I finally caught one of our day lilies in bloom. They're buried so deep in the underbrush of our garden that they're almost impossible to see. This clump by the bird bath gets the most light and I believe it's the only one that has a flower. One of the many tasks on my someday-I'll-get-to-it list is to liberate our day lilies from the twilight darkness in which most of them live, either by moving them or pruning the plants around them.
I showed you the bud of our pink dahlia a few days ago -- here it is in full flower.
I had a relatively low-key day yesterday. I got two calls from the NHS wanting to know the results of my Day 2 post-travel Covid test. Unfortunately those results didn't come until 1:30 this morning (negative), so no doubt they'll be calling again today to follow up. I honestly don't mean to complain about this NHS contact, because I understand the need for it, but I wonder why they call me so often. Wouldn't once a day, or once every two days, be sufficient?
Then again, the NHS is the only excitement I get at the moment.
I'm reading an interesting book called "Life of a Klansman: A Family History in White Supremacy," by Edward Ball. It traces the life of the author's ancestors -- one in particular -- in 19th century Louisiana, bringing to life the racism and violence of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. I've found it quite illuminating, and also painful -- I come mostly from Southern ancestors myself, and it's not difficult to imagine them holding similar attitudes to Ball's. I have never heard, though, that my relatives joined the Ku Klux Klan, as Ball's did -- and I'm still unclear on the extent to which my family owned slaves. They were farmers, and somewhat prosperous, but they weren't wealthy.
One thing I like about the book, though, is its insistence that we consider the effects of our racist past on the structure of our current society. While I was in Florida I had a discussion/argument with my brother-in-law about white privilege, and how I understand that although I personally try to hold racially progressive views, I have benefitted from wealth and opportunities accrued by my ancestors through the labor and oppression of black workers. And I recognize that while I can link no specific incidents to my family, anti-black violence is part of my heritage.
For example, Ball relates the story of a brutal attack by white supremacists, including his great-great grandfather Constant, on a political gathering at Mechanics Hall in New Orleans in 1866:
It is not a distortion to say that Constant’s rampage 150 years ago helps, in some impossible-to-measure way, to clear space for the authority and comfort of whites living now — not just for me and for his fifty or sixty descendants, but for whites in general. I feel shame about it. That is not a distortion, either. I am an heir to Constant’s acts of terror. I do not deny it, and the bitter truth makes me sick at the stomach.
Whites are my people, my tribe. They were Constant’s people, his tribe. In that way he belongs to us, and to hundreds of millions. I know the honest way to regard race violence is this: American history is full of it. It is pandemic. The United States was founded upon racial violence. It is within the core of our national identity.
Here is a way not to see these events: The marauders like Constant are immoral, abject and bad people. They are not like us, they belong to someone else.
It is truer to say this: the marauders are our people, and they fight for us.
I think that pretty succinctly summarizes the concept of white privilege. I would add -- not to deny but to more broadly acknowledge that privilege -- that while the American South elevated racial violence to extreme levels, we are hardly the only country or society to oppress, or benefit from that oppression.
It's also interesting how little I know about some of these events. I know Reconstruction was a violent period, but I don't ever remember hearing about the Mechanics Hall riots, in which hundreds of people were killed, wounded and arrested (mostly black, many of them attacked simply because they happened to be on the street at that time). It makes me realize the blind spots in my own knowledge. Was I just not paying attention in history class, or did we not talk in detail about episodes like this?
Anyway, it's a thought-provoking book.
Here's one more garden picture. Our wildflower seedlings, which I planted several weeks ago, have finally grown to a respectable size, and some of them are about to bloom. It looks like a few blue cornflowers made it after all!
52 comments:
Thanks for the beautiful garden pictures. I’m surprised and ashamed of how little of our American racial history I know. Mostly, I know what I was taught in school and that was completely cloaked in white privilege. I’m learning.
That dahlia is beautiful. I finally bought one last year ( a yellow/bronze colour, which didn't actually match with the rest of the garden) but it didn't re-appear his year. A trip to the garden nursery might be in order this morning....there are a few gaps in the borders!
Ball's analysis is illuminating, articulating as it does how we are all connected with past events. In Yorkshire there's a grand stately home called Harewood House. It was built with the profits of slavery in the Caribbean. The inheritors of that country estate still enjoy privileged lives in 2021 and that is just one clear example of how the legacy of slavery is still very much alive and amongst us.
