This hit me the most in the module, because it took the conversation beyond "events" and an intellectual exercise...and into the realm of the saturation of racism in culture. This is not a dig at the importance of knowing our history and foundation, this is absolutely critical too. The casual disregard, consumption, and propagation of racism in every day culture - with connections to everyday household items, branding; it still had a shock factor and disappointment in the human race.
And yet, outward shock and sadness is just a singular reminder of what I have to do in my learning and life. How much have I not made an effort to know, or deeply understand from other points of view. My twitter feed is mostly white, you know due to the types of bias that were described in terms of we're comfortable receiving information and communicating with the familiar and those who look like us. As an example. I work in policy in education, and i wrote down this quote from the New Jim Crown Museum: "Once a guy said to me, you can't legislate morality, you can't legislate behavior, and I thought about that. Yes that's true in some ways but the reality is this: when the laws, the segregation laws, were taken down it made it easier for people to change behavior." So it is my hope to change my behavior in my person life, but doing more listening and seeking to be anti-racist, instead of a passive consumer of whatever is comfortable and familiar in my world.
We are starting a journey, and we have a lot to learn. I should have started this journey in earnest long before now, but I am glad I am starting now. It took a pandemic and a string of heinous acts for me to be able to hear what people of color have been saying all along: they are not free here. And now, what am I going to do about to help fix this injustice?
There were two things in the Museum I had not seen/heard of before: a photo showing black children with the caption "Alligator bait"; and the fairgrounds game of a black person putting their head through a sheet of plywood to be hit with balls for "fun". I feel sick. Our cruelty knows no bounds, when we allow ourselves to be brainwashed by false information and propaganda. It's so worrying today, that so much of our population does not know how to distinguish true from false, reliable news from propaganda, and our hardworking press is so vilified. If people think they can choose their own facts, there is little hope progress with an informed public. It's scary. One thing is clear: the brutality of slavery and the Jim Crow years resulted in such trauma and destruction, it will be generations before black people will be able to heal and live their lives as the true equals our ideals demand. I say that as a woman, knowing that something similar is the case for all women in America as well: after subjugation and trauma, healing and progress will happen for my sex over generations -- it takes time, unfortunately, and it's extremely frustrating. The changes to institutionalized racism and individuals' own psychological BS have to happen NOW. But we as a society have to be prepared for the healing to take generations -- and to do all that is necessary and right and good to lift each other up to that healing place, so that it can happen sooner rather than later. That's going to take money and sacrifice of privilege.