This is gonna toss a spanner in the US discussion of race...

I made comments in previous posts such as; 

"US Black history should have a basis in African Cultures such as the Mali Empire and the Kingdom of Benin (not the modern country)."

And something along the lines of my wanting to be Kosovar to feel European, which sort of relates to the meat of today's post.

Meet the Bozo people!

Yes, there is an African ethnic group called the Bozos. They are part of the larger Mande ethnic group located predominantly along the Niger River in Mali.

And Mali has a long tradition of slavery:

The slave trade in Mali has a long history, with slavery existing since before the Mali Empire and continuing through the Trans-Saharan slave trade. Today, an estimated 200,000 people in Mali are still held in forms of servitude, often linked to descent-based slavery practices that persist in various forms. Slavery in Mali exists today, with as many as 200,000 people held in direct servitude to a master. Since 2006, a movement called Temedt has been active in Mali struggling against the persistence of slavery and the discrimination associated with ex-slaves. There were reports that in the Tuareg Rebellion of 2012, ex-slaves were recaptured by their former masters. Moreover, the phenomenon of descent-based slavery still persist in different ethnic groups. 

 As I said, the issue of reparations is much more complicated than most people realise.

But back to the Bozos! I wonder how many "African Americans" have Bozo in their genetics?

This is gonna make the discussion of the slave trade far more interesting because Africa is like the Balkans in that there are loads of ethnic groups with even more sub-groups like the Mande and the Bozos.

And slavery is part of African culture. 

#AngryVeteran Rants About Cheering The Burning Plantation

 I don't totally agree with what he says, but I agree for the most part of what he says.

And not having the plantation around makes it a whole lot easier to deny what happened.

Yes, they do have weddings in concentration camps

I mentioned in my last post that getting married in a plantation would be the perfect form of revenge given marriage and family life was not allowed.  Actually, this is a subject for debate, but I don't want to get into it.

I object to any comparison of plantations to concentration camps since I see a lot of ignorance even from historians in the US about this topic. 

Number one and most importantly, the only people who wanted to see these destroyed were the people who committed the crimes. Everyone else is aware that the destruction of concentration camps will erase their memory. I used the example of Belzec. It was one of the operation Reinhard camps where between 430,000 and 500,000 Jews (I would say more but cannot prove it) are believed to have been murdered by the SS at Bełżec . It was the third-deadliest extermination camp, exceeded only by Treblinka and Auschwitz. Only seven members of the Sonderkommando Survived.

Not many people have heard about it because it was destroyed. But that is an aside.

The second reason is that like under slavery, Jews were discouraged from getting married in the camps. Marriage was an act of resistance:

“They got married in the ghetto and gave birth there. The “Death Machine” didn’t break the main thing – the human spirit and the will to live. After all, they wouldn’t let them die, otherwise, it was the ultimate surrender”, – says Alexander Boroda, the President of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia.

After the war, people found themselves in Displaced Persons camps, some of which were on the site of former concentration camps. They got married in those camps.

But to answer the question:

Historic military compound the Seventh Fort in Vilnius, Lithuania has become a popular site for weeding parties and children summer camps, but, according to Israeli press, a Nazi German concentration camp had once stood there.

Belgian new portal New Europe reports citing The Jerusalem Post that the 18-acre red-brick bunker complex built in 1880s was also the site of a concentration camp in 1941. The Israeli newspaper wrote that thousands of Jews were imprisoned, treated inhumanely, killed and buried at the Seventh Fort.

from https://bnn-news.com/weddings-in-vilnius-held-near-wwii-concentration-camp-148244 

The weddings are not held on the area where the Holocaust victims are buried, which is only 2% of the camp area.

So, if you are going to use the concentration camp example, then the descendants of formerly enslaved people should be "jumping" at the chance to get married on a plantation since it was something denied to their ancestors.

And descendants of people killed in concentration camps show their defiance and love for life by doing exactly that.

Jumping the broom

James Catnach - The Marriage Act Displayed in Cuts and Verse (British Library)

I'm not going to go into the history of this tradition other than to repeat something said in one article about it:

Parry writes that despite the racial animus which characterized the US South during the nineteenth century, poor white Southerners (many of whom were descendants of people who had irregular forms of matrimony in Britain) and enslaved African Americans had more cultural exchange than is commonly acknowledged.

