Tulsa Postscript

From the Greenwood Art Project: for more information go here or click on the image.

There are plenty of articles around about the Tulsa Massacre, and more than a few are think pieces about the aftermath. The ramifications are vast.

That a major and critical event of unleashed white rage was buried so effectively and for so long, speaks to the results of what happens when history is written - or rather, erased - by the victors. The rippling tides of similar early twentieth century events continue but we are seeing the effects play out in interesting, if not particularly definitive ways. 

The lynchings and the slaughters of the Jim Crow area eventually receded in the face of the growing Civil Rights Movement. That has not stopped Black people from being murdered by law enforcement or the thousands of daily aggressions - micro and macro - from being perpetrated on a daily basis in the form of rigging voter rights legislation to loan approval based on skin color.

At every turn, erasure continues. It could be in the form of a loan officer pleading that “this has nothing to do with skin color, it’s just bank policy” to qualified immunity for police, police who are increasingly militarized and abide by laws of silence not so very dissimilar to the omertà of the Mafia.

What strikes me is that the more and more virulent and/or devious such actions become, the more obvious it is that even the perpetrators know they are in the wrong. They know what they are doing is wrong. And they know that the bill will come due. It may not come soon enough to see justice rendered for the aggrieved in our current moment, but if we can take something away from history, it is that societies rise and fall; empires, in particular, it is worth mentioning, do not last. 

Nothing of consequence to the present can be completely effaced. Sooner or later, traces of injustice make themselves obvious. They itch subtly, at first, on society’s scalp. Sooner or later, someone is going to come digging around, scratching that itch.

Legislatively, one party in the United States is doing its utmost to obstruct equal access to voting out of fear. Fear of losing power, fear of having to surrender their precious status quo based on inequality and frankly, oppression and repression. 

No, it is not happening quickly enough, but it is happening. Legislation can impede progress for years, but it can be overturned. If, as projected, the U.S. demographic becomes more diverse and less caucasoid majority, it will make less and less defendable to deny someone housing or access to healthcare because of ethnicity (it never was, but hopefully, this will grow more obvious over time). Perhaps, just maybe, even, police forces will be realigned to deal only with crimes of intent and away from sending guns in where dialogue matters more. 

In the meantime, we have on our hands, a mess of a society where the right to own (and carry) a gun is more important than loving and caring for others, much less simply recognizing the humanity in everyone. We live in a country where the biggest talkers are the thinnest skinned and somehow have more of a voice than makes sense in the best of circumstances, let alone the worst and we have to deal with their fear of the Other. 

We all know the answers, even the politicians and police who refuse to acknowledge our shared humanity, our shared suffering. We all know that overcoming our fear of one another and working toward nurturing mutual compassion and love is what is needed. But we run from all of this with the nonsense that “it’s far too complicated, it’s far too difficult for that kind of change now”. Nonsense. It starts with each of us. It doesn’t take legislation, it certainly doesn’t require policing. It requires that we simply drop our prejudices and the false sense of superiority (which is - say it again - a sure sign of fear) and for those who claim to some religious foundation, “love one another”. 

The aftershocks of Tulsa continue to ripple and eddy throughout the United States. It’s not just Tulsa, it isn’t just the Red Summer of 1919, it is the very DNA of the idea that other humans are property that still pollutes the historicosocial bloodstream. It is time for a transfusion.