Is art a form of resistance to suffering, and if so, what an epic failure that is. What has art ever done to stop the onslaught of pain? When you are staring at the train bearing down on you, what does it matter if jazz is playing in the background? Whose life is saved, besides the player? Is he so important that it’s worth all of that trouble?

What is Van Gogh without his internal suffering and his external oppressors, and was his pain worth all the wheat fields in France? Who would reverse 150 years of social policy to keep the Reconstruction going if it meant give up James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates and the freedom they give white people to sound woke? If the world guaranteed a thousand Louis Armstrongs for a million unjust laws, vagrancy and otherwise, then would not constitutions be written to make it so? We need the walking wounded among us, the dust-covered and rejected, the torn-apart families in airports and arrogant presidents and judges with spines so we have something to align ourselves with. So we have something to separate ourselves from.

History creates calluses and rather than slough them off so we can still feel those on which we trample, we relish in our oblivion to pain. Our back strains as we pat ourselves on it for our feigned concern at toddlers dead on beaches, even as our feet carry us to the voting booths where we ensure they will stay there, silent on their beaches and in their boats, our hands washed clean as we silence the Pilate’s wives among us who warn us in our social media feeds. The unfollow button has never seemed so damning in its use.

We pride ourselves on resistance but we confidently forget we don’t resist until our suffering, real or imagined, is on the line. The U.S. stayed calm while London burned and stays while Aleppo crumbles, but let Assad drop a grain of sand on our shore, then let loose the dogs of war and take all the glory for saving the world, yet again, from the tyranny of our own making.

We scream because Iranians are detained in green rooms even as we ignore that if we too had gone into Border Security as a career, we would be performing the role of the everyday American Nazi. So no one should go into border security or law enforcement as a career, we might say, but then who would secure the border and who would make us feel safe, we would also say. Someone must, because deep down we know that our way of life is predicated on the exclusion of others. Our illusion of security rests on the back of the suffering, and no amount of protests can make that not so.

If we wanted everyone to come, if we wanted no one to be shot by police, that would mean accepting the risk of our death, and who would choose that way of suffering? Only those bound for the small and narrow gate, I imagine.

The suffering of others is tragic and now a generation of Americans feels smug in their anger, empowered by the collective resistance that arises from it, but how many will enter the arena to actually stop it? Politicians win seats because they are torture victims, while obtusely turning around and voting to torture more victims through as many legal means as possible. It isn’t actually torture that we’re against; it’s the obvert forms of it that appall us so. We force ourselves to cover suffering with a layer of music, as if it were Moses’ face, veiled, convincing ourselves that we’re incapable of seeing the truth of it, stunned simply by virtue of being witness to it. But we forget that the glory faded and the veil remained, and we too can find the strength required to see what our hands have wrought.

The dead are heavier than the living, so the earth must somehow stiffen its axis to hold the weight, and as new art fills the air, let history not forget to record how the privileged used their voice to complain there were not enough images of kittens on their social media feeds.

No one is disturbed enough to stop more suffering from occurring, because we view it as inevitable, so what does it matter if it is chemical warfare or landmines or a nuclear war or no more Chinese imports because the world was made for suffering, damn it, and so you will suffer. You will suffer and you will enjoy it, because the world is beautiful and tragic and if you can’t find the beauty than the problem lies within you. But what if the problem isn’t the one who despairs, but the one who fails to imagine a world without suffering is possible?

And maybe that’s what the best artists among us do. They imagine a world better than the one handed to them and ask us to create it for everyone else, so that yes, they suffered, but please god will you promise as you read my book, see my painting, and hear my music, will you promise that the suffering wasn’t in vain?

And we will do our duty as the decent human beings we believe ourselves to be, facts be damned. We promise Never Again, and like an abuser on a good day, we really mean it this time, we swear. Never again, cross my heart, hope to die.

But as everyone knows, humans are notorious liars, so bad at living up to our best ideals. Needless to say, it does happen again and again, and maybe it always will. The story of humanity is not told art by glorious art, but by failure on failure in the pursuit of justice and mercy. Look how we build statues to the memories of those who scorned humility and love. Spin the globe and see where your finger stops, and spin again and again and see how the pain goes on because what is life without suffering?

Are there variations of suffering? Do the circles of hell exist and are they alive now? Is the pain of a lonely Dutch artist different than being black in America, or being a Londoner in 1940 than a Syrian in 2017? Is art gilded by the force of the pain? When Oscar-winning films are made in 20 years depicting refugees on boats, will the awards come because the quality of the art or to assuage the guilt of the cowardly complicit?

Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and musicians played while the Titanic sank, but one was a disaster and one was tragedy and who can tell which is which, and which victims do you mourn for more? Is there a historical time limit on grief? Does Alexander Hamilton feel footsteps near his grave? Does he feel the tears and wonder where everyone has been for 200 years? The further removed in time one is from a loss, the less it means, even though it has always meant so much. Perhaps this is the work of art, to keep memory alive, to fan the flames of grief so that we never again sail a ship whilst tempting God.

Maybe we romanticize pain to make freedom and humanity seem worth fighting for. Because it is so slow in coming and because even personal growth takes decades, we need something inspiring to think about. We need idealism to follow after because the tangibles are so few and far between and arrive coated in dirt and tears.

What is there for me to fight for if it’s not a world more beautiful and hopeful than the one I inhabit? One in which dreams aren’t held back, imaginations aren’t stifled, and personality deficiencies can’t be traced back to abuse. I need the darkened church windows of Starry Night to give me hope because even though Van Gogh died and toddlers suffer and cities burn, I know that I am not alone in looking for the essence of truth. In the end, I welcome both the honest pain and glorified suffering because what redemption hasn’t already arrived broken and poured out for you?

Where you go, I will go and your god will be my god, the conservative Christians say to the Republican party. They do this peacefully, quietly, especially the women, as if the lack of anger is proof of moral character.

They hold most of their beliefs loosely, convinced that they are merely opinions, and therefore inconsequential.

But they aren’t merely opinions. Believing that people don’t deserve equal protection under the law is not just an opinion. It is a belief that governs how the holder votes. The results affect people’s lives.

Believing that refugees are infiltrated with terrorists is not just an opinion. It is a wrong belief based on nothing factual. And those beliefs have devastating results.

We have a mass of white Christians who have illogical, nonfactual beliefs that are killing people, and these are not outliers of the evangelical church. They are central to what we mean when we talk about American Christianity.

I don’t understand why you march, they say quietly on Facebook. Why is everyone so angry all of a sudden? Why do they throw words like racist around? Why is there so much name-calling? Peace, peace, they cry, when there is no peace. Why can’t we just agree to disagree?

They allow us to have our opinions, but god forbid we have them in the street! We can disagree, they say, but leave the hate and vitriol at home, and oh by the way, even if we voted for a racist person and agree with his racist plans, if you are calling us a racist , you are a mean and hateful who needs to apologize. Why can’t we just all get along? We’re the church, we’re one body, why are you so intent on dividing us and causing conflict?

How can we get along when one part of the body is dead set on living and voting in ways that directly oppose Jesus? Using accurate definitions and words is not hate, and being angry isn’t a sin.