But the reason I bring it up is that one of the institutions which was prohibited to slaves was marriage and a stable family life. A lot of the criticism about Nottoway is that it was used for weddings, which was something prohibited to slaves. On the other hand, no one has mentioned if blacks were prohibited from celebrating their marriages there in recent times. I'm not going to get into a discussion of "jumping the broom" or the institution of marriage during slavery since it would take a lot more than a blog post.

On the other hand, what would be a better form of revenge than for black people to get married on a place where it was prohibited to their ancestors?

I see way too much boohooing and handwringing that "slavery was bad" without too much introspection on what has been lost to future generations. The concentration camps have been kept as memorials. The only people who wanted them destroyed were the people who committed the crimes to hide the evidence. 

Have you ever heard of Belzec? No, it was destroyed to hide the evidence. If you are going to mention concentration camps--then you should mention that.

This place was up for sale not too long ago: why didn't people buy it to turn it into another Whitney Plantation where slavery is addressed honestly?

To be honest if reparations are going to happen, they probably won't monetary, or just focused on one race: they will only come from an honest and open discussion of race in America.

And destroying the places which are painful really isn't the answer.

OK, a little fun for Black History Month

Did you know that Angela Davis was a Mayflower Descendant?

Yes, THAT Angela Davis. The American Marxist and feminist political activist. The one who was a longtime member of the Communist Party USA and a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

Yes, not only is Angela Davis a Mayflower Descendant--she's a descendant of William Brewster! That makes her one of the elite since Brewster was the senior elder and the leader of Plymouth Colony.

So, tell me: how are reparations supposed to work when some slaves were the children of slaveowners? Not to mention some blacks have done well for themselves while whites are poor?

Reparations will probably not be monetary.
 

Let's not forget who happened to be one of history's biggest racists...

Yes, it's Idi Amin Dada!

Seriously, if we are going to get into how to be "anti-racists" maybe we need to start with ourselves. And black people need to admit that whites don't have a monopoly on being racist, which is why I mention Idi Amin.

A lot of the kids I was in school and University with happened to be victims of his expulsion of the Asians from Uganda. So, Amin wasn't just out to beat up on the colonial British. On the other hand, he considered himself the King of Scotland. Yep, he declared  himself: “His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.” He never won the DSO and MC, and the VC was his own medal the Victorious Cross.

He once said: “I myself consider myself the most powerful figure in the world.” And he really did claim to be the uncrowned king of Scotland, largely because of his love for pipe bands. 

So, not only was he a racist--he was a total headcase.

And his expulsion of 80,000 Ugandan Asians totally trashed the economy of Uganda. Amin was overthrown in April 1979 and died in exile in Saudi Arabia on August 16, 2003.

So, keep that in mind when you want to paint one group of people with the same brush.

Juneteenth and THE BIG LIE with Baba the Storyteller

I find this interesting since he is from Texas and he talks about his memories of how Juneteeth was celebrated. His story is a totally different take on the narrative we are given that General Granger told the slaves of Galveston that they were free.

He gives a good reason for why this holiday should be celebrated by taking it out of the popular context. But he points out he is from Texas and has a bias toward this celebration, as do a lot of other people who have promoted it. Juneteenth was not nationally known until recently. For the longest time, it was been something mostly celebrated by African Americans, Black Americans in Texas, and millennials. I'm not sure whether its becoming a Federal Holiday has actually led to any real acceptance.

I'm not sure that Juneteenth can keep up with the hype surrounding it. It was probably counterproductive to push this onto people without any real connection to the history behind the event. The fact that some black people in Texas would gather around for a barbecue isn't really a reason that will get people to pay attention to WHY it should be celebrated.

In fact, it works better for the people who want to virtue signal without substance.

Another take on this:

See also:

• How a group of creatives made Juneteenth 'spread like wildfire' in tech  
• Why Juneteenth went Viral

Juliette Greco and Miles Davis?!?!?!?!?!!!

I have no problem with the interracial aspect, but, I have always thought this was a musical odd couple: sort of like Johnny Rotten and Marie Osmond. Well, it's been confirmed by Mademoiselle Greco herself:

I wasn't tempted to sing with Miles: why try to do badly, or less well, something that other people do so well? I'm not going to start singing jazz standards: it's not in my blood or my culture. Mind you, I have a deep affection and huge admiration for Ella Fitzgerald and a few others.
 

It's interesting how US blacks would come to France and experience freedom. Joesphine Baker sang that she had two loves, her home country and Paris. And for good reason.

