economically, during Reconstruction and so these broken systems and legacies of racism permeate a national problem and that is a part of what we are dealing with today. There is a great history 30-minute lesson on Reconstruction here.

June 6, 1944 

Today is the anniversary of D-Day, so 86 years ago Americans of all colors stormed the beaches of Normandy in unimaginable fear and danger.  We know that they won, that Europe was rescued from the tyranny of Hitler and Aryanism, and the horrors of the Holocaust were discovered by the world.  Less than 5 short years after D-Day, those same Allied countries set up the nation of Israel and as a country, The United States has been very pro-Israel in terms of political policy, as well as providing economic and military support. In Germany today, Nazi flags are outlawed and there are no statues of Hitler or Goebbels. Is it because the Germans admitted their wrongs more easily? Or, is it because the Allies forced them to do so? 

Imagine how much better as a country we would be if the United States (the North) would have provided such leadership during Reconstruction, ensuring federal protection of equality before the law post Civil War. Since they won the war, why couldn't they come down here, break up the plantations built on the backs of African Americans as enslaved peoples to redistribute the wealth, force the state to fund schools, and provide equal opportunity? Why couldn't they? The answer seems pretty simple to me -- they were racists too. (I guess I should point out I do know about the story of Liberia.)

Another thought about D-day and the Black Lives Matter movement...When Kaepernick took the knee, and Anna Cate heard how horrible it was at school I used this story to explain to her why I supported his message. During World War 2 many German POWs were interned here, and black soldiers noted that these enemy soldiers had more rights than they did.  There is a story of black soldiers seeing Germans eating at lunch tables not open to black people. Get it?  Black soldiers who risked their lives for our country watched enemy soldiers have more rights in the country for which they serve. 

I actually have a little bit of hope for our country at this moment because I think we are finally getting to a place where it is ok to be uncomfortable talking about history and racism. And if you say, "I am not racist." First of all, you are; it is ok. We all are. Secondly, this is not about you. It is about thinking about things from a political, economic, and social context. That's what Historians do and that's why it is so important to learn History. Racism is not easy to talk about; in fact, my Dad, a country Southern lawyer, said over 20 years ago, people have to be able to talk about things without being called racist. 

I ordered the book "White Fragility" and will read it with some college friends for a virtual book club. 

 

My tribe. 

The complicated South. Molly, my 10-year-old daughter, said out loud to my dad, isn't racism hate? He said, "well that's complicated Molly because my Dad was racists, but he loved black people." Martin Luther King is credited with saying when he marched in Skokie, Illinois, "I've seen racism but I've never seen hatred like this." I know that my attachments connect me to the South. A few weeks ago on CNN, the white owner of the construction site came out to share a video of Ahmaud Arberry to prove that he didn't do anything wrong, and I remember thinking to myself, "this is nice to hear a white guy with a Southern accent doing the right thing after such a horrible thing."

The stories of our past are important, so is perspective and the need to challenge stories. But like those scary times at Normandy, I know that Americans can do hard things, and I have hope that this moment in history is a time for learning and challenging what we think is true. I thought Reconstruction was bad because it was bad for the South; I now believe it was a failure because it failed our whole country. 

“All we say to America is, ‘Be true to what you said on paper.’ If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.” Martin Luther King—“I've Been to the Mountaintop” speech, April 3, 1968