Anger is not a sin!

Anger indicates something is tremendously wrong. Anger at people who hold deadly beliefs and retreat into the protection of ‘opinion’ is justified. They are using their power to oppress and then deny the strength of their will.

No. Holding Christians accountable for their actions is not wrong. Holding Jesus’ words up as a mirror to them is not being divisive. Supporting an unqualified tyrant and his stooges, and allowing them free rein is divisive. That is the source of the hate and oppression.

There are Christians out there who are afraid to make waves because….who knows why. They don’t like conflict, they have money and book deals on the line, they have been taught to value silent complicity and gentleness….but we need their voices.

We need the people who quietly believe in human rights for all people to stand up loudly for them. There are white people out there who hold beliefs that help, not harm people. Who believe in equality and human rights for everyone. There are white people out there who have allowed themselves to be strangled by the respectability politics of whiteness, and you need to cut yourself free. Here is a pair of scissors.

Gentleness and meekness is not the answer. People who unashamedly believe fake news and think ignorance is a virtue are not going to be convinced by your peaceful and loving heart. Refugees will not be saved because of how well white people ‘love’ each other. Healthcare will not be saved by a Christianity that refuses to enlarge its definition of pro-life.

Calmly sharing an ‘opinion’ on Facebook that says you support human rights is great, but it’s not enough. Because you aren’t just sharing an opinion. You are sharing a belief system that (in one way or another) informs how you vote, how and where you live, go to church and school, and how you spend your money.

Believing in human rights – being fully pro-life – is not just a belief. It is a way of life that requires sacrifice. What are your beliefs costing you? What are you willing to lose? Where is your passion and how can your convictions about human rights be infused into it?

We need more white people, white Christians to stand and refuse to buy into the myth of gentleness and peace. White Christian women leaders have power and influence, even if they have been taught not to embrace it. That power needs to be wielded well. It is not enough to make a public statement. It needs to inform your conferences, your workshops, your books and Bible studies.

There is plenty of Bible to justify support for human rights (since conservatives apparently can’t just lean on a humanitarian defense).

When you gather with your white, middle-class Christian women, you need to put yourself at risk. Speakers and attendees. Speak up boldly for the refused and excluded. Speak against brutality and denial of rights. Advocate for people and organizations who are already on the ground doing the work. Instead of selling cutesy t-shirts with feathers and a phrase in Bonjour font on them, let people donate to the ACLU or the National Immigration Law Center.

Just ‘having an opinion’ that all humans deserve rights and safety is not enough, and we need to push back on the idea that the social differences in the church are merely different opinions that are equally valid. A belief that humans do not deserve equality and refuge is not the same as the belief that says they do. We are not cups of coffee that can take or leave a splash of cream.

We need boldness, and even anger. We need to hold Christians accountable, and we need to lay waste to the idea that the only good Christian is a gentle one.

           It is summer, and I am 11. I’m at the beach with my friends, playing in the calm waves of Lake Michigan. This water that I’ve grown up with I know like the back of my hand. I’ve seen the beaches change from year to year. I run in the dunes as if I own them, the sunsets a constant companion. I know this water and I feel safe in it.

           But in our excitement over the birthday celebrations and the sleepover to come, we forget, or underestimate, the thunderstorm that happened the day before. We don’t think about the undertow. Until it’s too late.

///

            In complete opposition to my conservative, evangelical upbringing, I know that truth is subjective. I know this because I have many stories where I will tell you version A, and someone else will tell you version B. And it doesn’t matter how many eye-witnesses there are or how many facts I can produce for version A, there will always be someone insisting version B is the only version.

            Your perception of reality is just that – your perception. Valid. But not necessarily accurate. Not necessarily actual, factual reality. I have been trained in the art of self-deception. Maybe we are all walking around embracing the deceptions we so desperately want to be true. What if the versions of our lives we think we have lived are not in fact, how we have lived?

             What is truth?

             What is real?

             What is fake?

             Surely some things are?

///

            We’ve been floating along in the water, only to look down and realize the riptide has carried us out to sea and we can’t touch bottom anymore.

            Panic ensues.

///

            What do we cling to when everything is up for grabs? What is our solid ground when so many people are waiting to gaslight our reality?

             This is not rhetorical. I need to know this. It has settled down inside me that I need tangible things to cling to. Words of hope that have proved true. Lives who have endured and bring a truth rooted in suffering. People who have been witnesses to their own histories and whose experiences have been validated by time. Truth that exists beyond perception.

///

            My self-confidence was shattered sometime around age 13; somewhere between the 8th grader sneering at my inadequate attempts to imitate the fashion style of Claudia Kishi and my mother sending me to school in the midst of a botched hair dye job. “It’s just half a day. It won’t be that bad.”

            For the record, wearing purposefully mismatched socks is an adequate way to be out in public; being forced to have hair consisting of bright red dye that only covers up the long brown roots, and not the previously dyed black hair, is not. In the first instance, I thought my feet looked cool. Purple, green socks on one foot, green, purple on the other. In the second, I knew that half a head of red hair and half a head of black was not cool. Very, very, very not cool. But how can I trust my thoughts and opinions when everyone is standing around telling me I am wrong?

            I was broken when I realized those in authority could force me to be humiliated in public and I could not resist.

            Who are we if we are unable to resist? Do we become like horseshoe crabs found on the beach, who appear whole, but are actually empty underneath and crack when picked up? Unable to trust ourselves, we wander, at risk, vulnerable to authority that pounces on those without choices. What do we do to regain our lives? To find handholds on reality? How does one find the strength to resist those who tell you you are powerless? Those who do all they can to make you powerless?

///

            What do I grab onto when I am drifting anxiously through time until it, whatever it is, happens? How do I pull my thoughts away from panic when I am wondering if the mountains that surround me are sufficient to protect me from nuclear fall-out?

            What does hope look like right now? Will I recognize it when I see it?

            This seems like such a bizarre thing to be afraid of. Nuclear war. It boggles the mind, because who in their right mind would ever use a weapon like that? Who would find any benefit in such destruction to humanity? Surely no world leader would actually…

            When I moved to a small town in Virginia a couple of years ago, one of the first things I noticed were metal placards placed onto several of the buildings. The signs were yellow and black, faded and worn by the decades, but the nuclear symbol was still easily seen. These were the fall-out shelters. At the time, I thought it was funny, quaint. The Southern way of holding on to the past. Now, I find the thought of them comforting.

            Why are we surprised when leaders are despots? When our leaders are the dangerous ones? Have we not seen history clearly?

            How do we expect our rulers to rule an empire without being bound by the rules and expectations of it? Does being nice absolve them of their guilt? And what about when they are not nice, when they start out despised and despotic. What does it say about the people who cheer these men into power?

///

            The riptide carries us down past the beach. This year the water was high; it had been a good winter. In some summers, when the water is low, you can walk on the shore in front of the rusty, brown, metal seawall. I have walked on it in the years since. Walked, amazed at how in this gap between water and metal there was once such helpless terror.

            The waves crash us against the metal. It’s such a bizarre fear. How can we be in such danger when we know this place so well? Our beach is right there. Look at our towels! We’re just yards away from solid ground. And now we are trying to resist being thrown against the metal. How can this be happening?