The reason this relationship ended was:

At four o'clock in the morning I got a call from Miles, who was in tears. "I couldn't come by myself," he said. "I don't ever want to see you again here, in a country where this kind of relationship is impossible." I suddenly understood that I'd made a terrible mistake, from which came a strange feeling of humiliation that I'll never forget. In America his colour was made blatantly obvious to me, whereas in Paris I didn't even notice that he was black.

Although, it may never have truly ended:

Between Miles and me there was a great love affair, the kind you'd want everybody to experience. Throughout our lives, we were never lost to each other. Whenever he could, he would leave messages for me in the places I travelled in Europe: "I was here, you weren't."

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/may/25/jazz

"Juneteenth World Wide Celebration"

Or how an obscure event became a thing. Trying to call it Worldwide or implying it has much of a significance beyond the US is a stretch: sort of like the World Series. And it's not that I am being a "Grinch" since the google trends doc shows that it had little or no interest prior to 2015. And it wasn't until Black Lives Matter and the associated virtue signalling appeared that it was able to take off according to Google Trends: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=juneteenth

Now, mainstream media would have us believe that this was some sort of "thing" prior to BLM, instead of a bunch of scared people trying to pander to that organisation. Virtue signalling costs nothing, but feels really good.

So, take a relatively obscure celebration and turn it into a "something".  You weren't crazy if you were wondering why you had never heard of it before 2020.  And you were among a very small group of people if you DID know about this prior to then. But there's this little truth bomb hidden in all the bullshit about Juneteenth:

The fuel behind the amplification of the Juneteenth signal was not simply historical reflection but the uprisings that followed the killing of George Floyd, and perhaps the pandemic.

Very few people of all ethnicities gave a shit about Juneteenth prior to that date. I seriously doubt they would have given a rat's ass about it afterward either. The NPR clip mentioned in the screen cap pretty much sums the situation up. More amusingly, NPR interviews Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, who happens to have been born in Ghana.

Those with a familiarity of the triangular trade will know it as home to the Ashanti Empire, which was the largest slaveowning and slave trading state during the Atlantic slave trade and is found in the territory that is today's Ghana. 

Somehow, I think that Ms. Opoku-Agyeman's opinion on Juneteenth is probably not the best one to have taken. I could be even meaner as to who NPR could have chosen to interview, but he's dead. Actually, there were a lot of slave traders out there besides the one I was thinking about.

But virtue signalling is free!

And when it comes to race everything is truly black and white in the US. Not the nuance needed for a reasoned discussion of this topic.

I find it amusing that Rolling Stone is talking about a Neo-Nazi group who are Terrified Nobody Will Care About Their Juneteenth Protest. Personally, I would ignore it and we'll see it go the way of Kwanzaa if I were in their shoes. They aren't doing their cause much good by attracting more attention to all this.

Or Odunde.

Personally, I would have picked Odunde if we want to go for obscure African-American festivals since it probably has more of a following than Juneteenth. I mean, you may as well go all out if you are going to virtue signalling.

I know that Juneteenth would have passed me by had it not been a call to my bank over a declined charge where I was greeted by a recording that the institution would be closed because of Juneteenth.

I'm surprised people care, but it is a day off from work. 

And I won't quote a certain DC shock jock no matter how germane that might be to the discussion... On the other hand, the above clip is much better than that shock jock's statement ever was for showing racism.

Also NPR chose to take the opinion of someone from hails from a nation that was one of the worst offenders in the slave trade about WHY we should be concerned about Juneteenth. Never mind all talk of slavery tends to focus on white people.  But not all white people were slaveowners. And that leaves out the abolitionists who were white and put their lives on the line to free slaves. John Brown mean anything to you?

You can't blame everyone for the actions of a small group, otherwise these black people need to get off their high horse since they were complicit in the ethnic cleansing of the native North Americans courtesy of the Buffalo Soldiers, or the blacks who were in the US Army after the Civil War. The ones who found they could get ahead by going west and fighting the Native Americans. 

But we have the the Google Trends data which shows most people aren't too concerned.  I'm just tired of the pointless virtue signalling which really doesn't change anything.

See Also:
--The Hill--Juneteenth at year two marked by commercial, political challenges

Greg Gutfeld on Whoopi Goldberg and CRT

I have a love-hate relationship with Greg Gutfeld. He says some things which are bang on sometimes. He also says some things that are a little off. I used to think I would get into a fight if we got together. Then, I realised he likes to shock the way I do.

 His monologue cuts to the heart of the matter here in that blacks are victims, which leaves out a lot. Given that one of the "Buffalo Soldiers" main tasks was to help control the Native Americans of the Plain, the concept that blacks are without sin in the "race game" is something which needs to be seriously examined.

