We Will Remember (Plessy v.) Ferguson, We will Remember Brown (v. Board of Edu)

I don't know why it took me so long to notice the eerie resonance between names of the landmark Supreme Court cases on institutional racism and the watershed event of Mike Brown's execution in Ferguson, Missouri. Last night at a book group of girls and women a teacher handed out some background on the two historic rulings, and seeing the words in print finally jogged my brain into making the connection. 

Plessy v. Ferguson established the odious concept of "separate but equal" public facilities being constitutional in 1896, beginning with a ruling by Judge Ferguson of the Criminal District Court of New Orleans, the Louisiana Supreme Court and SCOTUS following suit. Jim Crow segregation laws, lynching and suppression of voting rights were in full swing. Mr. Plessy had tried to sit in a train car reserved for white privilege and had been arrested.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas overturned the legal basis of segregation in public schools in 1954. The SCOTUS ruled that "separate but equal" in education was a denial of equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Oliver Brown was a father who brought suit on behalf of his daughter, Linda Brown, who had to commute a long way to her segregated school because the local school was reserved for white privilege.

Now for years to come students will learn about the turning point in U.S. race relations that Mike Brown and Ferguson, Missouri have come to represent. Mike Brown was far from the first young man of color to be executed with impunity by a white policeman. Why should that particular wrongful death become the tipping point? 

It could be because his body was left lying in the street, riddled with bullets, in view of his family home. That act of cruelty and disrespect has sparked outrage and various protests to highlight the fact.  

From Buzzfeed:

On Saturday, November 29, 2014, days after the Grand Jury Decision, Knox College Women’s Basketball Player Ariyana Smith bravely held a one woman demonstration at the Knox College v. Fontbonne University game held in Clayton, MO.  During the singing of the national anthem, Ariyana walked with her hands up towards the American flag and fell to the ground for a full 4.5 minutes to bring awareness to the inhumane killing of Michael Brown in which his body was left to lay on a neighborhood street for 4.5 hours.

It could be because the Grand Jury that failed to indict Officer Darren Wilson to stand trial for Brown's death was conducted with such blatant bias and such poor application of due process. It's far from the first time that has happened, either.

Maybe the outrage that just won't stop is a sign of the times. Times in which neoliberals (e.g. presidental wannabe Hillary Clinton, who has said exactly nothing about the travesty of justice in Ferguson) are soundly trounced in midterm elections because liberal voters in vast numbers were too disillusioned to go to the polls.

Times in which white liberals are hopping mad at being called out on their white privilege. "I'm not racist!" they squeal, as if it were the same thing. They organized with black radicals fifty years ago! They're poor, too! Essentially they're angry because electing the first African American president did not deliver the "Get out of racism free card" they believed it did. (Like the reforms of the 60's and 70's were supposed to have ushered in a post-racist America. Uh huh, right.)

Clay Jones at  claytoonz.com

But here's a theory: maybe Mike Brown's emblematic death became a watershed moment in the U.S. precisely because words matter, and they resonate deep in our unconscious where memories, fears and guilt roil.

Now and for the future, we will remember Ferguson and we will remember Brown.

Help get moms of young men of color who have been killed by the police to Washington DC on December 10 to confront lawmakers. Donate to support their trip.

Read their stories here:

Stop Police Officers From Killing Our Children, by Jeralynn Blueford

Stop Giving Police a Green Light to Kill Our Children, by Collette Flanagan

White People Sure Do Get Angry About Racism...Their Own Racism

Photo by Becky Warthell from Portland, Maine the night following the Ferguson grand jury announcement.

It's been eye opening how many angry white people have crawled into view following the Mike Brown grand jury travesty of justice. They seem positively gleeful sharing the character assassination factoids repeated on Fox News and the like. It's getting hard to go anywhere in central Maine where I live without encountering gratuitous hate speech aimed at Brown and his community. How best to respond?

What I feel like saying when people are going on like this is some version of: Did you ever have an 18 year old son and did he ever do stupid stuff like walk down the middle of the street or talk back to cops, and did the police execute him without trial?