///

            History is looping in on itself. White people are surprised that white hate has come to the forefront, and yet why are we? We know we shouldn’t be, and in our surprise rests our guilt, our complacency and complicity, and our shame.

            This specific repetition exists because when did we learn to not let white mobs get away with everything? The digital witch hunts against journalists and professors are eerily similar to the mobs that burned neighborhoods and bombed homes when people of color intruded on whiteness. When were they punished? When were reparations made? When did America decide that hate was too great a burden to bear?

            Some of us are floundering because we are faced with the ideals of America crashing up against the realities of America, and the perceptions that emerge of who is right, who is wrong, and what kind of country this should be leaves us with nothing solid to cling to. Everybody is right and no one is wrong. Everything is wrong and nobody is responsible. We have trained ourselves in the art of self-deception.

            Who will be the friend who goes underwater to lift my head above the waves, and will I have the courage to be that friend? Do I know what it’s like to put myself at risk? The great science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin, in an essay on imagination and reading says,

“All of us have to learn how to invent our lives, make them up, imagine them.
We need to be taught these skills. We need guides to show us how.
Without them, our lives get made up for us by other people.”

            The space between November 8th and January 20th has caught us all up in its grief and fear as a year and an era fades. We have lost so many creative guides to this thing called life, who showed us what it meant to freely live. What if no one follows in their footsteps? What if our lives are closer to being made up for us than they ever have before? What will it look like to resist and to be free?

///

            The waves carry us past the seawall, onto the rocks, where we clamber out of the water. We climb up the steep banks into a stranger’s yard, crying and shaking. We made it out, every one of us, and we are old enough to recognize that that hadn’t been a given. We reach the beach to see a fire truck, too late to be of any help.

             The slumber party is postponed, and we all go home, shaken and alone, but stronger and wiser, knowing that probably for the first time, we are survivors.

///

            There is a small, little book by John Steinbeck that I stumbled on this fall, called The Moon Is Down, and it has been a scrap of hope.

“Orden was silent for a moment and then he said, ‘You know, Doctor, I am a little man and this is a little town, but there must be a spark in little men that can burst into flame. I am afraid, I am terribly afraid, and I thought of all the things I might do to save my own life, and then that went away, and sometimes now I feel a kind of exultation, as though I were bigger and better than I am, and do you know what I have been thinking, Doctor?’ He smiled, remembering. ‘Do you remember in school, in the Apology? Do you remember Socrates says, “Someone will say, ‘And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely end?’ To him I may fairly answer, ‘There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether he is doing right or wrong.'”‘”

            What are the sparks that we need to have burst into flame right now? What does doing right and wrong look like now? What will it look like soon? How do we find our way out from under the oppression that seeks to dominate us and how do we bring others to freedom with us?

             The Moon Is Down is a little story about World War 2, and the Germans in Norway. Towards the end, the brave Norwegian mayor says to the German colonel,

“The people don’t like to be conquered, sir, and so they will not be. Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars. You will find that is so, sir.”

            What does it even mean to be free? What is the perception of freedom and what is the reality? What war will we win by insisting on our freedom? How do we resist what needs to be resisted when we are person A telling what is true and person B insists we are lying? How do we find what is real amongst all the fake?

           My feet need to touch bottom. Now. Daily. I need to find pieces of reality that are true, that I can return to. Something that reminds me that my socks are ok and my hair is a disaster. I need a real deluminator to extinguish the gaslights around me.

            In the meantime, as I float here in the mild panic of an uncertain future, I am scanning the horizon, looking for anything that might make me free. I cling to scraps of hope as if they were driftwood sent to save me. I clutch books to my chest as if they were life vests. Music and podcasts and voices from the margins. I am grasping onto the stories of those who have learned not to wait for solid sand but have built boats on the water. I cling and I cling, gathering the scraps to myself as if these words will save my life.

            Because what if they do.

///

            Shortly after our little adventure in the water, a sign was erected along the wooden boardwalk that led down to the beach.

Caution:
Undercurrents may be present.
No lifeguard on duty.
Swim at your own risk.

            I have always been proud of that sign. I know it would have gone up whether we had lived or died that day, but the fact that it is there is proof that what happened to me is real. It is true that in the summer of 1993, an incident occurred at a small-town beach in Michigan, which endangered the lives of 5 girls, and this shall be a sign unto you that the world is dangerous, people are afraid, but you shall not be conquered.

When I see you post your support of him, I know you are an unsafe person. Women see you and know they will never confide their stories of abuse in you. I know you are not a sympathetic, empathetic person. When I see you support that Cheetohead, I know that you are only concerned with your worldview, with your uninformed opinions, and protecting your way of life.

I know that you are a dangerous person to anyone who is not white.

I am so angry at you. I cannot pretend that this is merely democracy in action, because our democracy is predicated on basic humanity and the constitution.

I could tolerate this from random citizens. And even here, I will moderate a bit. If you are over 60, I put you in the category of random citizens. 60 and over voters for Trump is the death rattle of the Moral Majority. They have always been unsafe to women and people of color. They have lived in a world that prioritized them and that world is dying.

But you, you 40-year old Christian. No. That’s a bridge too far. When I see you support Trump, I know that Bible you so gladly cling to, those Hillsong songs you so cheerfully sing to, I know they actually don’t mean anything.

Your faith has lost its effectiveness. You are not trustworthy as a Christian. Everything you say is tainted with a layer of bullshit.

You have no integrity to stand on. Your false equivalency of the candidates is a cove for your willful ignorance and blind obedience.

There is no scenario in the world where it is appropriate for a Christian to vote for Trump.

And the fact that we are less than a month out and you still haven’t realized that?

Tells me all I need to know about you.

“Maybe the reason people don’t like Hillary isn’t so much that they don’t like her, as it is that they don’t like the role of the presidency itself.” I read this comment recently somewhere on Twitter, and thought it was an interesting point.

William Appleman Williams in his book Empire As A Way of Life, would take that thought even further. Is it the role of the presidency that those people don’t like, or is it America itself? Because, as he says, “The American imperial way of life…inherently involved, knowingly and purposively, the destruction of traditional values and their replacement with arbitrarily imposed external values.”

Originally published in 1980, this essay was republished with a new introduction in 2007, and although there are enough typos to be exasperating, it is a fantastic clear and concise look at the history of the American Empire.

The majority of the book covers American history since its official founding, and discusses many presidents and their actions as it relates to the development of America. Some of these policies will sound familiar if you took AP U.S. History in high school, such as the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny, and Open Door Policy.

This book is important because it cuts through the myths we often have of our country. It reveals the lie of liberty and justice for all, of the troops fighting for freedom and democracy, and shows the depths behind the symbolism of not standing for the national anthem. It also reveals how easy it is to paper over the realities of history with appeals to intangible ideals like independence, patriotism, and progress.

From the Louisiana Purchase to the Alamo to Hawaii and Puerto Rico, we know our American Story is one of expansion. But somehow that story always has a glossy sheen. It’s an ad in a magazine for new real estate. It seems so harmless. Most people want a house with a bigger yard, maybe an acre or two. What’s wrong with that? Although the term ’empire’ has fallen out of favor, even The Atlantic wrote an article defending the American Empire as recently as 2014.

