Freedom Rider: Why White People Get Mad
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by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
The Thanksgiving myth teaches (white) Americans that they are the kindest, most generous people on Earth – and, if you don’t believe that, they will tear you limb from limb. “The celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday is not only a celebration of slaughter but it is used to this very day to keep all Americans secure in their love of white supremacy.”
Freedom Rider: Why White People Get Mad
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“The Mayflower's cultural heirs are programmed to find glory in their own depravity, and savagery in their most helpless victims, who can only redeem themselves by accepting the inherent goodness of white Americans.” – Glen Ford
“Most white Americans can only think of themselves and their country as the pinnacle of enlightenment and civilization.”
In 2003 my Black Agenda Report colleague Glen Ford wrote “The End of American Thanksgivings: A Cause for Universal Rejoicings,“ a brilliant piece of commentary which cast a spotlight on the horror which inspired the holiday that came to be known as Thanksgiving. Mr. Ford documented the genocide visited upon the original inhabitants of this country which is inextricably intertwined with the Thanksgiving myth that is so revered by most Americans. The facts that he presented are easily known to anyone who cares to seek them out. The celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday is not only a celebration of slaughter but it is used to this very day to keep all Americans secure in their love of white supremacy.
Every November Black Agenda Report re-posts Ford’s column and I link to it on my blog, Facebook or Twitter. This year my twitter post attracted some unusual attention. On that hallowed fourth Thursday of November, I began receiving missives like these.
“then leave the fucking country if you hate it so much. But leave my Thanksgiving alone.... “
“hey moron..if america is soo racist..leave!!i will gladly help you pack”
“Yep, you're a good little puppet for black racists teaching hate--you do not punish the children for the sins of the father “
“LEAVE THE COUNTRY, I hear things are nice in Africa!”
“Good, then go to work today.”
“suck it”
“LEAVE THE COUNTRY, I hear things are nice in Africa!”
“Then get the fuck out”
“WHAT??? You can't be serious or is this because you're black and see through a single scope?”
“Margaret Kimberley, you have some real problems. Did U speak 2 your doctor & pastor about your hatred 4 anyone not black?”
“JUST ANOTHER NIGGA NUTJOB WHO HAYES [sic] AMERICA.I GOT YOUR BLACK AGENDA RIGHT HERE BITCH”
I could go on, but by now you surely get the point. I was “flamed,” targeted on the Internet by someone who disagrees with me and took the time to exhort others to reach out and touch me with their mutual hatred. After a few minutes of investigation I discovered that a right wing website highlighted twitter posts which criticized the Thanksgiving celebration. (The site shall remain nameless because I do not want to give it undeserved attention.)
“Can we give the race card a rest for just one day? Liberals’ answer: Hell, no! While many Americans try to set politics aside for the Thanksgiving holiday, it’s too much to ask of a vocal group of Twitter users who are using the day to slam America:”
The writer of those words and his or her acolytes probably never bothered to read Glen Ford’s words. Not that it would have mattered much if they had. The knowledge that someone called their country and by extension themselves racist, was too much for their fragile minds to bear. Of course the irony is that they all proved Ford right.
“They see themselves in the usurpers, killers and enslavers and any attempt to call them anything but good must be opposed.”
Most white Americans can only think of themselves and their country as the pinnacle of enlightenment and civilization. Such grandiosity is achieved only by turning the truth on its head. What is good becomes evil, and evil is labeled as good. The victim becomes a savage, and the victimizer, the true savage, becomes a paragon of virtue.
According to the people who used part of their sacred holiday to excoriate me, I committed the ultimate sin. I dared to say that the history of white America is not one of innocence and goodness. It doesn’t matter if their forebears were New England Puritans or not, they see those people as their ancestors and four centuries later cling to them with love and awe. “Slamming America” is the worst thing that one can do to people such as these. They take the Thanksgiving story very, very seriously. They see themselves in the usurpers, killers and enslavers and any attempt to call them anything but good must be opposed. As Glen Ford said, “Thanksgiving encourages these cognitive cripples in their madness, just as it is designed to do.”