If I am guilty for slavery as a white person, then aren't blacks guilty of ethnically cleansing the native American population?

A significant number of blacks left the south after the Civil War to make lives in other parts of the US. And quite a few of them joined the US Military.

And Idi Amin was one of the most notorious racists EVER. Even though Idi Amin may have been Ugandan, but ask an Asian who was deported from Uganda during the 1970s how well they were treated by his government. And wasn't that the beginning of the "taking a knee" thing?

Yes, blacks can be racist too.

And let's close with some Russell Brand on the Democrats:

Are reparations for slavery an anglophone thing?

Serious question since a majority of the francophone world is black (African and the Caribbean). I note that slavery is mentioned in the news, but that aspect of the racial question is decidedly absent. Then again, a good portion of francophones are Africans.

There were "Black Lives Matter" protests in France last year, but nothing to the extent of the US. Some french actors did their virtue signalling. But there was nothing like the "peaceful protests" in the States.

On the other hand, the US and Britain are dealing with the issue of reparations with some interesting results such as this opinion from Jamaica.  

It’s a cheap shot to blame Jamaica’s economic malaise entirely on the evil white bogeyman when successive post-independence administrations have overseen an economy with annual growth of less than 1% for the past four decades and a currency in freefall. Social dysfunction is rife, with murders ballooning 20% so far this year and youth unemployment nearing 40%. 

Jamaica – and the wider anglophone Caribbean – must come to terms with the inconvenient truth that, though the British slave masters were barbarous, when polled a couple of years ago the majority of Jamaicans said the country would have been better off if it had remained a UK colony. That indictment lies at the feet of Jamaica’s black governing class. 

I've said it before, it hard to say there is "systemic racism" when the people claiming that play a significant role in the system.

Critical Race Theory: it shouldn't just be "wippl" who are getting uncomfortable talking about race.

Hey, Bring it if we are going to have an open, honest, and unbiased discussion of race in the US. But the object here isn't to do that: the object is to make "wippl" uncomfortable. But before we start having this discussion, we need to have a definition of what exactly "racism" happens to be since I'm seeing that some people are unclear on the subject:

racism rā′sĭz″əm ►n.

• n. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
• n.Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
• n.The belief that each race has distinct and intrinsic attributes.

 So, we might want to have some self-examination before we start criticising.

I was tempted to call this "CRT, BLM, and Black Conservatives" since not all black people like CRT. Except not all the black people who dislike this theory happen to be conservatives. In fact, there are  a couple of different critiques of CRT in the black community, which I'm not going to discuss here (I've done it a bit in other posts).

Additionally, Critical Race Theory came from something called Critical theory. Critical Theory believes that everything in our world is power. Systems and structures are created to maintain and build upon that power. Governments, organizations, businesses, and even hobby clubs exist solely to maintain and build power. Critical Theory’s goal is to intellectually emancipate society from oppression. 

Take it or leave it.

Critical Race Theory takes this argument and posits that power struggle is limited solely to race. Although true CRT looks at ALL races. The problem with CRT is that it's nebulous, sort of like "Black Lives Matters". Both are things which are out there, but no one has a real understanding what the fuck either one actually happens to be. To be quite honest, a racist organisation could take over the slogan "black lives matter" for their program of genocide. 

In other words, these two concepts are out there and they are whatever the fuck anyone wants to make of them. Worse, they attack anyone who questions them, which is amusing. But as I point out, proper CRT looks at all races, not just "wippl", but that's not what is going on here.

In fact, the honest assessment of the racial situation isn't happening. If anything, this is a sick parody of the situation.

After all, how does one account for systemic racism if blacks are a significant part of the system? Additionally, how does one account for the current situation if that has been the case for 50 years or so (possibly more)?

Why the "Tulsa Massacre" will be a blip on the screen if even that

People need to remember I support regulating firearms, even if I am on the outs with a good portion of the GVP crowd these days (there's a post about that simmering). Look at this from the point of how common mass shootings happen to be in the US.

And then toss in that the blacks being armed may have been a contributing factor to all this.

Are you really serious that you think people are going to care about this in the long run?

Come on!

Other countries may react to mass shooting, but they are just another day in America. Especially if blacks are involved.

Fuck a shitload of white pre-schoolers were slaughtered at Sandy Hook and fuck all happened (so much for "pro-life"). And Las Vegas, a whole lot of whippl got capped at a country music concert and nothing happened. And let's not forget that a bunch of US legislators were capped with the usual result (that is fuck all happened). Well, they use it as a talking point...

