Dimensionally Barrett

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, e...

One hundred years ago today, the community of Greenwood, popularly known as Black Wall Street, was murderously razed to the ground. An economically successful Black area of Tulsa was, for all intents and purposes – because there was intent and purpose behind this massacre – erased. We know how it happened. We know why it happened; although, that it happened it all is a damning indictment of race relations in this country. Why it happened has roots that go back to the founding of this country, in the erroneous, false, and fraudulent belief that humans can own other humans. More specifically, that white people can own Black people. Grammatically, I suppose I should capitalize “white”, but the very concept of doing so would mean to equate the oppressor with the oppressed; and in this historical instance, the murderer with the murdered. That the Tulsa Massacre was paved over and shunted down American history’s memory hole should surprise no one. That the covering up was so successful fo...