Intentional ignorance? No, thank you.
7th June 2021 · 0 Comments
The 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre on May 31, in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, made national headlines. The destruction, looting, and murdering that white mobs perpetrated on Black residents of the area called “Black Wall Street” languished in the trash bin of American History until now.
Untold numbers of Blacks lost their lives, businesses, homes and generational wealth when racist whites burned “Black Wall Street” to the ground under the false claim that Blacks were planning an insurrection. Of course, that wasn’t true, nor was the sexual assault allegation levied by a white woman elevator operator against a young Black shoeshine worker, according to recent news reports.
While reporting on the massacre, journalists quickly pointed out that the event occurred 100 years ago. Yes, but the horrendous crimes inflicted on Greenwood residents, aided and abetted by Tulsa law enforcement officers, the cover-up, and the need for Reparations have suspended the event in time, as calls for restitution reach the ears of Congress and President Biden.
The commemoration of the Tulsa Massacre also amplified calls for Critical Race Theory (CRT) to be taught in schools.
Critical Race Theory is an academic concept undergirded by the core idea that racism is a social construct and not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice but also theorizes that racism is structural and embedded in legal systems and policies.
Last month, U.S. Senator Mitchell McConnell (R-Ky.) ratcheted up his opposition to using The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project in Civics and American History classes and teaching Black History in schools.
McConnell and 38 other Republicans sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, opposing the Department of Education’s new proposed priorities for racial education programs, and lambasted Cardona’s embrace of the 1619 Project. “Americans never decided our children should be taught that our country is inherently evil.”
America is inherently evil, as evident in its past and present.
White Republicans’ resistance to teaching the truth about American History exposes their desire to continue covering up and sweeping under the rug the actions of members of the Confederacy, who tried to destroy the U.S.
They want Americans to be intentionally ignorant about the genocide of American Indians, the internment of American Japanese, America’s history of slavery, apartheid, voter suppression, economic oppression, and the denial of reparations for wrongs done to Black people.
The truth is whites want to keep Americans intentionally ignorant and expose our children to glossed over revisionist History, which ignores the domestic terrorism perpetrated on people of color by the U.S. government.
McConnell’s attack on diversity in civics education influenced Republican state legislators who are putting forth bills seeking to ban the use of CRT in the classroom.
However, white reporters’ shock and awe at not knowing about the Tulsa Race Massacre is the best case for teaching Critical Race Theory. They looked flush and embarrassed at being unaware of the massacre. But they aren’t alone. Some Black reporters also admitted to not knowing about Black Wall Street.
Tulsa wasn’t a one-off. White mobs destroyed the predominantly African-American town of Rosewood, Florida, in 1923. Here again, a white woman claimed a Black man assaulted her.
The widespread massacre of Americans of color dates back to the post-Reconstruction Era and tracks up to the Charleston Church Massacre in 2015.
Louisiana has had its share of massacres. The KKK and white mobs killed Blacks in Colfax, Bogalusa, New Orleans, Thibodaux, Opelousas, and St. Bernard Parish over Black Louisianans’ political and economic power.
But the worst series of massacres took place during the Red Summer of 1919, so named for the bloody, murderous attacks on Blacks in at least 25 major cities.
Never mind the fallacious reasons Whites used to justify state-sanctioned murder; they illustrated a willingness to kill to continue White rule and economic and social dominance in the U.S.
The year before the Red Summer of 1919, President Woodrow Wilson noted in a 1918 speech that from 1889–1918, whites lynched 3,000 people, including 2,472 Black men and 50 Black women.
The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) sent a telegram to Wilson in July of 1919 demanding that he stop the carnage.
“The NAACP respectfully calls your attention to the shame put upon the country by the mobs, including United States soldiers, sailors, and marines, which have assaulted innocent and unoffending negroes in the national capital… NAACP calls upon you as President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the nation to make a statement condemning mob violence and to enforce such military law as situation demands.….”
The Zinn Project offers a list of American massacres. The site is a repository of lessons and information relative to Black history.
The non-profit research organization offers resources for self-study. One of the best explanations about why students need to learn this history is in the article (and related lesson) by Linda Christensen, “Burning Tulsa: The Legacy of Black Dispossession.”
A tweet thread by historian Stephen West shows how politicians fueled hate crimes during the Reconstruction era, with parallels today and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca writes about the Red Summer of 1919, “Remembering Red Summer — Which Textbooks Seem Eager to Forget.”
Here are a few links for our readers:
WATCH: The full episode of Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre online
Map of Red Summer Massacre & Lynching Sites: www.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=56186312471f47eca8aff16a8a990aa8
Zinn Project list of Massacres: www.zinnedproject.org/collection/massacres-us/page/2/
McConnell’s Opposition to Black History in Schools: www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/mitch-mcconnell-dont-teach-our-kids-that-america-is-racist
This article originally published in the June 7, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
