Face the Facts about Racism
Perhaps the most invented historical hero was Thomas Jefferson. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” rings hollow when Jefferson owned at least 175 slaves. Many textbooks mention that Jefferson owned slaves, but it is recorded as if it where only a minor point instead of a system that allowed racialized whites to murder, rape, and hang Blacks for any reason. “We the People” back then meant “We the white people.” This is real United States history. In fact, Jefferson supported the expansion of slavery across America at a time when the Native Americans were being slaughtered in mass by racist settlers. Jefferson may have claimed that he opposed slavery in public, but in private he was a super supporter of slavery as was the traitor Robert E. Lee. They both had slaves that they whipped and sold.
The Black advocate David Walker, once said that Jefferson should be remembered as the greatest enemy of black people. In fact, Walker felt that whites would have a difficult time removing the racial cancer that Jefferson helped to spread. Walker said in 1829, “Mr. Jefferson’s remarks disrespecting us have sunk deep into the hearts of whites, and never will be removed this side of eternity.” When whites refused the ideas of white superiority they too were subjected to oppression and sometimes were killed. John Brown was perhaps the greatest example of a white man that refused to accept the ideas of white supremacy and was called everything from “N-Lover,” to a crazy person. He was a brave hero.
From the Portuguese attempt to dominate the Atlantic slave trade, to the defeat of the Moors in the Canary Islands, and finally to the Enlightenment, we can see how white supremacy became the long-lasting child of slavery. This legacy of hatred did not ever end. In the 1800s, the horror of being the “wrong skin color” included using black babies as “alligator bait,” burning blacks alive, chopping up their bodies to feed hogs, pouring salt on wounds as torture, and stealing Black bodies from graveyards. Sometimes, Blacks were poisoned when they refused to pick cotton or back-talked. Women were raped by slave masters and if pregnant the women might be whipped until the fetus fell from her body where it might be chopped up before her eyes. At other times, when babies were born, they were sold by the pound at auction blocks. All honest historians must tell the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of history or otherwise they are dishonest to say the least.
You cannot have a democracy unless these issues are exposed and taught to the public. Even now, in many southern states racist politicians are trying to deny the horrors of slavery and white supremacy. This will not solve anything and will only lead to more hatred with injustice being denied or sugar-coated. All must be taught so that this country can begin the long road to rid itself of racial hatred. Racism is not just part of the past; it is an indelible part of the present whereby many believe that race is a part of the natural world. Just walking around a white neighborhood, or jogging, can produce frantic cries for the police to come and “investigate” in what is described as a “suspicious” person, and then getting choked to death, or the killing and/or beating of a Black jogger by vigilantes. No white person should be offended by these facts unless they are bigots or misguided. Face it, everyone has negative relatives in their ancestry.