Empire As A Way of Life rips the magazine out of our hands, replacing it with something darker, more insidious.

“But the history of the United States is not the story of triumphant anti-imperial heretics. It is the account of the power of empire as a way of life, as a way of avoiding the fundamental challenge of creating a humane and equitable community or culture.”

The U.S. wasn’t acquiring more land so we could throw a block party. We wanted more land because it was there. Because the more land, the more money, the more power. And when you have the power, you don’t get pushed around. No taxation without representation. We know the drill. When you got skin in the game you stay in the game. You don’t get a win unless you play in the game. The U.S. wanted the wins, and we got them, no matter the cost to anyone else. No matter the cost to our own citizens, even. As long as you were white, or became white, the empire was on your side. (It must be nice.)

Even though this book is nearly 40 years old, nothing has changed in the American way of life to render it obsolete. And given the renewed public interest in early American history, thanks to Hamilton (fun fact: he created the Coast Guard in order to collect taxes on imports and to protect ships involved in trade; military and capitalism are core to the American way of life), we should make an effort to fully understand the implications and effects of the founding fathers’ actions.

The Monroe Doctrine didn’t end with his presidency. American expansion didn’t stop when we got to the ‘from sea to shining sea’ bit. We now have military bases in 71 countries.  Why? How? A highlight of the book are the lists at the end of several chapters, timelines of American interventionist activity, excluding declared wars. They are jaw-droppingly long. 23 from 1787-1829 alone, covering ground from Mexico to Greece, and 71 from 1829-1898. The reasons for these, Williams states, is that “Empire as a way of life is predicated upon having more than one needs.”

Another reason this book is important is because the broad overview of American history gives us the long view on so many things. The Spanish-American war might have been in 1898 but the consequences for Puerto Ricans are still going on today. Writing as he is from 1980, Williams was able to say, “No one yet knows the precise nature of the relationship between Nixon and Kissinger.”

But today in 2016, we do know. We know how Kissinger’s actions led to the rise of Pol-Pot and the Khmer Rouge (and we also know that the U.S. supported the KR for years). And bringing this back around, we also know that Clinton talks about how much she respects and listens to Kissinger. This should rightfully alarm people. If we don’t know our history, how are we to learn from it so that we don’t repeat it?

And if we don’t know our history, how can we rebut the lies people tell? Just this week a presidential nominee said we should steal resources from other countries in battle, and a Lt. General said, “It is not the American way of war to go and occupy land, steal its resources…” But as Empire shows us, it has always been the American way. How did we get our land in the first place?

As depressing as all of this history can be, the book closes on a hopeful note. First, he has a few provoking questions:

“Is the idea and reality of America possible without empire?”

“Are we unable, morally, to share the world…on an equitable basis?”

“Is it possible to create and sustain a democratic culture without conquering or otherwise controlling and wasting a grossly inequitable share of social space and resources?”

Then he ends with an invitation to imagine and work towards a better way of life. Just because this is how we’ve been, doesn’t mean this is how we have to be. As Williams points out several times, empire as a way of life has never been a foregone conclusion, and doesn’t have to be today.

Although small, this is not a book to rush through, nor one that can be skimmed. But the story he tells of America is an important one, and one that reveals that it really is true; history does have its eyes on you.

*****

You mention a few examples of talking to people who have sat through discussions about structural racism and yet still walk away, completely oblivious. It’s frustrating to think that it’s that hard to get through to people (and makes me examine myself even more.) Why do you think this is, and is there anything we can do about it?

Well, I think that people underestimate how deeply their own mental frameworks are socialized by our society. People think that they can merely intellectually assent to a couple ideas and then quickly move on, when in fact it will take just as much intentionality in undoing these racialized mindsets (that is years) as the force of the racial formation they have received over the years that has unconsciously influenced them. This is not about the good people vs. the bad people, this is about a society that has 400 years of white supremacist history, and the kind of logics that became normal and comfortable in our society that no longer saw anything wrong or strange about what was going on. Even if it is just subtle influences, it takes time and effort to unlearn these things. So, my advice is be intentional in growing, learning, and seeing things afresh once again.

[blockquote type=”left”]”Most people in the church…now agree that from 1619 to the mid-twentieth century, the majority of white Christians…consistently interpreted things wrongly with regard to racism. The vision of America as a place of justice and equality prevented most people in dominant culture from clearly seeing actual on-the-ground realities.”[/blockquote]

Do you think the white church at large is capable of the humility necessary to begin righting the wrongs? And how do you think we can personally cultivate that kind of humility? What will it take -or is it even possible – for white Christians to stop seeing through rose-colored eyeglasses to see reality? If the sustained movement of BLM hasn’t convinced white Christians they are not seeing clearly, what will?

Well, I don’t think that the issue is capability. All humans are capable of cultivating humility. The challenge is that when someone is a part of the dominant group in society, and that is any dominant group around the world, then it will be difficult to comprehend one’s own complicity in injustice because the narratives dominant groups tell themselves are always about how good, innocent, and exceptional they are. And these narratives have advantaged positions in society, in which education, media and news, and mainstream culture all promote how great one’s nation and dominant group is. When we see it in other groups we call it propaganda, but when we do it we believe it is gospel truth. So what we are talking about isn’t capability but instead difficulty. It is difficult to and hard to break from conformity. It is not easy to distrust your own gut and the narratives you believe so deeply.

However, I think that following Jesus, and not in the cute devotional sense but in a costly and courage manner of allowing Jesus to lead you through society, one will necessarily find that humility as their worlds are opened up. That is because we serve the same person, Jesus Christ, that is testified about in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And this living Jesus continues preach good news to the poor and proclaim liberation to the oppressed. (Luke 4:18-19) So our pride will be flipped upside down and converted over in God’s reign where the least, the last, and the lost are centralized, and where love of others rather than lording over others is the way people do life together. So, I don’t question whether white Christians are capable of seeing anew, I just want to know why the Jesus proclaimed in white communities seems to look and sound nothing like the Jesus testified about in scripture and the early church. That gap will not lead people to the kind of repentance needed.

You say that people in the dominant culture need to have deep and wide conversations with the black community. I gather that your description of what that conversation would look like is going to be different from what white culture’s would be. What exactly do you mean by that? What does deep and wide look like?

My usage of deep and wide, was an attempt to challenge people from running to their so-called one black friend as an authority on race and racism. Now, according to studies most white people actually don’t even have that one black friend, but that is a whole other issue. But the temptation is there for people to seek out the person or people that already agree with them. It is not common for white people to be enamored with black people that have views that are deeply in step with the white majority. Now they are welcome to their views, the black community is not and has never been monolithic. However, it comes off disingenuous to run to that person that is a fringe voice in their community and then stop there.

Instead, personally get to know a plethora of people and perspectives in the African American community. And the test is to not come up with a pre decided decision (prejudice) about what is going on in black peoples’ daily lives until you have patiently sought out to understand where black people are coming from. Listen to people’s stories and experiences wanting to see things from another perspective. And do that again and again, “deep and wide”, for years. I think that our 400 years of history in America should at least give reason to slow down and hear people’s stories before doing what previous white generations did, which is to conclude from the start that everything is fine.