So, do you think that anyone other than virtue signalling SJWs are going to keep this in their consciousness for much longer, if it is still there?  

Get real. It will be as much in the consciousness as the Colfax Massacre in another 15 minutes.

Hey, Lucian Truscott, you didn't fall too far from the tree.

 I know your pedigree since you spout it anytime and anywhere.

On the other hand, I am a first generation US Citizen on my father's side, My mother's family has been here longer with her mother being first generation from Germany on my great-grandfather's side and Second Generation French on her great great great, grandmother's side.

My mother's father was a different story. His family has been here since the 1600s. I am descended from Mayflower Compact signer Edward Fuller (um, those comments I made about native Americans eating the settlers....). I had ancestors who were in Virginia in the early 1600s, but I don't know if they participated in Bacon's Rebellion, but, boy, would I be shouting it out if they had been some of the "indentured servants" who fought alongside the slaves in that rebellion (same applies for transported convicts).

I AM descended from Felix and Jakob Huber, two soldiers who fought in the Pennsylvania line. They were at Valley Forge and Morristown.

Yes, that Pennsylvania Line. The one that insisted that their three-year enlistments had expired, killed three officers in a drunken rage and abandoned the Continental Army’s winter camp at Morristown, New Jersey. I used to visit Morristown when I was at Fort Monmouth before I knew about my ancestor or the mutiny and thought that they should have continued the mutiny. I regret they didn't: especially when I read the shit you write defending "critical race theory".

That's because  they were in no way slave owners. they weren't the wealthy  assholes, which included the southern planters, who wouldn't foot the bill for the war George Washington caused, like your ancestor, Thomas Jefferson, which was another reason for the revolution besides slavery.In fact, there were quite a few reasons other than slavery that led to the War for Independence. 

No, My ancestors were the ones who bore the costs of war that your ancestor caused.

Pennsylvania is home to the abolitionist movement that was started by the Pennsylvania Germans. The 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery wrote the first protest against enslavement of Africans made by a religious body in the Thirteen Colonies. Sure, it didn't go far, but the seed was sown for a movement. On the other hand, the War for Independence would have fizzled out pretty quickly had people in the North made slavery an issue.

Which gets to the issue of your ancestor, Thomas Jefferson. Someone I know was a complete scumbag, and you admit that was the case. He was fucking his slave Sally Hemmings while he was penning that bullshit about "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". You didn't fall too far from the tree.

Well, at least Jefferson. Your grandfather who shares your name would probably be profusely apologising for you're being a total fuckwit from what I've heard. He would understand exactly what I am saying. And it wouldn't be the first time he apologised to dead soldiers.

You are a shame to his name. My sincerest apologies to him for having a descendant who would have been locked away at one time instead of foisting himself in the public eye at every opportunity. I am sorry that he has you piling shit upon his name.

Like Vietnam, the people who fought in the War for Independence were the poor kids who couldn't avoid the draft. Or go to a military academy on the public dime and then get tossed from the service. 

My ancestor was one of the soldiers who went AWOL to tend the farm during those cold winters Thomas Paine talked about. I wish they had just told their leaders to go fuck themselves when I read the crap you write. Instead, they capitulated too many times and the war went on for another 6-7 years.

After having started yet another war that the colonies couldn't pay for, your ancestor wrote off the protests of the veterans as "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." and "The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them." And your comments about that war being fought for slavery is a further insult.

Of course, Tommy changed his tune when he saw the French Revolution up close and personal.

So, Truscott, I don't appreciate the war your ancestor caused and the shit it brought with it. Likewise, I KNOW my ancestors would be even more unpleasant in their comments to you were they alive and heard the shit you say.

After all, they killed three officers at Morristown. Too bad Jefferson's head wasn't hoisted on a pole for being a traitor and causing a pointless war by mine, but he did die bankrupt.

You can piss on the graves of the soldiers who weren't as fortunate as you and went to 'Nam, but don't piss on the graves of the soldiers who fought to create this country in a war your ancestor created.

Because you are just proving how right I was when I thought they shouldn't have stopped the mutiny until the war ended.

Why is the problematic "Critical Race Theory" being pushed on us

Oh, boy. Yet another way to divide the nation!

 And it's not just the right wing Trump supporters who dislike this theory. 

This pretty much sums up the intent of  "Critical Race Theory" and the 1619 Project:

It's no criticism of the show, generally credited with handling the harrowing events respectfully, to acknowledge that "what white people are comfortable with" can't be the criterion for what history is allowed to enter public discourse and to shape it.