Thought provoking books are always the best! We are all bearers of our pasts and ancestors especially - I'm not sure that means we are bearers of responsibility for the acts of our forefathers - but I do think we bear a responsibility to ensure the privileges they accrued (and which we benefit from today) are addressed as fairly and as positively / proactively as we can.
I’m shallow enough that I now avoid books that leave me sad or disturbed. Maybe as an English major and grad student (and teacher) I’ve read my fill of them, although I’m glad someone is telling these stories
Australia has its own bad history with our native population. That is native for hundreds of thousands of years, not the couple of hundred years white people have lived here. There was mass murder here of our Aboriginal population along with many crimes against them. Their actions against the invaders were retaliatory and not proactive. Nothing to be proud about here as a white person but it was in the past. We acknowledge the actions of our ancestors but that is not us now. I urge you and anyone else who doesn't know to take a couple of minutes to read this horrific post although no doubt I am preaching to the smart and educated converted. http://melbourneblogger.blogspot.com/2021/07/violent-red-summer-in-us-1919-21-tulsa.html
If you come from Old Settlers to the U.S., and if your family were Southern farmers who were reasonably prosperous in the 18th and 19th centuries, it is sadly very likely they owned at least one, if not more enslaved persons. I hope I'm wrong in your family's case. If you have an ancestry.com account, searching for your ancestor's names on the 1850 or 1860 U.S. Slave Schedules, or reading their wills (leaving enslaved people to their heirs) can be a shocking and humbling experience.
That sounds like an interesting book. Probably a bit disturbing in some ways but still something to learn from. I find it difficult to understand the feeling that the white race is somehow diminished by the progress of other races. I've never thought of my self as "white" even though I am. I've never felt that I was made smaller because someone of a different race is successful.
The flowers are looking great!
I have no doubt that some of my ancestors "owned" enslaved people. I put that word in quotation marks because it is impossible for me to believe that a human being can be owned by another, even if it was the legal law that they did. And although we tend to think of slave owners as very rich families who lived on plantations, the truth is, many people owned just one or a few slaves to work on their smaller properties.
The bitter truth of this should make ALL of us sick at the stomach.
The thing about white privilege and male privilege, is that the very people who benefit from it, don't even realize that they have it. There is also the benefit of having money, which not everyone has. Race, gender, poverty, religion, all of these have been used as excuses to enslave people in one way or another.
People like to say that you can't change the past, which is true, but I like this saying better, when you know better, you do better.
What amazes me, Steve, is the patience of African-Americans who have put up with our shit for years and years! Inching towards progress but then getting set back again. "Liberty and justice for all" has been an empty phrase that we all must work to achieve now.
I enjoyed reading about the book on the Klan. There are many things that happened that I have never heard about and I am a history teacher! I try really hard to show my students the brutality and racism during the Reconstruction Era, and it it translates into what we deal with today.
Hi Steve, Dave and Olga. I can give you the entire story of Louisiana. Which the southern states are called the dirty south because of the history. In Louisiana if you weren't white enough to be white you were black. They never used the term mixed race. Our race mixed from slavery. I can't tell you that my family had racial problems. Meaning immediate family and not ancestors. I can look in the mirror and know something happen but I never go backward. Racial unjust are taught and not inherited. Babies love each other no matter what. We lived in the surburbs and white people did visit us. All of the families were there for each others. We knew what was racial happening but unfortunately my immediate family didn't experience it. Now our schools were all black. I finished high school in 1969 and we finally got intergrated with the teachers. The students got intergrated in 1970. I did the freedom March at the age of 16, 17 and beyond along side of Dr. Martin Luther King.
The Black Panther movement did give us hope- then we know what happened there. After trump let the worst of human propensities out of the bag, giving license to evil - the blatant murders, the marches- the younger generation tried like hell to right systemic racism, were also beaten and tossed in the pokey. Half of our so called democracy (the GOP)adhered to and amplified White man BS. The GOP has taken on the country's cruel legacy banner - the driving force of America's Farewell Tour.
Your flowers , your garden, your life with Dave and Olga are safe and gentle spots to land upon. Grateful for y'all.