[blockquote type=”left”]”I saw how a culture of niceness could be combined with the dangerous ideologies that are death-dealing to communities of color.” [/blockquote]

I was reading this and it struck me how I spent so many years in the church being warned against Satan. And how he wouldn’t appear with horns and a tail, but would be appealing and desirable, and so be on the lookout for the enemy, and all of that. I’m just kind of marveling that the church can spend so much time and energy on a ‘mythical’ kind of description, and yet work so hard to avoid dealing with the just as attractive but dangerous realities that are actually causing people to die in the here and now.  I don’t really have a question here – the similarities just struck me. You know how people re-write John 3:16 and say ‘insert your own name’ – how about every time the NT mentions Satan, you sub in White Supremacy, and see how that Bible reads!

Yes, there is real evil in the world but people rarely see their own lives as part of it. It is easy to wag our finger at Germany and the Holocaust, but in response to 12.5 million Africans being enslaved for 250 years, Native American genocide and forcible removal from their ancestral lands, or the following white supremacist terrorism, racial apartheid, and violence, well in those cases we don’t want to think of America’s origins and ongoing life as evil. And it is precisely that people did it so “civilly” and were such nice people that we often don’t see how are lives are patterned in society in ways that need God’s transformation.

You talk somewhat about respectability politics, and this is something I’ve run into a little bit personally, and I’m curious what you’d say – what do you do with the idea that being in solidarity with black people means to be in solidarity with respectability politics? Obviously I’m not going to disagree with them. But it makes for an interesting dynamic. And I’m sure many of us know white people who side with Ben Carson, say, and so how do we address that? Or should we? Is the discussion of respectability politics an inter-black discussion?

The black community is complicated and very diverse. And we all are in different places in our journeys. Some of us are less aware of the reality that we have completely accepted the norms, values, standards of beauty, and overall culture of the people that oppressed us for centuries without question. Globally there are some a lot of conversations around colonization and particularly how our minds can be colonized. In the United States we call this internalized racism. As I explain in Trouble I’ve Seen, we are all (every racial group) internalizing these messages because it is part of the air we breathe in America. Racially hierarchy is internalized to different degrees by black people, as it is by white people. We are all human and susceptible to wholesale uncritical acceptance. And it becomes particularly hard for us as Black Americans, because we have had so much stripped from us (names, place of origin, tribal group, stories, indigenous wisdom) that we have always had to constantly and creatively improvise in the moment culturally. But it is not hard for the overbearing presence of the dominant culture to override this beautiful tradition we have.

Towards the beginning of the book you say, “How could my time among white Christians have been more painful for me as a young black male than my time among white non-Christians?” Do you still feel that way? Is there anything people can do to make that less painful?

Since that experience, thankfully, I have found more and more righteous white folk. That is, people who were conscious of their history, their culture, their identity, and who were doing the hard work of self-examination, relearning, and speaking truthfully in their own networks about what they have seen and learned. So, there are white people that have been deeply encouraging to me. But that is not the norm in America. Most white people still strangely insist that they are colorblind while they continue living extremely racialized lives. This contradiction is still very prevalent. And unfortunately, I do think that white Christians continue to be more likely to be in denial about race and racism than non-Christian white people. The solution is simple, the Church, particularly white Christians, need to get their head out of the sand and take a new posture of seeking to understand what is going on. And then they need to take responsibility for their individual learning. There is so much black scholarship as well as antiracism scholarship out there, so there is no reason to be waiting around until black history month once a year to sit and learn from a black person. Take initiative. See it as part of your Christian responsibility to put others interests before your own.

I find it interesting that you think change is still possible in the church. We wouldn’t have had the America we had without the church, and if the white church was to change, that would require breaking from America as they’ve known it. But the white church is so tied to the myth of the city on the hill…..it’s hard for me to envision a large-scale church movement in America that isn’t tied to being American.

Do you think because of how the white church has historically operated that fundamental change is even possible? Or is it always going to be operating in the margins? Do you have hope that enough small groups will be enough to make systemic change?

Well there is no doubt that soon the contrast between two contrasting Christianities in America will become more evident. Especially as Christianity begins to decline numerically. Frederick Douglas said in his slave narrative that there was “true Christianity” and then “Christianity of this land.” He saw the hypocrisy of those that were enslaving, raping, and severing families on Saturday and then praising God on Sunday, and called their bluff. It didn’t matter how earnest and pious they seemed, they so fundamentally departed from Jesus and his teachings that he could not recognize it as true Christianity.

It may seem that things are impossible given our situation, but Jesus reminds us that all things are possible with God. And so I believe and trust that our God is able. That kind of hope is the stuff Black faith has been made of. Now, I’m not suggesting that I expect any great revival by the mainstream Church, though that is possible, but I do believe that God is holding and keeping the Church throughout human history, and will continue to do so. While I do believe that some people have fundamentally departed from the way of Jesus, in the end I will leave it up to God to judge and discern who has truly placed their lives on the rock of Jesus and his way, and who has not.

[blockquote type=”left”]”Black skin in our world has been designated as a marker for all things bad….the black psyche has been routinely attacked and crushed in our society.”[/blockquote]

You mention in a few places how draining and crushing living in a black body in America can be.  I was listening to an old podcast with Saeed Jones the other day, and he said, in talking about the effort involved in telling personal stories of racism and the surprised  and disbelieving white responses to them:

“Do you not think I haven’t been wearing myself out trying to rationalize and make excuses – do you not think I haven’t been doing that since it happened? Of course…the truth is by the time people take to the streets….they have been exhausted and internalizing and trying to make sense of it for years. For years. And the difference is you get to a moment when it’s just too much.”

I wanted to thank you for being vulnerable enough and willing to pour out your heart in this book like you have. And I was wondering, especially in light of MarShawn McCarrel, if there are any concrete ways that allies and accomplices can help you and others shoulder that burden and help alleviate the pain?

Thankfully I have a community of people in my life that know how to give, receive, and share love. So, I’ll be okay, but I do appreciate the gesture. My challenge is for white people to intimately join into the lives of those that are oppressed, speak truthfully and courageously within white social networks, and continue to allow Jesus to guide you into faithful lives that are capable of resisting the racialized patterns and mindsets that have become so comfortable in 21^st century American society. Thanks for the conversation. Peace to you!

*****

Don’t forget to get  your copy of Trouble I’ve Seen, and for another great conversation with Drew, check out the one Cara Meredith just had with him. 

What does it mean to be Courageous? We’re going to look at why people were so bold and courageous, why they seemed to do things out of the ordinary, and what the ordinary things were that they were standing up against. Why did they need to be courageous? Each week we’ll look at a person throughout history, along with a creative black person that you should be familiar with who used their art courageously.

Robert Smalls

Born: April 5, 1839

Died: February 23, 1915

An enslaved African American who, during and after the American Civil War, became a ship’s pilot, sea captain, and politician.

