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I’ve been talking with a lot of my friends over the last week about how we can help. Everybody wants to help. But I’ve heard a lot of my well-meaning and well-intentioned white friends bring up the notion of “how we can help “them”.
Several years ago, I read two books that blasted my eyes open wider than they’ve ever been opened. The books deal with post Civil War America and Reconstruction.
What I gathered from these two books is heart breaking.
What I gathered from these two books is heart breaking.
After the Civil War, some well-intentioned whites tried desperately to help formerly enslaved people. Well-meaning people tried to help blacks by making them more relatable to whites. WHAT?
The Freedmen’s Bureau did certainly help establish jobs and education and other necessary institutions to build successful lives. But from what I gathered, some of those efforts further erased black culture and white-washed it.
It seemed to be a way of thinking that if whites could relate to blacks, their integration and “assimilation” would be easier to digest FOR WHITES. Their culture was stolen, twice.
Unfortunately, those same mindsets exist to this day. If you’ve ever seen a black man with low hung pants and dreads, and clutched your purse, either literally of figuratively, that’s a behavior you’ve either been taught or learned through generations of hand me down racism.
My great-great-great grandparents owned slaves. It sickens me to my core that my DNA once resided in a human being who regarded other human beings as nothing more than property. I can’t change that.
But what I can hopefully help change is the idea that it’s “them” who needs helping. This culture of fearing blacks started HUNDREDS of years ago, and today it still rests at the very core of the problem.
I think it’s “us” that needs helping to understand and speak about these disgusting realities. It’s not easy and it’s not pretty. But if you’re in the group of people who want to help the world right now, I beg you to start with these books.
Or start with educating yourselves about the the history that continues to spawn systemic racism. And ask yourself if you’ve ever clutched your purse. And ask yourself what you can do to make sure that never happens again.
Am I “woke” because I read two books? No. But I want to admit where the problem lies. It’s with people who look like me. Thank you for reading
