In observance of the National Day of racial healing
23rd January 2023 · 0 Comments
Civil rights activists, local legends, iconic Black history-makers, words and statements of wisdom, and flashes of brilliant color loom large on the walls of StudioBE in New Orleans’ Bywater neighborhood. Studio BE was named one of the 50 best things to do in the world by the TimeOut global travel blog.
Studio BE founder Brandan “BMIKE” Odums’ quiet grace and unassuming personality inadvertently obscures his legendary stature as one of America’s most celebrated visual artists. BMIKE’s work speaks volumes about his ongoing transnational dialogue about the intersection of art and resistance.
Fannie Lou Hamer, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, larger-than-life portraits of New Orleans’ Black Panthers, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Mrs. Leah Chase, and scores of other known and unknown faces permanently adorn his warehouse walls.
So, it was natural for Studio BE to host a historic event last week. BMIKE welcomed more than 100 visitors to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s National Day of Racial Healing 2023.
La June Montgomery Tabron, W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s first woman president and CEO and the first African-American CEO of the foundation, explained that the nonprofit started the National Day of Racial Healing in 2017 to improve the lives of vulnerable children. Tabron told the audience that structural racism impairs the ability of children and families to thrive.
MSNBC television hosts JoyAnn Reid, Chris Hayes and Trymaine Lee moderated the live Town Hall discussion on racial healing. Addressing the issue were Nikole Hannah-Jones, Pulitzer Prize winner and creator of the 1619 Project, Minniejean Brown-Trickey, one of the Little Rock Nine, who integrated a high school in Arkansas, and prominent members of the Asian, LatinX, Jewish, and Houma Tribe.
Trymaine Lee reported on the infrastructure racism experienced by Black New Orleanians in 1966 when I-10 tore the Tremé neighborhood in half. Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, a senior White House advisor on infrastructure, spoke about the four billion dedicated to infrastructure needs and that 40 percent of the funds will be allocated to neighborhoods of color.
Residents Fred Johnson, Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes, and Raynard Sanders spoke about the community’s discussion of whether to tear down the I-10 or leave it coursing through Tremé, the site of the oldest Black subdivision in the U.S.
The discussions were on point. Reid confronted Landrieu with the reality that when money is appropriated for renewal projects in Black neighborhoods, those doing the work don’t look like us, and gentrification follows and pushes Black people out. Responding to Reid’s statement of fact, Landrieu said mayors and governors would distribute the money.
The most profound comments, however, came from Hannah-Jones, who teaches journalism at Howard University. She responded to the notion that racial healing is impeded by people who don’t want to know the truth.
And Hannah-Jones focused on truth-telling in her 1619 Project. And for telling the truth, the 1619 Magazine was banned from schools, and white nationalists, including Donald J. Trump, Ron DeSantis, and others, attacked her by name.
Hannah-Jones said she considers the personal attacks her most significant honor because it means the truth makes influential people scared.
The following truth that came out of Hannah-Jones’ mouth underscores the reality of any attempt at racial healing. She said those who need to heal are white people. And the people who caused the harm are the ones who need to do the fixing.
If we’re being honest, despite what Landrieu says, it is doubtful that Black people in New Orleans or elsewhere will benefit from the $1.2 trillion in infrastructure dollars. Nor will we be the lead contractors on the 40 percent of the $4 billion appropriated for neighborhoods of color.
That supposition may be too cynical. However, if the past is prologue and given the track record of elected officials – Black and white – who hold purse strings, if any of the infrastructure money creates new Black millionaires, that would be miraculous.
No matter how painful the truth is for whites, the truth is the truth.
And we aren’t fooled by those who spout “alternative facts.” There is no such thing. There is only the truth, and facts are concrete truths.
The Biden administration’s efforts to address the concerns and needs of Black Americans are admirable and appreciated. However, gentrification, voter suppression, and political dominance of white elected officials will ensure that Black people will continue to be marginalized, oppressed, and denied access to this country’s wealth.
We also appreciate the excellent work of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which has worked for decades to level the playing field for disadvantaged and marginalized children and their families. The nonprofits also support activities that address structural racism and promote racial healing, like town hall meetings, healing circles and reports that promote attitudinal changes.
Undoubtedly, the foundation has assisted in incremental changes that consistent dialogue around racial healing is producing. Youth and people are standing up for humane treatment and civil rights worldwide. We saw protest marches around the globe after a cop murdered George Floyd.
Still, Black people cannot settle for little crumbs or waste time fighting for respect. They must continue to speak the truth to power. They must keep fighting for reparations because nothing else can fix the damage done to our people over the past 404 years.
It might take another 100 years to get reparations, given the return to overt white supremacy, white superiority, white privilege, and gentrification we’re experiencing.
However, until the United States and all of its citizens acknowledge the wrong perpetrated on Black people – lifelong slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow, redlining, voter suppression, police brutality, killer cops, prisons filled with Black bodies, gentrification, and low-wage jobs – there will be no justice, no peace, no racial healing.
This article originally published in the January 23, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