Videos

Watch video from  1:47-6:19. Pause and talk briefly about Reconstruction, then continue watching from 6:20-11:15.

Robert Smalls

In 1862, Robert Smalls, an enslaved crew-member of the CSS Planter, steals the boat, sails it past the heavily armed defenses of Charleston Harbor in South Carolina and delivers it into the hands of the Union forces further out.

Extra – A new TED Talk

The Audacity of Robert Smalls | Michael B. Moore | TEDxStMarksSchool

Michael B. Moore shares the story of escaped slave Robert Smalls, his great-great grandfather. Smalls commandeered a Confederate Naval vessel, freeing his family and two others. But Small’s life story doesn’t end there. Prepare to hear one of the least well-known, most important stories of the Civil War. Michael B.

More Information

There are other details I wanted to mention besides what was covered:

• He also knew where all the torpedoes in the water were buried, and had heard the Confederate officers discussing their plans.
• It was 7 miles to the Union boats
• Normally people received the price of captured ships and guns as a reward. But the government only paid Smalls and his crew half the value because they were black. And to make it worse, Congress didn’t give them their money – they put it in a savings account and would only give them a little bit each year.
• He was riding a streetcar in Philadelphia, but when he got on the conductor told him he had to sit on the outside of the car because he was black. So Robert said he would rather leave the car instead of ride on the platform. When people found out that a famous war hero was treated like that, they boycotted the streetcars and held meetings to protest it. So some streetcar companies stopped discriminating and two years later there was a law that stopped it.
• After the war, freed slaves were supposed to get 40 acres of land to start a new life, but the government didn’t follow through. But Robert got lucky because his former owner was selling his plantation house, and Robert bought it. He quickly founded a school for black kids.
• A group of white men formed a group called Red Shirts. 2000 of them attacked a group of 40 black men, murdering many of them, and burned homes and businesses. Robert was angry and made sure that the government heard about it, and had them send troops to help keep the people safe during the elections.
• One time a white mob wanted to lynch two black men, and Robert Smalls and the black community worked together to protect the men.

[blockquote type=”center”]“My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.” – Robert Smalls[/blockquote]

Power Discussion

Using the form below, we reviewed the lesson and they filled in the squares. Some of the kids drew pictures to represent it if they didn’t want to write it all out.  

Who Had the Power? – his owner, president, Ben Tillman – people in authority had the power to make things better or worse for their citizens  

What Was the Injustice? Slavery, the money reward, land, voting/rights  

Who Were the Allies? ———————————–  

How Could It Have Been Fixed? Been more fair – they could have been given their money and land, kept Reconstruction going  

What Were the Acts of Resistance and Courage? stealing ship, Philly streetcar, being in the legislature, Red Shirts, stopped lynching fought racism, unfair wage       

Laws and Practices

(we’re going to keep a list of all the laws we come across)
SC 1895 Constitution   

We also talked about Hampton University, because it was near us and it will come up with Catlett – It was founded in 1868 by black and white leaders of the American Missionary Association after the American Civil War to provide education to freedmen.

Power Worksheet

 

Elizabeth Catlett

Born: April 15, 1915

Died: April 2, 2012

African-American graphic artist and sculptor best known for her depictions of the African-American experience in the 20th century, which often had the female experience as their focus.

I had a book of Elizabeth Catlett prints that I brought in for them to look through. It was locally published by Hampton University, and I can’t find it right now, but I read a couple of short excerpts from it that talked about art documenting history, and how that’s what Catlett did and why it’s so important.

Videos

Watch from :25-1:30

Elizabeth Catlett

Watch from :48-1:50

I Have Always Worked Hard in America, Elizabeth Catlett

Cleveland Museum of Art curator Jane Glaubinger discusses Elizabeth Catlett linoleum artwork. Elizabeth Catlett Mora (born April 15, 1915) is an African-American sculptor and printmaker. Catlett is best known for the black, expressionistic sculptures and prints she produced during the 1960s and 1970s, which are seen as politically charged.

Watch from :20-2:30

Elizabeth Catlett Exhibit – Hampton University Museum

The Hampton University Museum, the oldest in Virginia, founded in 1868, features Elizabeth Catlett’s legacy through her amazing prints. Having one of the largest Catlett collections, 25 new pieces never seen in Hampton Roads highlight the faces of women through history. Her former students will also be included, as well as her former husband.

start at 1:20 leaders are active in some way to benefit other people

Elizabeth Catlett : My Definition of a Leader

 

Watch all.

Elizabeth Catlett: Sculpting the Truth

http://LAndSVideo.com presents Elizabeth Catlett, who sculpts the truth from wood, stone, terra cotta, and the people she knows… mothers, workers, children. Her inspiration comes from women, because, as she says, women have to try a little harder. Her work is technically flawless, and artistically brilliant.

[blockquote type=”left”]”I have always wanted my art to service my people – to reflect us, to relate to us, to stimulate us, to make us aware of our potential….We have to create an art for liberation and for life.” – Elizabeth Catlett[/blockquote]

Discussion

I read these excerpts from this obituary article.  

[columnize]

Catlett’s decision to focus on her ethnic identity, and its association with slavery and class struggles, was bold and unconventional in the 1930s and ’40s, when African Americans were expected “to assimilate themselves into a more Eurocentric ethic,” art curator Lowery Stokes Sims said in a 1993 National Public Radio interview.  

Confident that art could foster social change, Catlett confronted the most disturbing injustices against African Americans. “I wanted to show the history and strength of all kinds of black women,” Catlett told the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times in 1992. “Working women, country women, urban women, great women in the history of the United States.”  

Elizabeth Catlett is part of a history of protest art in America,” Tritobia Hayes Benjamin, director of the Howard University Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., said in a 2005 Times interview. “She made statements in her art about the human condition, about social justice and injustice.”  

The collective’s left-leaning political affiliations partly led the U.S. government to declare Catlett an “undesirable alien” in 1959, when she was briefly held in a roundup of Americans living in Mexico who were suspected of communist activity.  

Turned away from the Carnegie Institute of Technology because she was “colored,” Catlett earned a bachelor’s degree in art in the mid-1930s from Howard University, a historically black institution. She joined the Works Progress Administration, the Depression-era program that employed many starving artists, and was exposed to Rivera and his fellow Mexican muralist Miguel Covarrubias, whose politics influenced her future works.  

Catlett taught art at a North Carolina high school for a time but was discouraged by the inequality in pay between black and white teachers. She left for what is now the University of Iowa, earning a master’s in fine art in 1940. Faculty member Grant Wood — best known for “American Gothic,” his 1930 painting of an Iowa farm couple — mentored her. He encouraged Catlett to do as he did and use her culture and community as the subject of her art. “I’d never been around white people in all my life except to fight with them,” Catlett later said of Wood’s unexpected support.[/columnize]

  Print and handout appropriate page

Handouts.docx

Week 1 – Benjamin Banneker and Music from Slavery

Week 2 – Harriet Ann Jacobs and Eubie Blake

Week 3 – Mifflin Gibbs and Lucille Clifton

Week 4 – Robert Smalls and Elizabeth Catlett

Linking up with Literacy Musing Mondays

What does it mean to be Courageous? We’re going to look at why people were so bold and courageous, why they seemed to do things out of the ordinary, and what the ordinary things were that they were standing up against. Why did they need to be courageous? Each week we’ll look at a person throughout history, along with a creative black person that you should be familiar with who used their art courageously.

Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

Born: April 17, 1823

Died: July 11, 1915

An African-American attorney, judge, diplomat and banker. Born in Philadelphia, he moved to California as a young man during the Gold Rush.

Videos

Watch whole thing

The Story of Mifflin Gibbs – Shaw TV Victoria

Shaw TV’s Sucheta Singh learns about Mifflin Gibbs, an influential pioneer from Victoria’s gold rush days.

Books

• Hurry Freedom – Stanley

Read

Mifflin Gibbs biography, summarized from Hurry Freedom by Jerry Stanley

Mifflin Gibbs biography, summarized from Hurry Freedom by Jerry Stanley Mifflin Gibbs was born in Pennsylvania in 1823. By his early 20s he was helping in the Underground Railroad. Gibbs moved to San Francisco during the Gold Rush years, where he was soon a successful merchant, a leading member…

Power Discussion

Using the form below, we reviewed the lesson and they filled in the squares. Some of the kids drew pictures to represent it if they didn’t want to write it all out.

Who Had the Power?  California government & Supreme Court,

What Was the Injustice? not testifying in court, not allowed to vote, & slavery

Who Were the Allies? white people taking petition to capitol, white people not buying shoes, & Canada

How Could It Have Been Fixed? let them testify in court, end slavery, & let them vote

What Were the Acts of Resistance and Courage? writing the petitions, helping slaves escape, successful businessman, & California Conventions

Power Worksheet

 

Laws and Practices 

(we’re going to keep a list of all the laws we come across)

– Dred Scott ruling

– California laws

   – An Act Concerning Crimes and Punishment

   – 1852 Fugitive Slave Law

[blockquote type=”center”]”We wish to inform the public that we are a law-abiding class of people, even though we are governed by unjust laws.” – Mifflin Gibbs[/blockquote]

Lucille Clifton

Born: June 27, 1936

Died: February 13, 2010

American poet, writer, and educator from Buffalo, New York. From 1979 to 1985 she was Poet Laureate of Maryland.

Books

• African American Women Writers – Wilkinson
• Words with Wings – Rochelle

Videos

Watch whole thing.

Poetry Everywhere: “won’t you celebrate with me” by Lucille Clifton

Lucille Clifton reads her poem “won’t you celebrate with me.” Part of the Poetry Everywhere project airing on public television. Produced by David Grubin Productions and WGBH Boston, in association with the Poetry Foundation. Filmed at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. For more information, visit http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/poetryeverywhere/.

Watch the first minute/poem

Lucille Clifton reading at the 2006 Dodge Poetry Festival

“aunt jemima” and “afterblues”

Watch 5:05-6:33

Poet Lucille Clifton Reads From Voices at the 92Y

Poet Lucille Clifton passed away recently at the age of 73. The New York Times recalled that Clifton: “…received a National Book Award in 2000 for Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000, published by BOA Editions.

Articles

Everything Is Connected

Remembering Lucille Clifton

Read poems and look at the advertisements, discussing the meanings of the poems.

Lucille Clifton poems/images

Listen children Listen children keep this in the place you have for keeping always, keep it all ways We have never hated black Listen we have been ashamed hopeless tired mad but always all ways we loved us We have always loved each other children all ways Pass it on aunt jem…

[blockquote type=”center”]”One thing poetry teaches us, if anything, is that everything is connected. There is so much history that we have not validated.”- Lucille Clifton [/blockquote]

[blockquote type=”center”]”But I do know that I feel that it is dishonorable to not recognize, if you’re going to give something human-ness, to not recognize it as human.” – Lucille Clifton [/blockquote]

The main discussion points I wanted to get across were: How black people were viewed and portrayed by white people and advertisements. Talk about the terms aunt and uncle, how it sounded respectful but was actually dehumanizing. We talked about black women being servants, and giving so much of their time and effort to serving white families, what it meant to pose and smile for white people, to be rendered personless and nameless. I hoped that by using products that the kids will see in the grocery store, it will be a good reminder of what we discussed.

  Print and handout appropriate page

Handouts.docx

Week 1 – Benjamin Banneker and Music from Slavery

Week 2 – Harriet Ann Jacobs and Eubie Blake

Week 3 – Mifflin Gibbs and Lucille Clifton

Week 4 – Robert Smalls and Elizabeth Catlett

This post contains affiliate links.

Linking up with Circling the Story for Literacy Musing Mondays

What does it mean to be Courageous? We’re going to look at why people were so bold and courageous, why they seemed to do things out of the ordinary, and what the ordinary things were that they were standing up against. Why did they need to be courageous? Each week we’ll look at a person throughout history, along with a creative black person that you should be familiar with who used their art courageously.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

Born: February 11, 1813

Died: March 7, 1897

African-American writer who escaped from slavery and was later freed. Famous for hiding in an attic for 7 years. Became an abolitionist speaker and reformer.

Videos

We learned about Harriet Jacobs, and also Nat Turner because they lived in the same region, and the fear/power involved affected Harriet.

Start video at 5:40

Harriet Jacobs – What Slavery Really is

Harriet Jacobs published the “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” in 1861, a true story of her life in slavery in South Carolina and her escape to the North after living almost 7 years in the attic. Her story portrays the abuses and hypocrisy of the master-slave relationship with a female slave.

Watch video 1:40-2:35, 3:34-5:46

Slaves Fought Back: Nat Turner

Some referred to him as “Prophet Nat Turner”. Nat Turner was born on October 2, 1800, in Southampton County, Virginia, the week before Gabriel was hanged. While still a young child, Nat was overheard describing events that had happened before he was born.

Books

• Slaves Who Dared – Garrison
• African American Women Writers – Wilkinson

Timeline Activity

Harriet Ann Jacobs Timeline

Harriet Ann Jacobs Timeline 1813 Harriet Ann Jacobs is born in Edenton, N.C. to Delilah and Elijah Jacobs. 1819 Harriet’s mother dies. At age six, Harriet goes to live with her mother’s white mistress, Margaret Horniblow, in Edenton. Through Miss Horniblow’s tutelage, Harriet learns how to rea…

– Put timeline in order as a group – glue to large paper

Laws and Practices  (we’re going to keep a list of all the laws we come across)

– Fugitive Slave Act

– laws after Nat Turner

         – no preaching by slaves, free blacks

         – no religious meetings – 39 lashes

         – no inciting people to rebel, insurrection, riots

Power Discussion

Using the form below, we reviewed the lesson and they filled in the squares. Some of the kids drew pictures to represent it if they didn’t want to write it all out.  

Who Had the Power?  Dr. Norcom, and his kids who thought they had power. We talked about Dr. Norcom and how you can be ‘good’ – helping people, healing people, be respected, and still be supporting or doing terrible things that hurt and kill people.

