“If you knew your history, Then you would know where I'm coming from, And you wouldn't have to ask me, who the H... do I think I am.” Robert Nesta Marley in Buffalo Soldier

The turn of the century, the one before the one we just had, is referred to by historians as the “nadir” of Black history. To the rest of us that means it was the worst period for Black people since the end of slavery. This was the period where White people mailed post cards picturing women and children grinning beneath Southern tree's strange fruit. This was the period in time when Black Americans were generations deep in being American but still generations from being legally allowed to be American. Think for a minute how that would feel. In 1900 the principal of Jacksonville Florida's largest public school wrote a poem. The school was the largest because it was for Black kids, Florida had a lot of those, but Florida did not have a lot of schools for “them”. The poem was to commemorate Abraham Lincoln's birthday and a visit to the school by Booker T. Washington. A few years later the poem became a song, and the song soon became an anthem. People over time sang it in churches, on busses, while marching, and in prisons. The song has words of hope, of liberty, of God, and patriotism. Patriotism. A Black song in 1900; patriotic. In or around 1812, America was attacked. From the vantage point of a ship in the harbor, a poet wrote a poem that then became a song, and later an anthem. At that time Black people were 3/5ths a person and 100% percent property. As American's first put hand over heart and sang of bright stars and broad stripes, they did not intend that the song would be for Black people, because “those” weren't Americans. It took more than one hundred years to change that. During those hundred years there was that other song. During those hundred years there were nooses, blowtorches, marches, murders, legislation, military occupation, sit-ins, speeches, there were tears and there was music. “God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who has brought us thus far on the way, Thou who hast by thy might, led us into the light, Keep us forever on the path, we pray,” were the principals words way back then. Later they were also the words that opened the prayer that followed a Black man raising his hand to be the leader of all Americans. Times change. Times change but human nature does not. Neither does history. These truths, together, next to each other, make up what, and who, we collectively are. Who makes up this “we” is important. Are we a “we” yet? When the White we learns that there is a Black national anthem, how do we react? When the Black we realizes the younger half doesn't know the song, how do we react? When we realize “we” aren't, do we react at all?

Tuskegee Airmen

An oft ignored or unknown aspect of post emancipation America is the systematic crushing of black dreams. Those of my generation have always known, or been taught, of the first black this, or first black that. The initial astronaut, millionaire, Oscar winner, or president, have been praised. They have been praised to such an extent that the significance and relevance of such achievements have been lost, rendering the names trivial. Those cynical, young, or simply white, oft find it difficult to not drift towards the all encompassing, “so what.”

I turned off my prescribed path to follow a sign announcing a Tuskegee Airmen Memorial. I was nowhere near Alabama, North Africa, or even a military base. I was intrigued. I found myself at an isolated South Carolina field that had at one time, just a short time, served as an airstrip servicing the squadron of black airmen while in training. There was a small statue under a tree, a couple of plaques explaining some history, and an old searchlight.
The plaques explained that in an effort to squelch the new squadron, officials required all applicants to have a college degree and flight experience. Those same officials were astounded at the number of men who qualified. To that surprise is where my thoughts wandered.

We have been taught, indoctrinated, with the ideal of the American dream. We have been raised with the expectation that in America if you work hard, if you try, you will achieve. I was told by my teachers, my parents, my politics, by my very culture, that I must learn, work, and try. If I did, my goals would be realized. All these African-American firsts helped to prove this. A memorial to the Airmen helped me realize otherwise.

Those surprised officials believed the dream. These Americans had misjudged their culture’s ability to elevate the able. They saw the lack of black doctors, professors, lawyers, and black professionals as proof that black people lacked qualifications. In the land of meritocracy it was assumed that the disparity in achievement was a direct result of who had, or did not have, merit. They were proved wrong. How did they get it so wrong?

Slaves were not allowed to read or write, yet there was still a Frederick Douglass. After Emancipation schools were opened and quickly flooded with students. Most of our books or lessons plot this point on the timeline and chart a vertical trajectory in dramatic fashion. The subsequent glossing over of all that transpired between then and the civil rights movement has left us blind to things we still don’t want to see. All those firsts were not the first qualified, they were the first allowed.

For every one who achieved there were many who had previously learned and worked hard only to be thwarted. They were not held back by inadequacy but by America. W.E.B. Dubois, the first black man to graduate with a PhD from Harvard, a man now considered one of the United States greatest sociologists, was commissioned by the University of Pennsylvania to do research and teach their students, but was denied a seat as professor. He could teach the students, but not be recognized as a teacher. Fisk, Howard, Morehouse, and even Harvard and Yale, produced black graduates long before the greater society produced black professionals. It seems the speed of work, education, and legislation, were outpaced by locked doors, hard heads, and burnt crosses.

