This Time Was Different …

Posted on by under History, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, voting rights

From the New York Times dated August 8th …

The police in Montgomery, Ala., are expected to charge at least three people in connection with a brawl that broke out over the weekend when a group of white boaters attacked a Black boat captain at the city’s popular Riverfront Park. The violent scene, which bystanders captured on video, has stoked memories of the city’s racist history.

I keep hearing that racism in the U.S. does not exist or at least is not a problem.  I hear Ron DeSantis claim that slavery was actually beneficial to the enslaved.  I hear Chief Justice John Roberts claim that there is no longer a racial divide, that we no longer need to protect the voting rights of minorities.  They are all wrong … what’s worse, they know they are wrong, yet keep spewing their lies for political gain.  Charles Blow’s column yesterday takes a closer look at what happened in Alabama over the weekend and the historical context …

The Montgomery Brawl Was, for Some, a Clarifying Moment

By Charles M. Blow

09 August 2023

The Alabama Sweet Tea Party.

That was one nickname people gave to a brawl this past Saturday on a Montgomery, Ala., riverfront dock, captured in viral videos, after a group of white people attacked Damien Pickett, a Black riverboat co-captain who was trying to clear a berth for his vessel, and a group of Black people came to Pickett’s defense.

In some obvious ways the whole episode is sad: The situation should never have descended into violence. The people who were asked to move their boat so that the riverboat could dock in its reserved space should simply have complied.

But in other ways, many Black people, in particular, saw it as an unfortunate but practically unavoidable response to what can feel like an unending stream of incidents in which Black people are publicly victimized, with no one willing or able to intervene or render aid.

Black people coming to the defense of that Black man wasn’t just a specific thing that happened at one place and time; it was also a departure, in some ways, from the most memorable images in a history that includes centuries of Black-targeted brutality, which traces the journey of Black people in this land that became the United States.

From its inception, a feature of American slavery was the brutalizing of Black people and Black bodies — the whipping and the raping, the being hung from trees and fed to dogs — with others, generally, unable to defend them.

It has been such a part of Black history that it also became a central theme in Black literature.

In Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Beloved,” the protagonist, Sethe, and her husband plan to escape enslavement but get caught. He is hiding in the loft of a barn when her enslaver’s nephews forcibly suck the milk from her breasts and severely whip her, leaving scars that look like, she says, a “tree on my back.”

Her husband sees all this but is powerless to intervene without being discovered, and his powerlessness at witnessing the savaging of his wife drives him insane.

In slavery’s wake, lynchings surged. The decades thereafter saw some notable Black resistance to racial violence, but that resistance was usually overwhelmed, and much of the imagery and ephemera that survive from the period concern the victims of anti-Black violence.

The civil rights movement would successfully meet violence with nonviolence, highlighting how cruel and depraved Southern racists were, but the tactic produced another volume of imagery of Black victimization — beatings, fire hoses, lunch counter mobs.

This American motif has continued into the present era, from the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles to the choking of Eric Garner in New York to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, all caught on camera.

Darnella Frazier, who was 17 when she recorded the cellphone video of Derek Chauvin with his knee on Floyd’s neck, testified at Chauvin’s trial that “it’s been nights I stayed up apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life.”

Charles McMillian, who was 61 at the time of the trial and also witnessed Floyd being brutalized, broke down crying when he took the stand. As McMillian testified through his tears, “I couldn’t help but feel helpless.”

Through all of this, particularly the endlessly replayed videos, other Black people experienced a vicarious trauma that was only compounded by the feelings of vulnerability that come from being unable to intervene, of feeling that they, too, could have been these victims and that no one could or would come to save them.

What happened in Montgomery stood in contrast to much of that norm.

There, the righteous indignation of a community found an outlet when Black people came to the defense of a Black man under attack. There was therapy in it for many who saw it — a sense of historical correction.

And as an added bit of historical poetry, the brawl happened in Alabama, with its horrible history of slavery and notorious convict leasing system, which Douglas A. Blackmon called “slavery by another name” in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name.

It happened on a riverfront where enslaved people of African descent were transported to be sold in a city that later played a key part in the civil rights movement with the Montgomery bus boycott.

