Facebook shared that Jan. 1 isn’t a day of celebration for Black people. Memories remain of slavery’s auctions, fears of families being separated.
Why did it take 75 years to hear about that? My family bought a television in 1951, I read the paper as soon as I could, watched Huntley-Brinkley, read Life, Look and Post magazines throughout the civil rights era, had years of American history and never knew Jan. 1 was not a day of joy for Black people!
The eight-day Passover Seder holds the memory of my ethnicity’s biblical bondage and escape from Pharaoh’s Egypt. Black experience with slavery’s ramifications is painful. Society’s joy on Jan. 1 pokes at a festering wound.
Three thousand-plus years vs. right here and now! Nonetheless, there is a political move afoot not to teach history, purging school libraries of books with “uncomfortable” references. Public libraries have been targeted, too.
Rationalization’s protective ointment: “Other tribes captured people, selling them to slavers,” fails to acknowledge the unconscionable “middle passage,” slave markets, masters’ sex with female and/or forcing male slaves to breed benefiting owning more “assets” and/or sale of chattel. “Breaking the buck,” instilling submission made the Inquisition look like a rite of passage!
One dominant group’s celebration of renewal is another’s reminder of the loss of liberty. Making history “nice-nice” protects young (White) children’s delicate sensibilities lest they feel guilty about slavery, genocide of indigenous tribes, wars shrinking Spanish /Mexico borders mistreating Hispanics among historical blemishes.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower did it right. Germans residing near death camps were marched through for a personal glimpse of complicity with evil, aimed at warding off revisionism’s “It didn’t happen, I didn’t know.”
Ignorance is never bliss. It was a very enlightening punch to the senses, during my post-retirement RV travels, seeing the slave quarters tour in Historic Williamsburg, Museum of the Cherokee, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument and Nez Perce National Historical Park–Bear Paw Battlefield and Custer Historic Battlefield. Hitting too close to home, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., would be difficult for me, having delayed watching Schindler’s List recorded several years before.
White racism’s violence against blacks involved dozens of post-Emancipation episodes. Among them Atlanta (1906), Tulsa (1921), Rosewood, Fla. (1923), Cicero, Ill. (1953). It was also extensive against other ethnic groups.
For Chinese, Seattle (1886), Los Angeles (1871), Denver (1880), the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882). For Japanese, President Roosevelt’s executive order after Pearl Harbor incarcerating Japanese-Americans in internment camps (1942-45).
Ex-President Trump used the divisive acronym “Kung-flu,” blaming China for COVID-19. It’s resulted in xenophobic, anti-Asian violence against other Asian communities “appearing” Chinese. Not enumerated were reprehensible acts against Mexicans, Native Americans and certain immigrant groups.
The first day of history classes teachers ask: “Children, why do we study history?” We knew the answer: “To avoid the mistakes of the past, teacher!”
Knowing, remembering, and doing better than our foibles and forays into the dark side is known as “progress.” There is nothing sinister or malicious with moving forward. Imparting a social consciousness, with generous portions of empathy and compassion for others, facilitates humanity’s highest aspirations.
Isn’t that also the job of responsible parenting? It certainly minimizes enabling another generation, aided and abetted dysfunctionality, institutionalizing fear-based ignorance in society.
We emerged from the swamps, sailed the seven seas touching foreign shores and commenced a journey to the stars where we are bound. Answering “Why?” is humanity’s passport to the future.
Barry Abraham Zavah lives in Alpine.