What Was the Injustice? being enslaved. We talked about language difference between ‘a slave’ and ‘enslaved person’.
Who Were the Allies? people who mailed letters, her grandmother, abolitionist friends

How Could It Have Been Fixed? Been set free, his children not going after her. We talked about why she was pursued so long and hard – people in power want to keep their power, and when people in power are afraid, what do they do?

What Were the Acts of Resistance and Courage? hiding, running away, writing her story

Power Worksheet

“I resolved not to be conquered again.” ― Harriet Ann Jacobs

(Put the new Nat Turner movie on your radar!)

Eubie Blake

Born: February 7, 1887

Died: February 12, 1983

Composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. Creator of the ground-breaking show, Shuffle Along (now on Broadway again!)

Videos

Start video at 1:40

Minstrel shows

from Ken Burns Jazz (for educational purposes only)

Watch the first 2 minutes

Blacks and Vaudeville: PBS documentary

PBS two-hour documentary on “Vaudeville”: the segment on Blacks and Vaudeville (19 min). Beginning in the 1880s and through the 1920s, vaudeville was home to more than 25,000 performers, and was the most popular form of entertainment in America. From the local small-town stage to New York’s Palace Theater, vaudeville was an essential part of every community.

(really 96. But this video is so great. Eubie is one of my favorite people I’ve come across in researching for this class.)
Watch video 2:58-4:00, 10:10-10:30, 11:55-12:47

Eubie Blake at 100

Eubie Blake at 100 Originally uploaded by palindup but with lip sync problem

Books

• Jazz ABZ – Marsalis
• No More – stories and songs of slave resistance – Rappaport
• Free At Last – stories and songs of emancipation – Rappaport

Read relevant section from music article

Paper Plate Portrait Activity

– how people see you, how you see yourself

– discuss how white people saw black people, how black people saw themselves

“The proudest day of my life was when Shuffle Along opened. At the intermission, all these white people kept saying, ‘I would like to touch him, the man who wrote the music.’  At last, I’m a human being.” – Eubie Blake

  Print and handout appropriate page

Handouts.docx

Week 1 – Benjamin Banneker and Music from Slavery

Week 2 – Harriet Ann Jacobs and Eubie Blake

Week 3 – Mifflin Gibbs and Lucille Clifton

Week 4 – Robert Smalls and Elizabeth Catlett

This post contains affiliate links. 

Linking up with Circling the Story.

What does it mean to be Courageous? We’re going to look at why people were so bold and courageous, why they seemed to do things out of the ordinary, and what the ordinary things were that they were standing up against. Why did they need to be courageous? Each week we’ll look at a person throughout history, along with a creative black person that you should be familiar with who used their art courageously.

Benjamin Banneker

Born: November 9, 1731

Died: October 9, 1806

A free African-American scientist, surveyor, almanac author and farmer.

Videos

Watch whole thing

Black History Month #7 – The Scientists: Benjamin Banneker

A brief elementary grade level exploration of the life and work of Benjamin Banneker.

Start at 1:17

Voices of the Civil War Episode 2: “Banneker’s Letter”

In Episode 2, we commend African Americans who fought back against prejudice and racism long before the Civil War, with a focus on Benjamin Banneker. In 1791, Banneker confronted Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson about his conflicting views of slavery. He challenged Jefferson’s perception of African Americans by offering himself as a role model of intelligence, wit and strength.

Books

• Hand in Hand – Ten Black Men Who Changed America – Pinkney

Banneker Bingo

B I N G O among the first scientific farmers to employ crop rotation was the first to track the 17 year locust cycle first to disclose that the Star of Sirius is two stars, not one. His hypothesis was not confirmed until the Hubble Telescope 200 years later first African-American, to…

Laws and Practices

(we’re going to keep a list of all the laws we come across)

     3/5 Compromise (interesting to realize that it was the North who pushed for the enslaved people to be not counted as humans. I never realized that. Good rabbit trail to explore more about power.)

Power Discussion

Using the form below, we reviewed the lesson and they filled in the squares. Some of the kids drew pictures to represent it if they didn’t want to write it all out.

Who Had the Power?

publisher of almanac, government
What Was the Injustice?

not publishing an almanac by a black man, slavery and not being considered a full human
Who Were the Allies?

abolitionists, the Ellicotts, and Quakers in general
How Could It Have Been Fixed?

published the almanac, ended slavery, not having the 3/5 compromise to begin with (which brought up a discussion of what America would have been like if the southern states had refused to join)
What Were the Acts of Resistance and Courage?

writing the almanac and continuing it until his death, teaching himself, and the letter to Jefferson

Power Worksheet

I also brought up how when Banneker was alive, Thomas Jefferson spoke well of him, but after he died, Jefferson said that Banneker had help with his math and science and had a mind of very common stature. The kids were also horrified to learn that as they were burying Benjamin, that his house was burned to the ground and his notebooks and his clock (especially his clock!) were destroyed. 
[blockquote type=”center”]“The color of the skin is in no way connected with strength of the mind or intellectual powers.” –Benjamin Banneker[/blockquote]
The main discussion points I wanted to get across were that Benjamin was a hard worker, taught himself advanced subjects, and was well accomplished in an age when black people were considered to be inferior, stupid, less than human, and his life itself was an act of courage and resistance to the labels put upon him.

Songs from Slavery

Videos

Watch start to :50, 4:53-6:42, 7:20-7:42, 9:27-9:50

HISTORY DETECTIVES | Slave Songbook | PBS

for more info: http://www.pbs.org/historydetectives. Watch the full segment from the History Detectives Special celebrating African American contributions to music. The president of the Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum in Culver City, California, recently discovered an unusual book in his late mother’s extraordinary collection of African-American artifacts.

Watch whole thing, pause throughout and talk through the Coded song worksheet.

Wade in the water – Ella Jenkins

Watch whole thing

Watch Full Episodes Online of Underground Railroad: The William Still Story on PBS | Coded Spirituals

Many of the well-known Negro Spirituals popular in the United States during the mid-1800s are much more complex than they first appear. Historians of the Underground Railroad refer to them as “Coded Spirituals”. What that means is that the words actually have two meanings; one that is immediately apparent and one that’s hidden just below the surface.

Watch whole thing

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot – The Plantation Singers

Watch more Plantation Singers songs: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcHlIwBdARHY2xGU8fdYQBZg1ryhP_U6w The Plantation Singers of Charleston, SC are a professional a cappella singing group renowned locally, nationally and internationally for their singing of the of the music of the Lowcountry. We met up with them and the group’s director, Lynnette White, in Charleston, SC.

Article on history of African-American music (will be used throughout semester)

Listen to Wade in the Water video, use with worksheet.

Swing Low coded worksheet

The main discussion points I wanted to get across were from the article, mainly that “By working within sociocultural constraints, innovating and adapting musical styles, African-Americans created a musical tradition distinctively their own, and that in itself was a form of defiance”, as well as the idea that black people had to conform to white expectations of what was allowed, in anticipation of talking about minstrel shows next week. 

Week 1 – Benjamin Banneker and Music from Slavery

Week 2 – Harriet Ann Jacobs and Eubie Blake

Week 3 – Mifflin Gibbs and Lucille Clifton

Week 4 – Robert Smalls and Elizabeth Catlett

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Linking up with Ashley’s Literary Musings