I grew up brown-skinned in our white America. People asked me from the time I was young if I was from India? Or if maybe I was Puerto Rican? But it was just as scary to say I was born Jewish. White privilege is omnipresent and has horrific as ever. I've always been a dreamer, though, wishing we'd just see each other as one species on our over-populated planet.
Love your flower photos.
it's not that you weren't paying attention, it's that it was not taught. reconstruction in history class was about carpetbaggers and how whites suffered, no mention of the riots and massacres of black people. they basically weren't mentioned at all. I don't remember how I learned about the KKK. I don't think it was in school though.
And then there is Texas yesterday...
https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/education/563993-texas-senate-removes-requirement-to-tell-students-that
"In a bill that just passed the state’s Senate, Texas public school students would no longer be required to learn about the Ku Klux Klan or that the group’s white supremacy is “morally wrong.”"
And so things move backwards, instead of forwards. Disgusted.
That Dahlia is EVERYTHING!!
It sounds like an interesting book, and one that would be disturbing as well as thought-provoking. I have to agree with what you said here:
"I would add -- not to deny but to more broadly acknowledge that privilege -- that while the American South elevated racial violence to extreme levels, we are hardly the only country or society to oppress, or benefit from that oppression."
As one who's lived my entire life in the American south, it bothers me how we're often singled out. Of course it doesn't make it right in any way, but we're certainly not alone in our dark history.
If I had any ancestors who were slave owners, I'm not aware of it, and I sure hope none belonged to the Klan. On a side note, former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards died this month. He was quite a colorful character (to put it mildly) and following prison time for racketeering, he ran (successfully) for a fourth term as governor facing former grand wizard of the KKK, David Duke. A popular bumper stick for his campaign read: "Vote For the Crook. It's Important." What a choice! (which is why I tend to vote third party quite often!)
p.s. the dahlia is gorgeous!
It seems that information and education has done very little to make us understand how racism is in our society.
Like Ellen, my time in school taught reconstruction as Carpetbaggers, cruelty to the poor white southerners, and no mention of the brutality directed at the Black people. We watched a series on Grant, and it was his withdrawal of funds for the Northern soldiers that allowed the violence to begin in the South. The northerners were tired of spending money on the south.
My Mom's people are from Bessemer Alabama and points south. When she was in high school my Grandfather asked her if she though he should join the Klan (!), she told him no, that was a terrible idea. So he didn't. The racism ran deep in my extended family.
Since we are discussing racism I came back to tell you my grandson did a paternity and he is my grandson by a white female. We lost 23 years with him and she did apologize but I explained to my son that he always said that was his baby and now he knows and love him. Why should I hate because of race. I just found out last week and I hadn't met him yet or the great grand baby. I love them anyway and God is great to bring them into our lives. Can't you tell. I am home now.(lol) I was discharged yesterday.
It's so much easier for people to deny racism than to actually look at the problems. Take any problem: covid, climate, racism, political issues. Denial solves nothing.
Texas is its own world. Not much good comes from Texas.
It's interesting to see the gaps in my knowledge. I knew that racial violence accompanied Reconstruction, but I thought it was mostly lynchings targeted at individuals -- not wholesale rioting that killed hundreds of (black) people at a time. The Civil War did not end at Appomattox.
Did you lift your dahlia or leave it in the ground over winter? We keep ours in pots because of slugs and snails, and I lift the roots and store them in the shed over winter. I think this year I may just try storing the pots without lifting the roots. We'll see!
Yes, that's a very clear example. I think a lot of wealthy people in the power structure both here and in the USA are direct beneficiaries of slavery -- not to mention middle class people like me with ties to that era and region.
Yeah, I don't think we're personally responsible, but we have to acknowledge that we have benefitted -- and I think it's reasonable to consider ways that we can compensate for all those years of oppression.
I understand that impulse, believe me! A disturbing book can be a wonderful thing, though. I love books that make me think and see the world differently.
The events in Tulsa have received a lot of recent attention, but they're just one example of numerous similar rampages. I know Australia also has a tortured racial history. I'm glad we're all at least talking about it and most of us are working to create a more just world.
Interesting! I should have known there would be a way to look this up online. My mom once told me that our ancestors owned slaves, but I'm not sure she really knows. I'd like to see an official record.
The concept of "whiteness" is difficult to grasp, encompassing as it does many ethnicities and nationalities. (The concept of "color" is just as slippery.) And it's changed so much over the years. I also don't understand the fear that progress for others means less for ourselves -- a rising tide lifts all boats, as they say. But I also haven't felt all the pressures of the struggling working class.