So the right wing site is partly correct. I can’t “set politics aside” just because millions of people won’t like what I say. At Black Agenda Report we endeavor to tell the truth, regardless of who loves us or hates us in response. That ethos is something to be very thankful for.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
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Lincoln's justice for all but the slaves
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=50-100--150-years-ago-2...
The discussion of the day: humane for all but the people classed as property and compensatory "justice" for slave owners.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=50-100–150-years-ago-2012-11
End of Slavery?
“The President [Abraham Lincoln] urges at great length, what he terms ‘compensated emancipation’ of slavery. He proposes to inaugurate the great jubilee with the year 1900, by payment of the owners of slaves as a mutual concession on both sides, and as a matter of justice to those who are owners of this species of property. It being quite evident that the war between slavery and freedom will continue to be waged with increased vigor, the President hopes to modify its intensity, by fixing upon a certain period, when the institution shall forever cease. He thinks this policy will shorten the war, and secure justice to all concerned; while, at the same, the country will be saved from the effects of violent and sudden changes in its domestic arrangements. This view of the case strikes us as humane, and if the more radical portion of the two sections would but accept it, as a ground of settlement, peace would again bless us; but so intensely bitter have these contending elements become, that we fear no such compromise would be acceptable or satisfactory.”
Why white people get mad
Right on Margaret, You know there are a number of us out here who have your back, not many, but we are here. I would say 15 percent of us at least. Not a big number but one which those of us who fall within that range can be proud, becasue we have not been stomped down by the "big foot" of oppression.
keep on keeping on Sister
Thirteenth Amendment written by White Power Con Artists
Not that any reader of Black Agenda Report needs another reason to be angry at the White Power Structure, but here it is anyway.
The Thirteenth Amendment did not abolish slavery, it made it contingent.
The first clause here:
"Neither slavery nor involutary servitude, EXCEPT AS PUNISHMENT FOR A CRIME WHEREOF THE PARTY SHALL HAVE BEEN DULY CONVICTED, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
This loophole is big enough to drive a truck through, and sad to say many have been. This means a judge can sentence a person to SLAVERY and that a state can write the law that does exactly that. These white bastards could not let slavery go without keeping some grip on it for future use.
See "Slavery by Another Name' by Douglas A. Blackmon, both as a book or a PBS documentary to get a taste of what the Thirteenth Amendment really means.
I have read and own Lerone Bennett's book and highly recomend it.
Lerone Bennett_Lincoln Was- 'Forced Into Glory: Abe Lincoln's'
'White Dream' - @ www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Glory = More Great American Myth Busting...
Bro Lerone Bennett’s dismantling of the Lincoln Myth as the so-called ‘Great Emancipator’ is so complete, that it goes beyond what even I expected. I highly recommend everyone watch Bro Bennett take apart the Lincoln Myth piece by piece. Couple that w Bro Jared Ball’s info that Lincoln’s father-in-law was the state of KY’s biggest slave-dealer. Of course Steven Spielberg's Bio-epic on Lincoln [which is getting Oscar Buzz] perpetuates the 'Great Emancipator' Myth [How, in the age of Obama, does 'liberal' Holly-weird icon Spielberg make a epic about ending slavery excluding meaningful Black involvement- not even that of Fredrick Douglass &/or Harriett Tubman???]. One of the many strong points that Bro Bennett makes, is that of more than 16000+ books written on 'Ole Honest Abe'- just 6 have been written by Blacks [all the rest were written by whites], even though allegedly we were the main beneficiaries of 'Ole Abe's' 'magnanimity'! Thus what we've have is a white view [propaganda spin] which has perpetuated the 'Great Emancipator' Myth. The real-deal is Lincoln freed the slaves NOT because that was his actual objective [it NEVER was] but because events forced him to reluctantly do it- in spite of himself [for a real critique of Spielberg's 'Lincloln' as the 'Great Emancipator' Myth Propaganda piece see: www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/30/paternalism-and-ass-covering-in-spielbergs-lincoln/ ].