While violence is never the ideal, self-defense has a morally universal appeal and justification. And there comes a time when defense is the only option, when standing upright is the only appropriate posture. Describing the events in this case, even Montgomery’s police chief pointed out that members of the riverboat’s crew “came to Mr. Pickett’s defense.”

Let’s all hope and pray that more situations don’t descend into violence like this one did and that cooler heads always prevail. But let’s also understand that no people are obligated to endure violence without defending themselves or being defended.

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31 thoughts on “This Time Was Different …”

  1. Pingback: Daily Kind Quote – 5130 – Share Your Light

  3. Jill, people need to speak out against this kind of action and verbiage. If a politician does not support doing something, they need to be questioned why they are not. If they condone this crap, then, they need to be challenged. Keith

    Liked by 1 person

    • PS – The following lyrics are a reminder of what has happened. We must never forget these evil lessons that occur when good people don’t speak up. I dedicate these lyrics to those speaking up to the autocratic Florida governor and his bucket of white paint:

      “Strange Fruit”
      Lyrics & Music by Abel Meerpool, 1937
      Performed by Billie Holiday

      Southern trees bearing a strange fruit
      Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
      Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze
      Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

      Pastoral scene of the gallant South
      The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
      Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh
      Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

      Here is a fruit for the crow to pluck
      For the rain to wither, for the wind to suck
      For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
      Here is a strange and bitter crop.

      – Originally published as a poem in 1937 by Abel Meerpool, aka Lewis Allen, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx, depicts Southern trees bearing “strange fruit.”

      Keith

      Liked by 2 people

  4. Thank you for sharing!!.. Roberts, Desantis and others too numerous to mention are simply reaching out to their followers (a closed minded element of today’s society who deny reality and any ideology the opposes their way of thinking) in order to maintain a image… 🙂
    In histories past it were easy to do but with today’s technology it is more difficult to hide the truth (often calling the truth “fake news”, etc.) and in some parts of the world it is illegal to speak the truth in an effort to protect a image, if that doesn’t work, then they often resort to conflict… 🙂
    It may take some time but hopefully with today’s technology, the world can come to a better understanding of one another and work together to help make this world a better place for everyone, so keep letting your fingers to the walking and your heart do the talking!.. 🙂

    Hope all is well in your part of the universe and until we meet again….

    May the sun shine all day long
    Everything go right, nothing go wrong
    May those you love bring love back to you
    And may all the wishes you wish come true
    May the dreams you hold dearest
    Be those which come true
    May the kindness you spread
    Keep returning to you
    (Irish Saying)

    Liked by 2 people

    • Thank you, Dutch … good to see you! Yes, they are far more concerned with the image they hope to project, for their own self-interest, than with the harm being done by their lies. I agree with what you say, but you are more optimistic than I am. It seems to me that the technology is being used more to further the lies than it is to shine a light on the truth, and I’ve just about given up on the human species ever turning around and learning to live together in peace and harmony. But, I hope that you are right and I am heartened by your optimism. And I love the Irish Saying and this song … is always one of my favourites! Thank you!!!

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  5. Pingback: This Time Was Different … | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

  6. Racism, whether or not we like to admit it, still, exists in the U.S., along with, everywhere else, and, it only takes, a, detonating event, such as the murder of Floyd from before, by a white officer, to, get the public ranting out in anger, and, after that, things tend to, settle down, until, someone, murders someone else, of a, different, skin-color, and make it on the news. Despite how the U.S. prides itself on being, accepting to, all who are, different than the “majority”, racism will, continue to, exist, so long as, someone, tries to, manipulate the public, using fear and hate.

    Liked by 4 people

    • You’re quite right … it does still exist and not only in the U.S. I will never understand it, though. Do people just feel a need to feel superior to someone? And yes, the politicians use that ‘fear of other’ to their own benefit and unfortunately there are too many people ignorant enough to buy into it.

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  8. I hadn’t heard about this, but any political figure in America claiming that there is no racism or racial divide there must be either lying deliberately, or living in some kind of privileged bubble.
    Best wishes, Pete.

    Liked by 3 people

    • Some combination of both, I think. Some people are perfectly capable of wearing the blinders, seeing only what they want to see. Others see it, but since it doesn’t directly affect them, they don’t care, so they can deny that it exists.

      Liked by 1 person

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