Black History Month Matters and Should not be Sullied

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3-9-21

            During the month of February this newspaper rightly celebrated Black History Month. In the words of the editor, “To recognize Black History Month, the MDJ asked 20 community leaders how they will celebrate and what BHM means to them.” The paper went on to draw testimony day by day from Black leaders in Marietta and Cobb County.

            Reading these testimonies was uplifting. Permit me to describe two growth experiences which caused me to revel in them.

            I was ten. I always beat my younger brother and older sisters to the graveled road to await the school bus. One particular morning appeared to be a normal school day. For instance, looking west toward Forest, Mississippi I observed once again the ten or so Black teenagers and small children walking the two miles from the edge of town to their school which was a shack just beyond our house. The shack, badly needing paint and repair, was a mysterious place. I peeped into its windows on many a Saturday to find it almost bare of furniture and supplies.

            But this spring morning wasn’t normal. Fronting the group of Black students was a new child who had never been with them. Walking far ahead of the group, he appeared to be my age. My siblings and I never spoke to these young people nor they to us. Instead they and we looked down as they passed by. But this morning when the new child reached our mailbox, with a bright smile on his face he chirped, “Ya’ll rich, ain’tcha! Ya’ll got cows!”

            “Nuh uh,” I replied. “Those are Mr. McMurphy’s.” Before we could continue talking, all of the others rushed forth and one of the teenage girls pushed the excited lad forward. Truth is they and we were not supposed to talk to each other. Believe me.

            Because of the joyful innocence on my potential friend’s face and its deep contrast to that of his friends, I began to wonder why I rode a bus to a good school in town while he walked to a shack out in the country.

            Twelve years later my career path and an internal convicting spirit had led me to George Washington Carver Jr. High School. A white man surrounded by all Black co-workers, the finest of teachers, I wallowed in their excellence and their dedication to improving the lives of their charges. Science teacher Ernestine Ross, Diana Ross’ first cousin, kept me up-to-date on the emerging Supremes during our common planning period. Little Emmett Jones, one of my seventh graders, looked exactly like the child who had stopped to talk to me twelve years before. At Carver my awareness of injustice grew.

            Recently Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, Harold Melton, announced that he was retiring. This news catapulted my mind to Melton’s 10^th grade year when he was a student of mine at Wheeler High School. Intentionality was writ large on Melton’s face. One of only a very few Black students in the school at the time, Melton was characterized by teachers as “a prince of a guy.” A reunion with Melton a few years ago when he spoke at a Chattahoochee Tech graduation was a great thrill.

            A child my age whose name I never knew, a splendid collection of Black educators who exhibited personal and professional excellence and a former student showed me that Black citizens who comprise hardly 13% of the nation deserve to be recognized and celebrated, particularly those who have contributed so much.

            Sadly though, we sully race relations and halt progress when we fall for divisive expressions such as “systemic racism” and “the bigotry of Whiteness.” Sulliers like Al Sharpton have lots of explaining to do, given the success and good will modeled by Blacks like Clarence Thomas, Alveda King, Ben Carson, Herman Cain, Candace Owens, and Harold Melton.  Materially, Sharpton isn’t doing too badly himself.       

School systems, corporations (listening, Coca Cola?), and universities are requiring workshops and training on “overcoming whiteness,” and “how to be less white.” Such preachy wrongheadedness divides people. The cure for liberal guilt is for liberals to take action themselves, instead of foisting indoctrination workshops on those of us who have fought injustice all of our lives, but just happen to be conservative or white.

            One wonders how a CEO, a school system superintendent, or a university president got to where they are if they could fall for reverse bigotry. It’s past time to let go of shaming. Let’s all just determine to meet people of a different race and make friends. It’s always time to honor, in a dignified way as this newspaper has done, our Black fellow citizens. Finger pointing and guilt-laden videos we can do without. 

 

Roger Hines

3/3/21