It's perfect that comes from coverage on Tulsa because that incident is one that is worth examining. And examining in an unbiased manner. Like Juneteenth, Tulsa has been sitting around, but few people knew about it. My guess on the reason is that there was culpability on both sides.

So, History isn't just what "what white people are comfortable with", or even black people are comfortable with. There is a lot of shit out there that won't make you feel good.

See, I have a problem with all this "systemic racism" shit and that's Barack Obama. Or maybe I should say Michele Obama. And the reason I say that is that her husband was a first an Illinois then US Senator and finally President of the United States. 

But first a story about when I was practising law in Philadelphia. My client was a young black kid charged with a gun crime because he threatened another child with an umbrella handle he said was a gun. His mother started yelling that the system was "racist". Well, he was black, his alleged victim was black, the police who arrested him were black, the DA was black, as was the judge. The only white person who was involved was me and I was doing everything in my power to try and get the kid a good deal.

But my point is that it's hard to allege "systemic racism" if a lot of the people in the system happen to be black. I was going to say doesn't that mean that anyone in the system happens to be racist. But we know the answer to that question is a resounding "YES!!!". And you are a confirmed racist if you somehow dare to question your being a racist! So, why should whippl want to help if we are already classified as racist?

The bottom line here is that a good portion of these gripes are over 50 years old now. Even more importantly, blacks have achieved positions of power in that time. There are blacks in the system. One of which made it to be President of the USA.

And Ms. Obama might want to rethink the accusations of "systemic racism" for a myriad of reasons. The major one is that YOU ARE THE SYSTEM.

Why I don't support Black Lives Matter.

OK, I am going to start this off by saying I was totally supportive of BLM when it was about Trayvon Martin, Jordan David, and "Stand Your Ground" Laws. In fact, my attitude about current events is totally related to my attitude about "Gun Violence Prevention". Which is why an interaction which started with the following post in a Facebook Group, possibly something called Occupy the NRA, led to my distrust for the group:

OK, you can guess how this interaction is going to turn out and I don't need to say more, but there is more. I wanted to know who the fuck this guy was, especially since he was posting in a GVP group. Alas. I didn't screencap very much of this and I either left the GVP group or was thrown out of it. The next cap of a conversation with someone else who was a party to this is useful since this has become pretty much hearsay.

Now, I need to make a historical explanation if people wonder about my attitude toward Tulsa and all this. First off, I have a problem with the black victimhood narrative. If anything, that is the racist narrative straight out of D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation where the blacks are all cowering as the KKK rides to terrorise them.

And it's not exactly true. Blacks did fight back. The Colfax Massacre is one instance that comes to mind, which led to first Second Amendment case of US v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876), Which is an aside, but blacks did fight back with varying success. But my opinion of armed resistance is that it is counterproductive, which is probably why the Tulsa thing will probably evaporate as will reparations. 

The gist of all this is that the post in question happened after the Charleston Church Shooting (18 June 2015). The topic of armed resistance was brought up with hashtags such as the ones mentioned. Lots of reasons why I would react the way I did to the post. In fact, I was surprised that very few people were questioning what was said since having GVP people appear to approve of "armed resistance" could be used against the GVP movement.

In fact, as someone on the left, I question any time anyone on the left advocates violence since they could be an agent provacateur. Or at least someone who wants to discredit the movement. And yeah, as the person I was discussing this with said, I am quite willing to speak my mind, which I did to Dante.

OK, I'm a racist in the minds of people like Dante and nothing I will say really matters: no matter how factually based it may be. But gun violence is something which is hurting the black community. A lot of the critics of the BLM movement point out the innocent children killed in the crossfire.

I'm more than willing to call it out if blacks contributed to the escalation of violence in Tulsa. In fact, maybe we should be looking at the restoration period and how and why it led to Jim Crow. Henry Louis Gates Jr. PBS series for an eye opener on the topic of reconstruction.

Anyway, not much is going to happen if there is name calling and antagonism when we are trying to have a discussion to solve this issue. In fact, it probably won't get solved if we don't simmer down and talk with cool heads.

Evanston, Illionois tries reparations with predictable results.

I had to check out the story when I heard that Evanston, IL actually decided to try and implement reparations. Then I decided I was going to do a post about what a failure it was. This is the perfect headline:

The story is pretty good:

Recently, Priscilla Giles, a retired teacher of English as a second language in Chicago Public Schools, said she has been feeling something “between sad and angry.”