Nerver-the-Less- I expect that those white 'hate-her-aiders' that spewed such venom at Sis Kimberley & BAR for truth telling [= myth busting]- would likely howl & scowl over Bro Bennett's dismantling of the 'Lincoln the Great Emancipator' Myth- be they 'sophisticated' Northern 'Liberals' or 'Good Ole Boys' from 'Ole Dixie-Land'.
The more I read up on 'Ole {dis}Honest Abe', the more it occurs to me Lincoln is the perfect metaphor for the not so 'Good Ole USA'- which has had a dishonestly schizophrenic attitude about race from the get-go- up thru the so-called 'post-racial' age of Obama ['A double-minded person is unstable {= untrust-worthy} in all of their ways.']. The so-called 'Founding Fathers' [many / most of whom were slave-owners] proclaimed 'All men are created equal w certain God-given rights...' - while at the same time writing that Blacks were just 3/5ths human! Bro Bennett said that Lincoln vacillated [= prolonged] for the first 2 yrs of the war [which lasted 4 yrs] up until the Battle of Gettysberg - when Lee threatened to sack Washington DC. Lincoln issued the so-called 'Emancipation Proclamation' that 'theoretically' freed slaves that were still under Confederate Control while refusing to immediately free slaves that were under Union [= his] control!
Lincoln wanted to ship most / all Blacks back to Africa &/or else-where, Yet was unwilling to pay the hi cost to do so properly- which is the main reason why he [& the US Gov't] abandoned that notion.
Lincoln's schizophrenic attitude reflects the USA's as a whole, which explains why even after a confederate assassin killed him, the North allowed the KKK [founded by ex-confederate officers & generals] to flourish & terrorized the supposedly now 'free' Blacks for over 100yrs! Why the North sold our people out to Southern racism IE: KKK, Jim Crow & share-cropping by ending reconstruction circa 1876 - 1880. Why even after the South was allegedly defeated in the Civil War, the Fed Gov't to this day allows Dixie-land states to fly Confederate Flags over their state capitals [Did the US allow defeated Germany to continue to display the NAZI flag & portaits of Hitler post-WWII?]. That's why there had to be another Black Freedom rights movement / struggle in the 1950s, 60s, 70s.... Fighting to secure rights that were allegedly already supposed to be 'secured' by the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments.
Yet when you point out that Lincoln was definitely NOT an abolitionist POTUS, & had NO original intent to end slavery, you will get all kinds of lame push-back from many so-called 'liberal' as well as 'conservative' whites. 'Well Lincoln had to say Blacks were inferior to whites because otherwise he'd been committing poly-trickal suicide... But hey he never said Blacks were inherently inferior...' - 'Lincoln was an abolitionist at heart...' - YET- He married into a family [the Todds of KY] that weren't just slave-owners but the biggest slave-traders in all KY. And one author notes that Lincoln became closer to the Todds [who ironically mainly supported the Confederacy] than to his own family... Plus- Lincoln initially refused to allow Union Generals to free slaves in conquered Confederate territories [even sacking at least one who insisted on doing so]. Yet if you don't emphatically worship 'Ole {dis]Honest Abe' as 'The Great Emancipator'- man do many {white} folks get an attitude.
And Obama acts in many ways like his 'mentor' 'Ole {dis}Honest Abe'- constantly trying to appease & cut deals w Repugs even as they insult & reject him & his offers, delaring from the get-go that their mission is to make his a failed Presidency, etc... - while at the same time Obama stiff-arms &/or ignores his own constituency. Now many in 'Ole Dixie-land' are petitioning for leaving the Fed Gov't under an Obama Admin [Humm- Didn't the US once fight that battle before. I thought that issue was supposedly decided by the Civil War].
