A Confederacy of Complicated Complicity

How in the world did my little hometown pull a reverse ratio in order to maintain what the citizens of white persuasion called keeping “a way of life” alive for several centuries?  In the last half of the 20^th Century, the “minority” of non-voting citizens was approximately 70%, who happened to be of the ineligible black persuasion.

You did not need a wall in those days to keep the lines of demarcation since the color of your skin – rather than the content of your character – was fairly indelible.  Railroad tracks served as a mild steel barrier for housing and neighborhood distinction.  Signs were also helpful for those who could read:  Whites Only, Colored Only.   As a child, I never was aware of the discrepancies that segregated little white boys like me from our majority of citizens other than thinking we were better off for some unknown reason. 

Behind and beneath all of this blatant inequality, I must have wondered how in the world did this government of the people and by the people and for the people in my hometown get so catawampus from those founding principles of liberty and justice for all?  The answer was as obvious as the white nose on my face and the black noses on theirs: that’s just how it is and don’t rock the boat. At least, that’s how it was way back when.

Lo and behold, black history did matter just like each black life, and no matter how it was denied or debunked, it was as mainstream as the white counterpart.  As children of this place and time, we were not taught to hate as much as we were encouraged to disregard those people and their unfortunate plight of being born black.  Such disregard led to disrespect and apathy, which fostered a kind of white privilege we came to accept as our “way of life.” 

Thus developed a severe complicity among the white folks who were forced by their compatriots to swear an unsaid allegiance to keeping the things as they were.  While the KKK had served as Christian terrorists to keep the peace in their own way, the White Citizens’ Council went about with southern charm and genteel force to stop the effort to integrate schools and prevent blacks from daring to register to vote.  Just about every white citizen and business establishment had to join ranks.  I remember the Citizens Council decal on our front door.

These white citizens were part and parcel of the village that raised me and my peers. Like the wonderful characters in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, these were good people.  Honorable white folk just trying their dead level best to do what they deemed right with the cards they had been dealt. That was also true of some of their southern ancestors who justified owning slaves as “a way of life”. While some of these white citizens did let me down, others seem to shine some glimmer of light in the darkness of what was mildly called “race relations”.

We have indeed come a long way since those not-so-long-ago days of yore, yet we still have miles to go before we can sleep in the peace that passes understanding just how we ever thought such things were a way of living. At the recent Inauguration, the youthful poet, Amanda Gorman, poignantly pointed us all in the right direction: Scripture tells us to envision/ that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree/ And no one shall make them afraid/ If we’re to live up to our own time…/ It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit,/ it’s the past we step into/ and how we repair it…