Three months ago the city of Evanston, Illinois, where Giles was born and raised, approved the first local reparations program in the country. The city announced its first phase would pay Black Evanston residents who experienced housing discrimination $25,000 in the form of home improvement costs, down payment and closing cost assistance, and mortgage payments.

Since Giles is Black and lived in the city from 1919 to 1969, she is automatically eligible, but she said she is reluctant to apply. “It’s not reparations,” she said. “And that’s for sure.”

Evanston residents have been debating the details of its current reparations program for more than three years. When the legislation passed, it was deemed a “blueprint” for the rest of the country. Yet a few months into the first initiative, frustration and legal pressure have clouded the city’s pioneering vision.

Maybe reparations should be in the form of some accurate history about slavery, reconstruction, and the "Jim Crow" era. Especially since reparations have been tried before.

And, like Evanston's experiment, they failed miserably despite great promise. That's because reparations have always been problematic. In this case the offer was for up to $25,000 in "home improvement costs" and only about 16 families ended up being eligible for the "reparations". This was despite the fact that the tax on recreational marijuana would foot the bill. 

The problem with people who are demanding, or even discussing, reparations is that most of them do it with historical ignorance. Or they do it from the wrong perspective.

So, maybe a course in "black history" which is accurate and not with an agenda, like the 1619 Project happened to be, should be the form that reparations take. Especially since that information would have prevented the disappointment that a lot of people are feeling right now.

The 1921 Tulsa Riots: was there culpability on both sides?

I'm enough of a historian to know about the whatever you want to call what happened in Tulsa 100 years ago. Additionally, I have enough skills that I could  research the incident. I do have to add that some of the primary source material has been deleted. I would also add that maybe a lot of that material has been deleted. Additionally, the neglect of the incident allows for some details to be ignored.

One of which is particularly troublesome to me is that both blacks and whites were armed. The source for the passages is Wikipedia, but it's probably the most unbiased:

A few blocks away on Greenwood Avenue, members of the Black community gathered to discuss the situation at Gurley's Hotel.Given the recent lynching of Belton, a White man accused of murder, they believed that Rowland was greatly at risk. Many Black residents were determined to prevent the crowd from lynching Rowland, but they were divided about tactics. Young World War I veterans prepared for a battle by collecting guns and ammunition. Older, more prosperous men feared a destructive confrontation that likely would cost them dearly. O. W. Gurley stated that he had tried to convince the men that there would be no lynching, but the crowd responded that Sheriff McCullough had personally told them their presence was required. About 9:30 p.m., a group of approximately 50–60 Black men, armed with rifles and shotguns, arrived at the jail to support the sheriff and his deputies in defending Rowland from the mob.

I think the previous passage is important to understanding the events of those days because the sight of armed blacks led to whites feeling the need to "tool up". That is important for a lot of reasons, especially given the debate about firearms in US society. But the people you would think would raise this issue, the "gun violence prevention" crowd are oddly silent about this. Anyway, armed blacks led to the following.

Having seen the armed Black men, some of the more than 1,000 Whites who had been at the courthouse went home for their own guns. Others headed for the National Guard armory at the corner of Sixth Street and Norfolk Avenue, where they planned to arm themselves. The armory contained a supply of small arms and ammunition. Major James Bell of the 180th Infantry Regiment learned of the mounting situation downtown and the possibility of a break-in, and he consequently took measures to prevent. He called the commanders of the three National Guard units in Tulsa, who ordered all the Guard members to put on their uniforms and report quickly to the armory. When a group of Whites arrived and began pulling at the grating over a window, Bell went outside to confront the crowd of 300 to 400 men. Bell told them that the Guard members inside were armed and prepared to shoot anyone who tried to enter. After this show of force, the crowd withdrew from the armory.

OK, I don't really want to point fingers here as to who was responsible especially since it is unclear how the violence escalated. But, as I pointed out, the "gun violence prevention" crowd is silent about this aspect of the incident. That is strange since the escalation of violence was a definite factor in the massacre. The following is conjecture, but it is the closest I have seen to what may have happened.

Shortly after 10 p.m., a second, larger group of approximately 75 armed Black men decided to go to the courthouse. They offered their support to the sheriff, who declined their help. According to witnesses, a White man is alleged to have told one of the armed Black men to surrender his pistol. The man refused, and a shot was fired. That first shot might have been accidental, or meant as a warning; it was a catalyst for an exchange of gunfire.