America is the land of dreams, the land of opportunity? Yes, but it is, and has also been, a land littered with the remnants of crushed dreams and dashed aspirations. Our country has created for itself a dual past and a checkered present. Some were elevated and rewarded, others filled full of hope only to have it pushed back into the ground from which it sprung. Things were not fair. Things were never meant to be completely fair. That is true no matter one's race just as it is true that any man or woman stands a better chance of progress in America than any other land. We can hold our heads high but should never do so with eyes closed. If America is to pride herself in all the firsts she helped create, she must also admit that she is the one who stopped many other firsts from happening.

But the firsts have come. As I looked at the bronze bust of a brown pilot looking up at the sky, I smiled cynically. I smiled because it made perfect sense why these pilots showed no fear of German planes. It was obvious why they proved so adept at avoiding enemy flak. These were men who had a lifetime of having their dreams being shot down. They had previously been trained under ‘friendly fire.’ That is the real triumph of these airmen. I cannot, nor do I know anyone who can, tell me the name of any of these heroes. I can find no real record of any of them later reaching some notable milestone. They weren’t remarkable for any one event or battle. What made them special is that they existed and despite the anti-aircraft fire from home, they still had wings and flew.

Black People Are More Racist; Part 1 of Many

My wife and I were once asked to describe ourselves in five words or less. Mine went something like Mormon, husband, artist, blah, blah, blah, hers went black, woman, something, something, something.
If this would have been a few years earlier her answer would have worried me. It may have even upset me.

Race was not just on her list but at the top. Race? Black? Really? I had not even thought to list my color. In my own mind color had absolutely nothing to do with who I was as a person. Race shouldn't’t even matter right? Listing that as the top thing on your list is a problem right? Was it wrong?

I should back up a bit.

Growing up I felt I had absolutely no culture. I looked at my Hawaiian friend with envy as his family performed traditional dances and sang songs in another language. I spent considerable time with a group of American Indian dancers and always secretly, or not so secretly, wished I would one day be adopted into one of their tribes. My family name is Scottish and with little to no real knowledge of the foggy isle, I developed an appreciation for bagpipes that I maintain to the present day. I loved and appreciated everyone’s culture mostly because I felt I didn’t have one of my own.

Then I left Utah.

I went to a place where I looked like everyone else, but I was nothing like them. We spoke the same language but the accent was new. The people were every bit as religious as I, we even worshiped using the same words, but the meanings were no where near the same. I knew songs these new people did not. I even celebrated a holiday in July they knew nothing about. I discovered something. I discovered I had a culture all along, I simply did not recognize it when I was in that culture’s cradle. I hadn’t recognized my culture because it helped me blend in with everyone else rather than making me stand out.

As I spent more time outside my native place I became more comfortable. I learned my way and place with new groups, still I found myself more comfortable more quickly, with those who came from the same place I did. I found I could relate quicker to those who went snowboarding not out of some X Games adrenaline quest, but simply because it was what we always did. It was what everyone did. I am very in tune with my own mortality, so much so that while I snowboard, I avoid the half pipe at all costs. Those who only know of snowboarding from the movies or ESPN2 have trouble understanding this, or even believing it. I related to people who went camping for fun, because it was what we all did for fun. I was, and still am to some point, comfortable around others with this shared culture because they are more likely to understand little things about me. They are more likely to get past what I am to understand who I am.

At work I quickly became “the Mormon guy”, and rarely became anything more than that. I paint, read, write, travel, love to talk politics, love football, and love movies, but if my work associates ever tried to talk with me one on one, they never got much past “so you don’t drink at all? How many wives do you really have?”

Sometimes my culture brings me in direct conflict with the culture I live in. I will not eat at Hooters, I will not go to your bachelor party if it includes certain activities or locations, and sports or parties are not part of my Sunday. I find most people are respectful of who I am and what I believe, but they don’t understand it.

I have a deep and all encompassing culture and all throughout my youth I didn’t know it. I never saw it because it blended with everyone else. No one had to point out my culture because it was theirs as well.

That’s why it did not, nor does it upset me, that my wife wrote black on her list.

We white people don’t think our whiteness is part of who we are.

It is.

We don’t see it because largely, every one else we see is white too. Try going somewhere whites don’t go. A club, a neighborhood, an island, or even continent and see how long your whiteness remains a non-factor. It’s O.K., its part of who you are. Do it your whole life and see if it doesn’t begin to shape you.
See if you don’t begin to feel comfortable with those who also relate to being white when no one else is. See if you don’t enjoy the comfort of being with those who don’t need you to explain yourself. See if your color makes it’s way onto your list.

I know this now. Because I know this I am not upset or offended, nor am I afraid of or alienated by, a black person declaring they are black. I do not mind black kids sitting together at lunch, or mind that there is a channel or a caucus where race matters. I do not mind it and it is not inherently racist.

It’s O.K. To some point, I get it.