Brrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinng!
The above word is the first line of Richard Wright’s novel, Native Son. The famed Chicago Renaissance writer intended for the ringing alarm clock to serve the purpose that all alarm clocks serve, to wake this nation up. From Wright’s perspective, America needed to be awaken to its Race problem.
Although significant by itself, Wright’s Native Son is only one of a series of bridges that highlight America’s great tradition of racial bigotry. The resistance of David Walker’s Appeal, Frederick Douglass’ admonishments during a Fourth of July presentation, Anna Julia Cooper’s lamentations from the South, W.E.B. DuBois’ prophetic warning that “the problem of the 20th Century will be the color line” and a series of deaths all serve as reminders of America’s horrific history of racial animosity. The alluded to bridges have led us to the murder of George Floyd by so-called law enforcement officers who were deemed fit for employment by the Minneapolis Police Department.
Americans are no different from other groups in their desire to embrace traditions that portray them in a favorable light and distance themselves from grander traditions that depict them in a negative, yet accurate light. An unbiased review of the American historical record reveals White America as a collective of greedy, avaricious, ends-justify-the-means, racial bigots who have little problem turning a blind-eye toward genocide if it serves a larger purpose.
This consistent inconsistency is nothing new.
There is no greater depiction of America’s character than the following litany offered by Frederick Douglass nearly two-hundred years ago. Douglass characterized this nation in the following manner.
There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the every day practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Department officers in front of an attentive public is yet another reminder that Douglass’ words still ring true.
The optimistic side of me hopes that Douglass’ words will activate White America to take a serious look at its soul. A soul that has been formed in the midst of centuries of unconscionable acts of hatred, racial bigotry, and tyrannical rule.
Let me be clear on this matter, the genesis of America’s Race problem began with White America and the solution to it will come from that community as well. There are only two reasonable paths that Whites can take to achieve the above goal. They can either aid in the total destruction of Black America or turn inward with the full intention of executing a intra-racial Civil War designed to exterminate unsavory portions of their community. A process that would call for them to address the bigotry of close family members, political leaders, and associates. It is obvious that there is no way that White bigots and Blacks are going to ever peacefully coexist within the same country.
I resist with every fiber of my being the white rage that leads so many of my Black countrymen to view Whites’ as a monolithic population whose foremost priority is the extermination of Blacks. My personal experience prevents me from embracing this daunting perspective. Yet, I am firmly entrenched in the belief that the only population capable of stomping out America’s grand tradition of racial bigotry and hatred is White America. Put simply; it is time that White America regulated its own citizens as there are segments of White America that are impenetrable to outsiders.
I am certain that it is within these socialization centers where the most virulent racial bigots are created by a daunting narrative that masquerades the evil-doings of White heroes and heroines for the extension of White privilege. This can only be eradicated by our White countrymen. The failure of White America to get its house in order makes the public lynching of Black men such as George Floyd an inevitability.
The ability to end racial bigotry and the cascade of ills that flow from it is found within a White America whose power and privilege rests on its existence. Trust me when I say that the alluded to conundrum is not new. It is the same issue that faced abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown. I hope that White America will realize it and get busy cleaning their own house; however, I have little hope that they will.
After all, racial tyranny is one of their grandest traditions and its destruction will come at a steep cost that I am unsure that they are willing to pay for the sake of freedom, liberty, and justice.
Dr. James Thomas Jones III
© Manhood, Race, and Culture 2020.