Now, firearms violence doesn't happen when firearms aren't present. That is a simple fact that when something doesn't exist, it can't effect anything. On the other hand there was a combination of hot heads and firearms. There is something called the "weapons effect" which is where the mere presence of weapons may increase aggression. Wouldn't you think the GVP crowd would be mentioning this? Especially since this pretty much makes their argument.

The upshot was that the gunshots led to an immediate escalation of violence with both sides firing on the other. The first "battle" was said to last a few seconds but  resulted in ten Whites and two Black men lying dead or dying in the street.

The Black men who had offered to provide security at the jail ended up retreating toward Greenwood. A rolling gunfight between both sides ensued. The armed White mob pursued the Black contingent toward Greenwood, with many stopping to loot local stores for additional weapons and ammunition. Panic set in as the White mob began firing on any Black people in the crowd. The White mob also shot and killed at least one White man in the confusion. The two groups squared off in gunfights throughout the night. At around 1 a.m., the White mob began setting fires, mainly in businesses on commercial Archer Street at the southern edge of the Greenwood district.

The problem with this is that the incident is covered, but not very well. There was a Grand Jury investigation into this in 1921, but I don't think it led to much. Although it does make interesting reading. There are lots of gaps in what is known. 

There were no convictions for any of the charges related to violence. The  silence about the terror, violence, and losses of this event went on for decades. The riot has been omitted from most local, state and national histories: It was not recognized in the Tulsa Tribune feature of "Fifteen Years Ago Today" or "Twenty-five Years Ago Today". A 2017 report detailing the history of the Tulsa Fire Department from 1897 until 2017 makes no mention of the 1921 massacre.

"The Tulsa race riot of 1921 was rarely mentioned in history books, classrooms or even in private. Black and White people alike grew into middle age unaware of what had taken place".

I'm not going to get into the details about this since they are quite frankly under dispute. Neither side is very helpful since copies of one of the newspapers involved have pretty much vanished from the face of the earth. There was a reward offer for copies of this newspaper during the 1990s investigation, but none could be found. Likewise, the reports of mass graves are being investigated, but it sounds like these may indeed rumours.

Anyway, it seems odd that an armed group of black people are marching on Tulsa to commemorate this event. I have to wonder how much of what happened was due to an armed populace and hot heads. Dick Rowland, the person whose arrest started this chain of events, was well known among attorneys and other legal professionals within the city, many of whom knew Rowland through his work as a shoeshiner. Some witnesses later recounted hearing several attorneys defend Rowland in their conversations with one another. One of the men said, "Why, I know that boy, and have known him a good while. That's not in him."

On June 3, 1921, a group of over 1,000 businessmen and civic leaders met, resolving to form a committee to raise funds and aid in rebuilding Greenwood. Judge J. Martin, a former mayor of Tulsa, was chosen as the chairman of the group. He said at the mass meeting:

Tulsa can only redeem herself from the country-wide shame and humiliation into which she is today plunged by complete restitution and rehabilitation of the destroyed black belt. The rest of the United States must know that the real citizenship of Tulsa weeps at this unspeakable crime and will make good the damage, so far as it can be done, to the last penny.

Sadly, Most of the promised funding was never raised for the Black residents, and they struggled to rebuild after the violence.

Virtue signalling doesn't cost anything, real actions do.  Additionally, there is a certain irony here of an armed black parade in commemoration if a major factor in the incident was that the blacks had chosen to arm themselves 100 years ago.

Left wing critiques on the 1619 Project.

Journalist Zaid Jilani weighs in on the controversy over the Pulitzer Prize winning 1619 Project.

 I may have mentioned the judgement in Somersetts case, but that would not have impacted colonies such as Pennsylvania, New York, and New England.

Let's dredge out the dirt on all of The Western Hemispheres ethnicities!

OK, "Columbus Day" is unacceptable, but people in the US aren't going to be like Canadians and call it "Thanksgiving". That would mean there would be two Thanksgivings in the US. We can argue over who "discovered" the Western Hemisphere, which can get interesting.

On the other hand, there pretty much isn't any group in the Western Hemisphere which isn't without some dirt, or gripes. That's why the concept of reparations starts getting interesting. Trust me: reparations have long been discussed and rejected as impossible to implement. And any implementation gets more impossible with the passage of time.

This leaves us with two options.

1. Have a frank and open discussion of race and oppression in the Western Hemisphere.
2. Trying to accept people for who they are and not what they are.

I go for the second since option 1 has been tried and found to be a failure.