Never Been Beat by Artist Joe Don Brave, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.
The Arrow Rock State Historic Site's Visitor Center is very, very attractive. It is a space easy to miss, abutting the village, but tucked behind trees and a boardwalk. There's an expansive parking lot accessible from the rural highway that serves both the village and the state park.
Joe Don Brave exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.
Given the diminutive size of Arrow Rock and its rural setting, it surprised and pleased me to see the permanent exhibit called Slavery, Racism, Violence: Justice and the Constitution -- the African-American experience in the Boone's Lick from Emancipation (1865) to the beginning of the Civil Rights Era.
History exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.
For healing to occur in our society, it is imperative for us to look at our shared history, to gaze on it, to see it and to see the women, men, and children - our ancestors - who lived it.
History exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.
The exhibit impressed me with its straightforwardness in presenting facts and the effect of slavery and post-slavery times on residents, both black and white.
History exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.
History exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.
History exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.
History exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.
The visitor center featured a beautifully-lit room of art work by Joe Don Brave, an artist of Osage and Cherokee heritage.
Children, sculpted by Woodrow Nash, Slavery Museum, Whitney Plantation, Louisiana. March 2015.
It's taken me a long time to write about my visit to the United States' very first slavery museum. Maybe because it generated polarized responses in me: Deep satisfaction in its creation. Disappointment in some of its execution.
Children, sculpted by Woodrow Nash, Slavery Museum, Whitney Plantation, Louisiana. March 2015.
I visited the museum in March 2015 with a German doctoral student in linguistics who studies the black French Creole language in South Louisiana. We shared an airbnb house at the start of my second year here, before I found my apartment in Opelousas.
Children, sculpted by Woodrow Nash, Slavery Museum, Whitney Plantation, Louisiana. March 2015.
Some memories remain vivid a year later.
Children, sculpted by Woodrow Nash, Slavery Museum, Whitney Plantation, Louisiana. March 2015.
The sculptures of the children in the church.
These children.
They are witnesses to a world that is alongside theirs, but which has different rules. These children, of an age when they know things are different for them than for others, but whose child-minds and spirits still have that buoyancy of belief in fanciful futures.
These sculpted children observe us, the historical tourists, as we enter the church and sit in its pews and walk slowly around their figures, looking at them in their stillness. Do you see me? Each asks. Do you see me?
Children, sculpted by Woodrow Nash, Slavery Museum, Whitney Plantation, Louisiana. March 2015.
Names. The museum includes the names of men, women, and children who were enslaved. A seeing. A recognition of each person's humanity, a life lived, not just a dot in the universe labeled "slave."
Children, sculpted by Woodrow Nash, Slavery Museum, Whitney Plantation, Louisiana. March 2015.
The girl with the pretty teeth. The docent who led our group walked us through panels of names and story excerpts, asking each of us to note any that felt particularly meaningful for us. Later, she shared the story that meant the most to her, which was this, which I imperfectly relate to the best of my memory: There was a young girl, maybe 11 or 12 years old, enslaved, known for the prettiness of her teeth. And maybe she was very proud of the prettiness of her teeth. Well, the man who owned this little girl didn't care for the attention the prettiness drew. Or maybe the pride she took in their prettiness. One midday, he took the little girl into one of his outbuildings, one with the blacksmithing tools. Using an appliance, he removed one of the little girl's teeth. The next day, he did the same. The next day, the same. Every day, he removed one of her teeth.
Can you imagine? The pain of the act itself, during and after. Perhaps more stupefying, though, the anticipation of what was to come the next day. Then in the following morning. In an hour. In fifteen minutes. In one minute. Or to be the girl's parents, undergoing the same torture, albeit once removed, and being powerless to prevent it.
I regret that I didn't take the time to hunt down that story on the wall while I was there so I could be sure I heard it correctly and that I could share it here in the girl's own words. I've not been able to track it down since so I don't know how accurate my narrative is.
But I think about that girl and her fear. And I think about the capacity of cruelty that lives within all of us.
Children, sculpted by Woodrow Nash, Slavery Museum, Whitney Plantation, Louisiana. March 2015.
The Anti-Yoke Baptist Church. Later morphed into Antioch. This church at the Slavery Museum is not original to this site. It was built here and more recently moved to the Whitney Plantation, the site of the Slavery Museum.
When the museum docent explained that the original name of this church was "Anti-Yoke" as in contra the yoke that oxen wear as they work in the fields at the direction of a driver, I felt this inner exhalation of admiration for the men and women who were so bold as to give their church this in-your-face, self-determinate name.
Children, sculpted by Woodrow Nash, Slavery Museum, Whitney Plantation, Louisiana. March 2015.
There were things about the museum that underwhelmed me:
It costs a lot of money to get into - $22! For that, I expected to see all of the exhibits and not be kept from entering some of them because they weren't ready yet. This was annoying, especially because in a couple of cases (e.g. entering a cabin), there appeared to be no good reason to keep us out.