I decided to let it take its chances in the ground as we don't seem to have such cold winters these days! I bought a " raspberry " coloured one yesterday. It has lots of buds and was only £4.95..a bargain I thought. Coincidentally, my husband started talking about day lilies when we got to the nursery! ( they didn't have any!)
Of course the concept of ownership of fellow humans seems crazy now. I think we have to acknowledge that although we no longer "own" fellow human beings, we do keep them effectively enslaved. We don't pay many workers enough to survive, we have corporate leaders who exploit them as markets for poisonous and addictive drugs, we deny them justice to which they should be entitled. There are many forms of enslavement.
Yes, the privilege is invisible to many people. It's so built into the structure of their existences that they don't perceive it. Knowledge is power, as they say!
Oh, Lord, isn't THAT the truth! And we wonder why people riot!
At least you're in an ideal position to help kids think about these issues. It's interesting how even you feel you haven't been made aware of all that history. I guess it's impossible to know EVERYTHING, but I was shocked reading this book at how little I knew of certain specific events.
You did the freedom marches? Now THAT sounds like a story! I hope you're writing your recollections down somewhere. You're right about babies and small children -- they don't see race. That's the surest way to tell that all our hatreds are taught.
I try to focus on the fact that we HAVE come SO far. It doesn't always seem like it, but we have made tremendous progress as a nation in the last 200 years. The long arc of the universe bends toward justice, as King said.
The very fact that you were asked about your ethnicity shows a sort of social pressure that many of us never had to deal with. It's a good illustration of how I have been "privileged" without even being aware of it. As for being a dreamer, I'm with you (and John Lennon!).
Yeah, that's true -- we certainly learned about the ways the Yankees exploited the poor defeated South. It's astonishing the ways southerners have managed to keep alive the grievances of the Civil War period. (Hence carrying Confederate flags through the Capitol on Jan. 6.)
Astonishing. The conservative movement against "critical race theory" is just whitewashing all over again. But I really do think that for every step backwards, we take one or two forwards. I think we're moving ahead over the very, very long term.
Linda Sue: Well, there's Austin!
Isn't it great?! I love that color. I wish I could remember the name of the variety. (If I ever knew it.)
Lovely lilies. I'm sure I've been a beneficiary of white privilege the few times the police have pulled me over and let me go without a ticket. Although I'm not a southerner, I think most of us who are Caucasian benefit from it. In the history classes I took in high school and college, we didn't learn a lot about events other than such and such happened in this year and it changed something. Teachers didn't go into a lot of detail.
Love,
Janie
I remember Edwin Edwards. He WAS a character. There's certainly been a tendency to see the South as the "evil" side in the Civil War, and the North as the "good" side, but the truth is that racial attitudes in the North weren't always progressive either. It was a different kind of oppression.
I think it's hard for people to think about racism. Many of us live in a state of denial. We just don't want to deal with the hard questions or our own darker impulses.
Yes, the book I just read talked about that period during Grant's presidency when the North basically turned its back on Reconstruction and let the South do its own thing. That's what led to Jim Crow.
I think for many white men in the South, the Klan was seen almost as a social club -- kind of like the Elks or the Moose. I don't mean to minimize Klan participation when I say that, but I'm sure there was a lot of social pressure to join and demonstrate an allegiance to white brotherhood.
I'm glad you're home! What an amazing occurrence, to discover you have a grandchild and a great-grandbaby. I hope you can see more of them.
Absolutely. Denial is a huge part of all of this. It's so much easier to just not think about it -- which, of course, is another aspect of privilege. Some people can't HELP but think about it because they're reminded of race every single day.
Our history classes had to cover a lot of ground, and I don't know about you, but we never got to the end of the book. We usually ran out of school year right around the end of World War II. I can think of several times when my race probably led me to receive better or more generous treatment.
The cornflowers are beautiful. I remember seeing a lot of them when I was much younger. Not so much lately. Enjoy your day, hugs, Edna B.
We never got to the end of the history book, but I'm a bad girl so I looked ahead. The books always ended with a tiny bit of information about the Korean War. I made a point of telling my kids interesting stories about history that I knew they wouldn't get from their teachers.
Post a Comment