But Lincoln had forces that made him do what was NOT inclined to IE: The abolitionist movement [spear-head by Fredrick Douglass, Harriett Tubman, Sojourner Truth, etc]; so-called 'radical' members of Lincoln own Republican party IE: Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, William Fessenden, etc- who didn't hesitate to critique Lincoln's vacillation & call out the Dixie-crats for their 'Rebellion'; -&- facts that were being changed on the ground by the slaves themselves in combo w Union forces whose Generals, for whatever reasons, were freeing & even enlisting slaves. This combo of forces forced Lincoln commit to the prospect of 'Emancipation'. So what movement(s) of the people & 'radically' progressive democrats are challenging & forcing Obama to do that which he should do [or not do], yet is NOT inclined to?
White Folks of Obama's Post-Racial USA_Not All But Far Too Many
I bet some of those whites who sent that hate-her-aide to Sis Kimberly might even consider themselves as 'liberals'.
I've seen too many [though not all], whites spew insensitivity & even out-right hatred toward Mrs Moore [who's Black] RE the recent tragedy of her losing her 2 boys in NYC to Hurricane Sandy, after having the door slammed in her face by a white guy [& others]. One guy even tried to twist her into the Black version of Susan Smith- as others kept asking why she didn't evacuate, while NEVER posing the same question RE those whites that slammed the door in her face- who were in the very same area! Nor did they pose that question RE her white husband, who let his family stay in that area while he went on emergency call duty. IMO Obviously He NEVER thought tragedy would strike his family- thinking it would be safe for them to stay in place!
Then there's the Zimmerman fan-club, which insists on turning Trayvon [the unarmed victim] into a thug that deserved to be gunned-down! And just this month another of FL's John-Q Citizen gun-totin white guys- gunned down another unarmed Black teen at a gas-station - claiming that the Black youth's music was too loud [remember they had both just pulled into a GAS Station Stop]! Of-course this white killer, like Z-man, is going to evoke FL's 'Stand Your Ground' Law for his defense.
Then a lily-white NY state grand-jury let Mr Ken Chamberlain's killer(s) w a badge & a gun- walk 'Scott-Free'. And the beat goes on / the band plays on & on & on... This is what so-called 'Post-Racial' [NOT!] USA is really all about!
PLUS: Most of those whites making wise-cracks about 'If you hate America so much then go back to Africa'- are just blowing a bunch of funky hot-air! Because they are a few of us who'll say BET! Give us our 40 acres & a mule plus interest in financial compensation & we're up outta here! But history shows they ain't serious- Demark Vessey tried to take some of our people out, did they let him do it [IE: cut a deal w him] or did they HANG Him? What about Martin Delany? And Marcus Garvey definitely wanted to take many Blacks back to Africa- so what did Ole Gay Edgar do to him? What about Malcolm X, he also talked about it- What did Ole Gay Edgar do to him? Elijah Muhammed talked about an autonomous territory of 7 states [= the equivalent of 40 Acres plus interest Xs 22 Million Blacks {at that time] for a seperate Black Nation, did they give him even one state, or a county, or even a city??? HELL NO!!! My point- History proves that most whites that say crap like that are Just Wolfing, they ain't serious!
BACK TO ANYWHERE
America will become a post-racial society on the very same day that China ceases to speak Mandarin. Even the dumbest White racists know that White people and White dominated multinational institutions still control the governments and natural resources of Africa, so any Black person fleeing there will still find himself or herself fenced in, and facing White dominion.
If most American Blacks were to suddenly immigrate to Africa or anywhere else after enduring/experiencing 400 years or so Western freedom in the so-called New World, in spite of what Whites and many other non-Black immigrants would say, it would be as damning an indictment of American society, as was the mass exodus of Jews from Europe during the Nazi era. In reality, if America was to suddenly find itself "freed" of its permanent scapegoat class, its Black population, it would rapidly face a major dilemma. Whom would (White) America be able to blame for America's flaws and shortcomings? Whose fault would it be that America's rhetoric continued to fall short of its realities?