Overall, I felt the slavery experience was somewhat sanitized. This may change in the future with additional exhibits. I hardly think Auschwitz and Buchenwald are sanitized.
Our docent was an engaging leader and I appreciated the information she had to share, but there seemed to be gaps in her knowledge that I would have expected the museum to have covered in their staff training.
Children, sculpted by Woodrow Nash, Slavery Museum, Whitney Plantation, Louisiana. March 2015.
As a society, we have refused to set aside discomfort so we can really see American slavery and the following generations of systemic racism and centuries-old memes that keep all of us mired in a dysfunctional family quicksand. One way we avoid seeing is to don the "yes, but" mask.
Common "yes, buts":
Yes, slavery was bad, but Africans kept slaves themselves, so ....
Yes, slavery was bad, but Africans sold other Africans to the Europeans, so .....
Yes, slavery was bad, but some African-Americans owned slaves in the South, so ....
Yes, slavery was bad, but the Irish were virtual slaves when they came to the US, so ....
Yes, slavery was bad, but look what we did to the Native Americans! If anything, that was worse!
Yes, slavery was bad, but there is slavery today, so why aren't we talking about that instead of what happened in the past ....
Yes, slavery was bad, but those were different times then ...
Yes, slavery was bad, but it would have disappeared eventually, without the Civil War ...
Yes, slavery was bad, but most slave-owners only had a few slaves ....
Yes, slavery was bad, but some slave-owners treated their slaves very well ....
Yes, slavery was bad, but at least they had food and shelter and clothing given to them ...
Some folks think the "yes, buts" are relevant. They aren't.
Systemic mass traumas visited upon a group of people stand alone.
You don't compare them with each other.
You don't diminish a group's experience so you can protect yourself from discomfort.
You don't sneer at a group of people for wanting full acknowledgement of the experience.
"Yes, buts" shut people down.
We don't hear "yes, but's" with these events:
The Holocaust. We even capitalize the historic event to acknowledge the immensity of its horror. We don't say "yes, but," we say "never again!" We honor the wisdom and insights of those who survived, those who made a poignant mark on others before they died, those who saved Jews and other targets from being transported to the concentration camps. There are those who tirelessly sought individuals who perpetrated crimes against humanity during the Holocaust, and we applaud them for it.
Native American genocide (and later, cultural oppression) campaigns. We don't say "yes, but," we acknowledge fully the intrinsic wrongness of this ugly history. We lionize the courage and acumen of famous warriors and chieftains. We aspire to Indians' traditional respect for the earth and its inhabitants. We adopt some spiritual Native American traditions and we credit Indians with having created these traditions. (But see note below.)
Japanese concentration camps. Actually, we are virtually silent about this, which is one way to blindfold ourselves about what we did to a group of people during World War II. However, we don't say "yes, but."
And let's consider the "yes, buts" from another angle
You have a partner, a parent, or a boss who's an abuser. Each time you get zapped, you do get an acknowledgement, but ....
Yes, I did that, but you just make me so mad!
Yes, I did that, but couldn't you see I was in a bad mood?
Yes, I did that, but I was drinking, and you know how I get when I'm drinking.
Yes, I did that, but I'm under a lot of pressure and you're not helping.
Yes, I did that, but you were asking for it.
Yes, I did that, but if you'd do it right the first time, I wouldn't have to ..
Yes, I did that, but if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Yes, I did that, but you just can't seem to get it right.
Yes, I did that, but it seems the only way I can get through your thick head.
These are classic manipulative ploys used by abusers, designed to place blame on the target of the abuse, to intimidate, and silence the target.
How do we take off the mask so we can look at our history and start to move on?
We need to stop making and tolerating from others the "yes, but" statements, for one. Trying to debate any "yes, but" comparison is a waste of time because each is irrelevant. Every historic trauma stands on its own.
... everything I think I
know about individuals, groups, and processes tell me that before we
get over it, we must stop our defensive attitudes for a minute and:
Acknowledge - without any qualifiers - the grotesque enormity of American slavery and its aftermath;
Express our sorrow and regret for the experience;
Listen to what the other has to say, without interrupting - and without feeling the need to agree, only to understand; and
Think and act in new ways to eliminate discrimination in our midst,
making it very uncomfortable for Americans to express their prejudices
in speech and actions.
In the 12-step world, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, this is called "clearing the wreckage of our past."
It is not good enough to just say sorry - we also have to stop doing
what was done in the past, and do things differently in the future.
Catholics have the sacrament of confession, whereby one can confess
one's sins to another human being, perform an act of penance, and
ultimately receive forgiveness.
In my experience as a mediator, in cases where an injustice was done,
the power of a sincere apology is huge, as is the willingness to attempt
to make things right. An apology does not require groveling or
humiliation. It does require humility, sincerity, and accountability. It
is the authentic expression of regret that another person experienced a
wrong, without any "ifs" or "buts."
How many families suffer decades-long estrangement because one or more
family members refuse to acknowledge a wrong? They don't "get over it." We all know this dynamic, but seem unable to apply this knowledge in a societal context.
How many families keep certain things secret from the larger community?
We don't like to "air our dirty laundry." It is our nature as humans,
perhaps, to want to cover over bad things, whether it's domestic
violence, incest, addictions, infidelities, or shady family businesses.
The victims within the family are pulled into the little society of
secrets and shame, as well.
How many family and larger cultures of those who were victimized quash
bad experiences so as to avoid renewed pain and suffering for younger
generations? The younger generations never know why their parents and
grandparents think and act the way they do. It is common for victims of
trauma to feel shame, and that shame can reverberate through
generations. If all of our children don't learn how slavery and its
aftermath permeated every single aspect of some people's daily lives,
from the very tiniest acts of casual contempt to the most egregious acts
of violence, it is easy to fall into shame when one's antecedents,
living and dead, were the subjects of racism that has been so internalized in our society that it is like the air we breathe.
We know, in theory, how important it is to shine a light on the
trespasses we commit in our personal lives. If we really do want to "get
over" our shared heritage of American slavery and its aftermath, then
we need to bring our dark history into the fullness of light and look at
it unblinkingly.
Below is a song by Rhiannon Giddens (one of my favorite artists), called Julie:
*Note about the Native Americans. Our admiration of Indians does not translate into policies and actions that reflect social and economic justice. In other words, we tend to love Indians in the abstract, and not so much in the real.
Slavery Museum, Whitney Plantation, Louisiana. March 2015.
The peculiar institution
Before the Civil War, the South used the phrase "our peculiar institution" to refer to the system of slavery in the southern United States.
Slavery Museum, Whitney Plantation, Louisiana. March 2015.
The peculiar blindness
Ever since then, we in the United States have practiced fervently "our peculiar blindness" about our shame of slavery, apartheid (racial segregation enforced by law), and other past and ongoing, institutional racist practices.
I call it blindness because even though we agree that, yes, slavery and Jim Crow and other injustices occurred, and those were bad things, it was largely in the past and we all just need to move on, and let's not keep talking about it.
Here's what the peculiar blindness looks like to me:
1. Celebration of the high society and culture of the antebellum South by way of plantation tours and dress-up events, with only a nod to the human misery necessary to support that society.
2. In town squares, visitors' centers, local museums - historical recognition of the achievements, hardships, and tragedies of the white population, while virtually ignoring heroic acts for freedom and justice by people of color, massacres and atrocities visited upon people of color, sites of conscience where, for example, men, women, and children were bought and sold; or landmark legal decisions, such as the Emancipation Proclamation.
3. Proud acclaim for populist heroes such as the pirate Jean LaFitte and Jim Bowie, without mentioning they smuggled African men, women, and children into the US to be sold as slaves after this had been outlawed (even in the South).
4. In the South, a spectacular disregard for its African-American residents by the relentless idolatry and never-ending mourning of the so-called glories of the Confederacy.
5.White folks who seem able to have "friendships" with individual people of color but who are blind to the ugliness of the assumptions and ignorance they express publicly about African-Americans as a group.
6. Memorials or museums related to the African-American experience that are, for the most part, compartmentalized as historical side bars. Arguably, this might be understood in northern states with a small African-American population, but it's difficult to justify in states where slavery was the law and where a high percentage of African-Americans are residents.
Missouri state capitol. History museum.
In Louisiana:
It wasn't until I'd been in Louisiana for a small while that the idea of our peculiar blindness really came home to me. It may have been when I watched the documentary, The Cajun Way: Echoes of Acadia, at the Acadian Cultural Center in Lafayette, which is one of the six Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve sites in Louisiana.
It's a good movie and the cultural center is nice - worth a visit, for sure.
But as I watched the documentary - a well-told story of the Acadian people being forcibly removed from their homes in Canada, families separated, having to resettle in a land, climate, and culture foreign to them - the absence of a similar chronicle of note in the cultural center, describing Louisiana's settlement by African ancestors, became visible to me. In the exhibit area, there is some reference to the experience in Louisiana by people with African roots, but not much.
The town square in Opelousas has a handsome monument to the Confederacy, but no mention of other historic events of note in the town or St. Landry parish, such as the Opelousas Massacre or the Emancipation Proclamation.
Not far to the north, the visitor center in the village of Washington waxes poetic about what makes a Cajun man, and notes some important historic dates to the white population within, but silence again on the Opelousas Massacre, although it was an incident in a Washington school that lit the fatal spark to the killing that followed. Also in Washington is the national historic landmark, the Steamboat Warehouse, now a restaurant, but in the past, a location where I am told that men, women, and children were bought and sold. This is a perfect opportunity to own that part of our dark history, and make the landmark a site of conscience, but there is silence on this.
In the Missouri State Capitol there is a history museum.
Missouri state capitol. History museum.
It wasn't until I'd been in Louisiana for awhile that I looked at how we documented our dark history in other places. My home state of Missouri, for example. A bit of the capitol's history museum looks at slavery. But, jeez, it does so in a discounting and distancing way, to wit:
"Missouri slaves had opportunities to learn more skills than typical slaves in the deep South."
"Since they could not farm in the winter, many worked part time as carpenters, hatters, cabinet makers, tailors, shoemakers, and blacksmiths. They earned money for their owners and for themselves."
Missouri state capitol. History museum.
"The lives of Missouri slaves differed from those in the deep South. ... Some were encouraged to learn skills other than farming. ... "
"Missouri slave owners disciplined their slaves with the threat of being sold down South."
"Most Missouri slaves worked on small farms, where master and slave often worked side by side. The average Missouri slaveholder owned no more than four slaves."
It all sounds so ... not so bad. It sounds protective of Missouri's image at the expense of Missouri's African-American residents, past and present. And this is the officialstory of slavery for the state of Missouri.
Bringing sight to a dark history
When I returned to Louisiana for my second year, I stayed at an airbnb while I looked for an apartment. One of my temporary roommates was a German linguist. She expressed dismay at how we Americans hide from our dark history.
She said that in Germany, it is required for all students, throughout their school years, to learn about the Nazi era. Every community that has a population that exceeds a certain number must have a monument that acknowledges the Holocaust. Every student, at least once in his schooling, visits a concentration camp. There are lesson plans devoted to the history, the sociology, the psychology of how the Nazis came to power, what happened, and what will keep such a thing from recurring.
But in the US, there is ... not much about American slavery and its aftermath.
Indeed, contingents of us like to say, "Get over it! That was the past! Stop stirring up trouble!"
It would be so much more comfortable to "get over it," wouldn't it? But everything I think I know about individuals, groups, and processes tell me that before we get over it, we must stop our defensive attitudes for a minute and:
Acknowledge - without any qualifiers - the grotesque enormity of American slavery and its aftermath;
Express our sorrow and regret for the experience;
Listen to what the other has to say, without interrupting - and without feeling the need to agree, only to understand; and
Think and act in new ways to eliminate discrimination in our midst, making it very uncomfortable for Americans to express their prejudices in speech and actions.
In the 12-step world, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, this is called "clearing the wreckage of our past." It is not good enough to just say sorry - we also have to stop doing what was done in the past, and do things differently in the future.
Catholics have the sacrament of confession, whereby one can confess one's sins to another human being, perform an act of penance, and ultimately receive forgiveness.
In my experience as a mediator, in cases where an injustice was done, the power of a sincere apology is huge, as is the willingness to attempt to make things right. An apology does not require groveling or humiliation. It does require humility, sincerity, and accountability. It is the authentic expression of regret that another person experienced a wrong, without any "ifs" or "buts."
How many families suffer decades-long estrangement because one or more family members refuse to acknowledge a wrong? They don't "get over it." We all know this dynamic, but seem unable to apply this knowledge in a societal context.
How many families keep certain things secret from the larger community? We don't like to "air our dirty laundry." It is our nature as humans, perhaps, to want to cover over bad things, whether it's domestic violence, incest, addictions, infidelities, or shady family businesses. The victims within the family are pulled into the little society of secrets and shame, as well.
How many family and larger cultures of those who were victimized quash bad experiences so as to avoid renewed pain and suffering for younger generations? The younger generations never know why their parents and grandparents think and act the way they do. It is common for victims of trauma to feel shame, and that shame can reverberate through generations. If all of our children don't learn how slavery and its aftermath permeated every single aspect of some people's daily lives, from the very tiniest acts of casual contempt to the most egregious acts of violence, it is easy to fall into shame as one whose antecedents, living and dead, were victims.
We know, in theory, how important it is to shine a light on the trespasses we commit in our personal lives. If we really do want to "get over" our shared heritage of American slavery and its aftermath, then we need to bring our dark history into the fullness of light and look at it unblinkingly.
Washington, Louisiana, is the third oldest settlement in Louisiana. From the late 1700s, the African-American population, best I can tell, has always been at least 50%.
So when I visited the Washington visitor center, I was struck by the above historic dates because of the dates that weren't on the list.
Nothing about 1863 (Emancipation Proclamation) or 1865 (13th Amendment), when half the souls in the town were no longer considered property of the other half.
Sure, I get that the dates on the history time line are very local. But when you're an inventory item on one day and a free person the next, that's local.
It's very curious to me how Louisiana presents its history.
