Journal Entry - August 13, 2017, (the day after the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia)
I was enjoying a quiet, Sunday morning run. Traffic was almost nonexistent when I noticed a young woman across the street ahead of me. She was standing in a driveway holding a sign that read: “Stop the Hate!”
Suddenly, an older woman ran out of a house, grabbed her sign, and yelled, “Get in there and get ready for church. We have nothing to do with that!” I was immediately reminded of an exchange my mom and I had several years ago…
She was visiting our home in Leesburg, Virginia and we made the short trip to Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia. A National Park Ranger there presented an engaging and informative program about John’s Brown’s 1859 raid. The Ranger explained how it was a pivotal event leading up to the Civil War.
As we walked out of the program, I commented to my mom, “That Ranger was great! He really knows how to breath life into history.”
My mom responded, “That’s not my history, I have nothing to do with it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well,” she answered, “my family didn’t come to this country until after the Civil War and slavery. It has nothing to do with me because we weren’t here.”
“Our family wasn’t here for the War of Independence.” I said, “So does that mean the we have nothing to do with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights? Citizenship isn’t a smorgasbord where we pick and choose only the parts we like and ignore the rest. As American citizens, all of our history – successes and failures - and every current event – positive or negative- has something to do with us.”
My mom paused, then groaned and said, “You are such a smarty pants!”
2020: As I reread that journal entry, I was not surprised at my mom’s thinking. I know many people who think the same way: “... white, American retirees with the normal white American views about slavery: it was a long time ago, you can’t change the past, let’s not talk about it, let’s not think about it, don’t you dare make us feel bad about it.” (1)
Most discussions I have had with my peers about slavery, Jim Crow laws, or Black Lives Matter marches inevitably lead to stories of how hard is was for their immigrant ancestors and include comments like: “they just want handouts”- “civil rights are unfair to white people” – “stop playing the race card” – “Black Lives Matter is too political” – “they just need to forget the past, and get a job” - “it has nothing to do with me.”
So what does this “have to do with” running? Like many white runners, the sense of peace I feel when running reflects my racial privilege. I run when and where I please, I wear whatever clothing I want and no one bothers me. Most people greet me verbally and, if not, they wave and smile.
Contrast my experience with African-American runners’ routines, intended to deflect the sort of suspicions that turned deadly for Ahmaud Arbery:
- steering clear of “white” neighborhoods,
- going out only in daylight,
- wearing an Ivy League T-shirt to broadcast respectability (2)
“Running is still a white privilege. Just being able to walk outside your door and go for a run is a luxury. Being able to run with both of your earbuds in...is a luxury. We encourage all of our runners to be aware of their surroundings and to be able to hear everything around them. Being a black runner in this climate, we are even more on alert.” - Tenia Fisher (3)
I have been running for decades and I have never:
- had someone call the police on me because I was running – simply running!
- had a police officer stop me during a run to question me about why I am running
- been passed by the same police car three times in three miles
- been followed by a police car during my run (4)
The American Civil Liberties Union has since taken on cases like these, instances of what many runners across the country have become familiar with as “running while black.” (5)
Running is a normal, everyday activity. But before a black runner has even taken one step he is labeled “suspicious” and marginalized. Imagine what the rest of his day – his life – is like! When a black runner heads out for a run, he is not asking for a “handout,” and he is not " playing the race card.” He is simply running, just like me.
“Running while black” is just a snippet of the wider discrimination that still exists because we insist our country’s history of racial discrimination “has nothing to do with us.”
I wonder how our history might have been different had “we the people” identified personally with the plight of slaves and acknowledged their inhumane treatment.
What would have happened if “we the people” had spoken up when freed slaves - American citizens - were denied jobs, restricted to red-lined neighborhoods, sent to sub-standard schools, required to pay to vote and were brutally lynched?
We may not have made our history but it made us. And, unfortunately, our country at large is still deeply wounded and deformed by slavery and racial discrimination, and no healing or progress will occur unless this vital truth is recognized.
So what might our future be if “we the people” acknowledge our history of racism and understand its ongoing impacts – like “running while black”?
We remember and reflect on the past for a reason, for a purpose. We want to ensure that what happened and is happening to the victims of racial discrimination doesn’t happen to anyone else in the future. Treating one another with humanity and respect and "has everything to do with us.”
That young woman protesting in her driveway 3 years ago was not silent. Very few people saw her on that Sunday morning – but I did! She was bold enough to speak up where she was. I hope she is still speaking up wherever she is now.
And, contrary to what my mom said, I was not then nor am I now a “smarty pants.” I am merely a human being, speaking up where I am - still trying to break my silence by:
- acknowledging that racial discrimination exists
- striving to treat people the way I want to be treated
- listening to people’s experiences and not dismissing or ignoring them
- taking time to read and research
- and admitting that our shared history – our humanity -“has everything to do with me.”
BOOKS:
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Heavily researched and well written -either you will love or hate this book but, either way, hopefully it will get you thinking! If you only want to read one book, read this-but be prepared for a desire to learn more!
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
Explains how a lot of the racial segregation taking place in our neighborhoods actually happened as the result of very specific and very racist policy choices, going back at least to the F.D.R. Administration
Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil by Susan Neiman
The book begins with this sentence, ‘I began life as a white girl in the segregated South, and I’m likely to end it as a Jewish woman in Berlin.’ After a life time of experience and five years of research, the author invites us to think more deeply about who suffered the real harms, then and now, and what practical steps we can take to begin working off the past and addressing the unanswered questions of justice.
Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America by Cameron McWhirter
After World War I, black soldiers believed their participation in the fight to make the world safe for democracy finally earned them rights they had been promised since the close of the Civil War. Instead, an unprecedented wave of anti-black riots and lynchings swept the country for eight months - across the South into the North and the Midwest, even to the nation's capital. This book explores the first stirrings of the civil rights movement that would transform American society forty years later.
White too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity by Robert P. Jones
Combines painstaking data analysis, history, theology, sociology and memoir into a rigorous look at the ways white supremacists have regularly distorted and manipulated a faith dedicated to love and justice to rationalize racism. It challenges people of faith to chart a new path forward.
End notes:
1. Grant, Richard. The Deepest South of All: True Stories from
Natchez, Mississippi. Simon & Schuster, 2020.
