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John Brown Day Greetings
Derrick Bell is Visiting Professor at New York University Law School. He left Harvard, where he was a tenured professor, in protest at the University's failure to tenure a single black woman at the Law School. He is the author of seven books, including Faces at the Bottom of the Well and Afrolantica Legacies. As a child, I sang "John Brown's body lies a moldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on. Glory, glory Halleluila, his soul goes marching on." It is amazing that in the 1850s, John Brown and a small band of abolitionists recognized both the evil of slavery and the devastating effect it was having on the lives and freedoms of all Americans. Were he to return and survey the racial scene, John Brown would be pleased at the changes he and so many others have brought to pass. And yet on closer inspection, he would recognize the continuing presence of domination, privilege, and entitlement based on whiteness. Today, few whites would openly espouse racial superiority as the cause of any animosity they may feel toward blacks. Indeed, most whites vigorously deny any claim that they are racist, that they are not prejudiced against black people. And it is true that since Dr. King was killed and as a result of the civil rights initiatives adopted to help quell the unrest that followed his death, many whites now work with, live near, and are friendly with black people. What many do not recognize, however, is that racism is not simply open bigotry. Racism-as Beverly Daniel Tatum, defines it in her book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?-is a system of advantage that benefits all whites whether or not they seek it. It offers skills and is a system of advantage that benefits all whites whether or not they seek it. In America, whites are not simply in the majority, hold most positions of power, own much of the wealth, and set most of the nation's policies, they are for all of these reasons the norm. As a result, many do not consciously think of themselves as white, but simply normal. But being white provides a wide range of presumptions and assumptions that people of color may gain, but simply cannot assume. Even so, the ideology of whiteness continues to oppress whites as well as blacks. It is employed to make whites settle for despair in politics and anguish in the daily grind of life. Segregation took hold because working-class whites insisted that they needed some government reassurance that despite their lowly economic condition, they really were better than blacks. If we are to get beyond race as a basis of status, the nation's whites at every level will have to wrestle with the question: if blackness does not mean subordinance, what does it really mean to be white, not as a matter of appropriate respect and pride in cultural heritage, but as a social and economic fact of life in these united states? In individual soul searching, in discussions with family and friends, whites must individually begin the honest national debate about race that President Clinton promised but was unable to bring about. The subject of this debate should not be about blacks, our intelligence, our morality, our entitlement to rights, and all the other issues that usually monopolize race discussions. We must get beyond rhetoric, move beyond our assumptions, our long-held beliefs. Whites must face up to the question, do they have enough love and respect for one another to remain a stable society without using blacks as a societal glue? That is the question each white person must ask honestly and answer forthrightly. The challenge of those here who honor John Brown, an early Race Traitor, is to get that question into the public debate. Other Greetings Looks as if I will not be able to join
you on John Brown Day. But I will be meditating on John Brown
and his powerful significance in American history. Hope the event
is a colossal success. And that there will be many more. Every
good wish to my brothers and sisters in the neo-abolitionist
movement. Patricia Eakins is the author of The Marvelous Adventures of Pierre Baptist, Father and Mother, First and Last, winner of the 1999 New York University Fiction Prize. Congratulations and thank you for all
your work in organizing John Brown Day. It was a spectacular
success and a powerful and inspiring event. Greetings to the celebrants of the life
and legacy of John Brown. Next year, the 200th anniversary of
Brown's birth, is likewise the bicentennial of Nat Turner's birth
and of Gabriel's Rebellion against slavery. It was in a long
chain of rebels against slavery and whiteness that Brown's heroism,
and that of the slaves whose self-emancipation during the Civil
War realized his hopes, made history. Long live John Brown! Freedom
Now! David Roediger is the author of Wages of Whiteness and Toward the Abolitionism of Whiteness and the editor of Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to Be White. I wish to extend my congratulations for
a most successful and memorable event. It was a thrill to hear
the original letters read so movingly by the descendant of John
Brown's comrade and to hear the words of Frederick Douglass.
The Russell Banks reading was outstanding as well. Best wishes
for future successful endeavors. I want to declare my support for the commemoration
of John Brown Day. His legacy is important as a reminder to all
of us that justice and equality will not be achieved by dependence
on the nation's political leaders, but by the struggles of its
people. The heroism of John Brown and his companions is an inspiration
to all who want freedom. Howard Zinn is the author of SNCC: The New Abolitionists, A People's History of the United States, and You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times. |
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