America IS great!

We're in Washington, D.C.   Its Memorial Day weekend. I'm sitting in the rotunda resting while John keeps exploring. There's a black woman doing a presentation about the lunch counter sit-in at Woolworths in 1960. Well, ok. But its Memorial Day, not Emancipation Day or Martin Luther King Day. Why not do something about black equality in the military?  A very quick summary can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_African_Americans.  (I know, I know.  It's Wikipedia, but it's just a quick reference...)

Then she starts trying to get everybody to chant "Make America great!"  That got my goat for sure. It took every ounce of restraint I possess to not get up and start a counter-chant of "America IS great!" Folks, the way to stop racism and class envy is to start counting our blessings, not by wallowing in eighty-year-old memories. The past is history. I love history. You know I love history. But it IS history. 

I'm glad to see young black men and women walking away.  I don't think they're turning their back on history as much as they're walking toward the future.

To heal a wound people need to bring things together.  Again, it's Memorial Day weekend.  Just off of the top of my head I can think of instances where blacks and whites joined hands and hearts for this America that has been great since the first Europeans stepped foot here.  (Now don't go getting your dander up, Native Americans.  America was great before Europeans got here, but we're talking race relations and until the Europeans got here America was all the same race.)

The very first Europeans brought black indentured servants with them to America.  Indentured servants were pretty much like slaves until they reached the end of their contract and received their freedom.  So now we have Native Americans and whites and blacks all living in the same America.  But guess what?  They are all "men," and mankind has been sinful since the Garden of Eden - IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN.  There were Indian tribes that tried to help the Europeans.  The blacks and whites worked side by side just to keep body and soul together. 

Fast forward a hundred years.  When slave ships landed on the African coast, do you really think those few men got off of the ship and traipsed into the jungle kidnapping African men, women and children.  Uh, no.  It was black-on-black atrocity that gave the Europeans their slaves.  A ship pulled in, and there were pens full of Africans waiting to be bought and loaded, sold into slavery by their black brothers.

On behalf of race relations in America, why doesn't this woman at the Smithsonian talk about that?

Fast forward another hundred years or so.  It was white people, mostly the Quakers, that set up the Underground Railroad.  That "railroad" was a series of safe houses with secret places to hide blacks who were trying to escape slavery.  If they could get out of the south and into the north, they just might find freedom from slavery - but they would still have to rely on their own two hands to build a life for themselves in the north.  That they knew they could do, if they just had a chance.  It was white people that gave them that chance.  If you want to heal this land, lady, tell THAT story.

Another fifty years, and we're into the Civil War.   The black men wanted very much to help fight that war.  It was white men like wealthy Robert Gould Shaw that gave them the chance - and he had to fight prejudices on BOTH sides, north and south, to accomplish that.  He DIED leading his black troops in battle. Tell THAT story if you want to heal this land.

Another seventy-five years, and we're into the Civil Rights movement.  Let's start by pointing out that the black men got the right to vote BEFORE WHITE WOMEN.  Nothing to complain about there.  Oh, the barriers put up to prevent black men from voting?  Guess what, voting cheats still exist, and I don't hear anything about blacks out trying to prevent that.  

Again, it's Memorial Day.  Tell about the blacks in World War II.  Ever heard about the Tuskegee Airmen?  Okay, so there were no white men with them.  (More to the glory of what black men can achieve on their own!)  But my point is:  America IS great.  All of America and Americans - red, yellow, black or white.  America gives them all a chance.  For some it's been easier than for others, but nothing in life is simple!  If life was simple there would be no glory.  Martin Luther King wouldn't be as much of a hero as he is (and always will be) if life were simple.

So we're into the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King.  I hear his children and grandchildren on programs all the time trying to bring the races together.  They're not reminding people of the past separation.  Good for them!  Heal this land, that's what the King's say.  And I say, Amen!

But did you know that there were whites back then who also stood for equality between the races?  August 4, 1964, Mississippi.  The bodies of three civil-rights workers - two whites, one black - are found buried in an earthen dam. James Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24 had been working to register black voters.  In June they had gone to investigate the burning of a black church.  White police arrested them on speeding charges, waited until dark, and released them to the Ku Klux Klan who murdered them and buried their bodies.  Tell THAT story if you want to heal this land!  White men working to bring equality to the black men, murdered for their efforts.

Tell MY story.  I was in high school when desegragation began.  I went to a huge high school in Richardson, Texas.  Three or four black students showed up, and I was asked by the office to show them around.  (Why me I'll never know.)  I did take them on a tour of the school and sat with them at lunch.  I experienced noticeable hostility from other students after that. 

Heal this land!  Don't continue to poke around in old wounds.  Remember the past.  Learn from it.  Prevent past wrongs from coming into the present by remembering the past.  But don't use it to keep everyone at each others throats.  We don't need to make America great because America IS great!