But what I actually said in response to racist spew the other day at a hair salon was: A black man is three times more likely to be killed by police than a white man. Three times. That's nationally.*

The spewers were extremely shocked that I, a white woman, spoke up and entered their loud public conversation. Conflict and political discussions are to be avoided at all times in polite society, and I think are viewed as inherently dangerous. I'm pretty sure if the women having the discussion had known that one of their listeners deeply disagreed, they would have not expressed themselves until I had departed.

I warned the woman washing my hair that I was about to say something. She became very nervous, conciliatory, and ratcheted up the inane chatter about any subject she could think of that didn't matter.

No one made any response to what I said, and the racist remarks ceased. In fact, it was downright silent for a good five minutes. Then, conversation turned to the neutral topics of cooking and shopping.

My first impulse was to decide never to go to that salon again. But I challenge myself on that impulse, because insulating myself from people who disagree with me is no way to learn. My impulse to do that is, I think, cowardly.

Since I'm not moving to an urban area anytime soon, there's not much danger of it happening anyway.

But I can feel people pulling away from each other along the divide of white supremacy versus equal rights. This is how civil wars get started. Later, people will report that they had lived with their neighbors in peace for generations, agreeing to disagree, until one day the powers that be wanted a civil war. The propaganda machine went into overdrive pumping out hateful invective at that point, and the mass violence it was designed to incite eventually ensued.

I like to look for patterns, and I believe history matters.

Source: Organizing Notes
Governor Dudley declared in 1704 a "General Thanksgiving" not to celebrate the brotherhood of man but for: [God’s] infinite Goodness to extend His Favors ... In defeating and disappointing ... the Expeditions of the Enemy [Indians] against us, And the good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them into our hands...

Let me give another example. On Facebook this Thanksgiving there were a couple of good articles (here and here) about the true story behind the myth of a chummy dinner between Pilgrims and Native Americans. I shared them on my page as I went about collecting food, cooking, and looking forward gratefully to a warm meal with family and friends.

Apparently these articles offended some Facebook friends. (I define a fb friend as someone who gets my posts in their news feed. It has very little to do with friendship as practiced outside of cyberspace.)

One of them wrote:

Goodness people...let's repurpose Thanksgiving so that it is not associated with any historical event and is merely a day set aside for giving thanks. It's been done around the world for eons...after the harvest is in a feast is held and gratitude is expressed, end of story. It needs no politicizing. It's a traditional day to gather with family and friends to cook and eat and acknowledge that we have so much to be thankful for its almost overwhelming. Giving thanks is nourishment for the soul. It' strengthens family and community. It's necessary for human culture. We do not need to feel guilty about Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving!

Can you tell this person is white? What was your first clue? Here's a comment a younger member of the same family added: "Growing up we might have been white, but we certainly were not privileged."

Wow. Just, wow.

People who claim that politics can be avoided are nearly always from the dominant group in society. It's a luxury they can afford. They are willing to be tone deaf when indigenous people object to celebrating events associated with genocide. They aren't very interested in listening to the truth of people who don't share their experience and/or their point of view.

I never understand how we're going to learn anything if we won't listen to others, especially others with whom we disagree.

So, I'll keep on marching with people like videographers Regis Tremblay
 and the very talented Lauren Kennedy.

I'll keep on listening and reading as much as I can. And I'll be thankful when another friend shares moving words from a woman of color, Lauryn Hill, who revised and covered "These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things" in this song entitled "Black Rage."

Listen, and you just might learn something.



*CORRECTION: I misquoted former ACLU of Maine and senatorial candidate Shenna Bellows. What she actually said at a rally way past my bedtime on Nov. 25 was that a black man is three times more likely to be arrested than a white man. That's nationally. In Portland, Maine the rate is 2.6 times more likely.

The actual data on the rate of black and white deaths by police shooting is not collected nationally. But for comparison here is a decade's worth of data on the NYPD: