I Must Admit

I must admit that February has been a challenging month. Yes, it has been designated Black History Month and as such it has a long and notable history. While it generally is a challenging month, 2019 has been exceptionally difficult.

We live in perilous times. There are so many extremes. We have those who "see no color." We see those who see color in everything, and why not? We have people who want to run from the issue of race. We have amongst us people who are overt racists or covert racists. And we have those who may not be racist but who carry discriminatory attitudes and behaviors. We have those amongst us who will say that we don't have issues like that in our town or in our church or our community.

From the current occupant of the White House with his inflammatory rhetoric and failure to condemn white nationalists to the offensive behavior of the congressman in the Cohen hearing this week who pulled the card of calling in an African American woman as a prop. Yes, he did say inflammatory things about President Obama years ago. We can run but we cannot hide these days.

How shall we do any better if our leaders do not do any better than our people.

The birther issue, Charleston church massacre, and Charlottesville are now deeply embedded parts of our narrative.

On the other hand, I have been stirred and informed and coached up by numerous people, some I know personally and some I know only because of cyberspace, those I've never met. Without giving up any names, you may know who you are. You have posted informative blogs or information on Facebook. Some of your material I have re-posted. Some of you have been able to nail "on this date this happened here," and that drives home the issues.  Some of you have provided information about people, places, events, firsts, and those have been meaningful.

All together, I think I am like many of us in the US.  I am uninformed. I have been uninformed. I will go to my grave uninformed. Certainly, we studied in school the history of the US and we did the same in our college and university classes. However, we missed the Trail of Tears and we missed the Middle Passage, the brutality of enslavement, the utter despicable treatment of people during Reconstruction and Jim Crow, and even today. We are clueless, America, about the devastating effects of poverty and its links to slavery in our cities and rural areas. As we stand now, Black America will not catch up because White America got such a huge head start.

We know the history of white America. White Americans write and tell stories of white America. White America is taught by white American teachers. I am pretty familiar with white American history.

I have been uninformed about the amazing contributions of black citizens in all areas including agriculture, science, chemistry, leadership, literature, economics, art, education, community development, banking, and the number of inventions that we gloss over including something as simple as the golf tee. It takes movies to bring things to the awareness of white America.

My knowledge of Black History has a narrow path. That path is via farming while black under the scrutiny of the United States Department of Agriculture. I have been schooled in this area since 1994 and will likely be schooled in perpetuity. I have heard stories of mistreatment of black farmers and I have heard stories of advantages of white farmers. I have heard stories of families of black farmers and I have heard family stories of white farmers. They are two distinctly different sets of stories.

I feel cheated. I was clueless about the literal presence of Westside High School in Trinity, Texas, just a few blocks from Trinity High School. I was ignorant of the way in which black citizens of my rural town were treated, other than an exception or two.

I was clueless of the role and treatment of black soldiers until my wife interviewed them during her masters work at Abilene Christian University.

I was clueless about so many different things that influence the history and lives of folks I know and those I do not.

That is why on my desk this morning are a wide range of books:  Black Cowboys of Texas, W. E. B. Du Bois, The Collection of Poems by Langston Hughes, Blues from the Delta, God of the Oppressed, Reaping a Greater Harvest, Remembering Tillery's Historical Archives, The Essential Writings of the American Black Church, Show Us How to Do It, White Terror, Free at Last, We Shall Not Be Moved, African American History for Dummies, John Hope Franklin: Mirror to America, The Promised Land, In the Matter of Color, Bullwhip Days, Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule, Divided by Faith, Black Theology and Liberation, Conversations with God, Up From Slavery, Myths America Lives By: White Supremacy and the Stories That Give Us Meaning, and many, many more.

I am uninformed but I shall not remain so. I have been lax in appreciating black America. I will remain so no longer.

Will you join me?

Forgive What?

This poem has a unique context. Yesterday at church, our preacher did a masterful job of speaking on forgiveness and how forgiving others is a mandate and a challenge.  Perhaps some day soon we can engage more around the process of forgiving, what it means, and what it does not mean.  All in all, it was a provocative and meaningful sermon.  While he preached, I wrote my own poem with included the words "you" and then a verb of mistreatment.

Then, I pulled out the journal again and the words that follow came out.  I owe the readers a disclaimer here.  I am not black.  My family members are not African American.  I do not have ancestors who survived the middle passage, slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the challenges of living while black, farming while black, or driving while black.

I have heard the stories again and again.

So it is with some trepidation that I offer the following.

Forgive What?

August 5, 2018

You stole me

            From my land and my people
            Sent me to a foreign land.           

You stuffed me

            Into the slave ships

            Harsh, hot, cold, brutal.

You auctioned me

            To the highest bidder

            Naked, demeaned, fondled.

You separated me

            From my wife, children

            From my children, husband.

You chained me

            And marched me to your plantation

            Placed me in shacks.

You raped me

            To satisfy yourself

            Though I was only an animal to you.

You demeaned me

            And my manhood, took my wife

            Called me nigger and boy.

You used me

            To make a dollar

            For yourself doing something you would not do.

You beat me

            Scalded me

            Salted me

            Chained me.

You reluctantly released me

            You wrote the Black Codes

            You used me in your tenant farm system.

You placed me in prisons

            And separated me from my family once more

            And profited from my labor.

You red-lined me

            Took away my vote and my education

            My dreams for a brighter future.

You segregated me and those I love

            Offered me separate but unequal

            Gave me water to drink from the colored fountain.

You called the cops on my children

            Murdered them beside the road and at the church

            Took my land.

You put bullets through my black body

             Left my mama without a son

             My children without a father.

Me?

Forgive you?

We?

Forgive thee for what?

Are you kidding me?