Why have special history months, part 2

I didn’t really spell it out in the first post, but I hinted at how these months we have are about our own history; they are not random. Reading about the history of France would be interesting, and would probably reveal some things about human nature, because history is great like that. Reading about Native Americans or African Americans or Asian Americans, and reading about female Americans, gives us the extra parts to the backstory of how we got here, and often they are not pretty.

The purpose of that is not to say white people are bad, or men are bad, or that America is bad. The purpose of learning more should be that we can have more sophisticated views, not that we get more simplistic.

The benefits of these readings that I posted about Monday are still kind of specific to issues along racial lines, but there are two big general points that have been coming to me during this reading.

One is that the same people can do both good and bad things. That seems kind of obvious, but it is something we have a hard time with.

This has been coming to me a lot in relation to rape. Yes, the logical place to go is Steubenville, but there was another piece I had read recently about rape culture in India, and a woman refers to her long-time abuser as a good father and husband and member of the community. The temptation is to think how could he possibly really be that good, and that’s a complex question.

Some people are good at compartmentalization. Some people are good at deciding it’s okay to victimize some people and not others. Some people have lines that they won’t cross, but perhaps more due to social convention than strong conviction, and so if the temptation level goes up, or the possibility of getting caught goes low enough, maybe it pushes them over. Russell Means worked with a man who treated him pretty well, and was good about a lot of things, but they started getting some donations for a project and the guy took off with the funds. Does it undo everything that came before?

So if we look at the conflict between Indians and settlers, the people who are looking to make a better life for themselves are not inherently evil, and the people trying to preserve their own way of life are not inherently evil, but they both do some pretty bad things. To be able to look at that, and move beyond simplistic thinking about good and bad isn’t just helpful for our understanding of history – it is vital for understanding of right now. We need to know that people we like and love can do bad things, and we don’t have to stop liking them, and it doesn’t mean letting them get away with it. We need to accept our own capacity to do evil, and know that not everything we want is automatically right. There is some sophistication there.

Going back to the book on the Siletz, one point that struck me was that many of the early farming settlers coexisted pretty well with the Indians. When the prospectors came in, whose goal was to pull a lot of money out of the area and leave, then things got worse.

On one level you would think the temporary residents should be less of an issue than the permanent residents if it’s all about land, but that’s not how it played out. The people who were trying to build a life and homes actually did better than the people who were just there for money. Having previously noticed the degrading effects of greed, this is not too surprising, and it leads to another way in which this information is important for everyone.

Things I see through this reading is that the laws aren’t helpful if they are not enforced equally. I see that there are peole who were racist, but still practical and respectful of the law, so that helped. I see other people who meant well, but could not be effective because there were too many others who meant badly, and you see how many things can go wrong, but also that sometimes persistence pays off, and there are stories of triumph and hope throughout.

Let’s go back to that point I keep going back to in The New Jim Crow, that the wealthy used racial issues to divide the poor, who should have been able to unite over common economic interests. We’re still doing this one.

Yes, people of color are disproportionately prosecuted for crimes, but the justice system is still skewed towards wealth. Racism is a problem, but not the only problem.

People in power are still trying to gain support by setting up divisions among the lower class, which is growing. Now they tell you it’s makers and takers, which is still technically colorblind, though they manage to get a lot of race-baiting in. It’s a lie though. Illegal immigrants aren’t sitting around collecting welfare; they are picking crops in 100-degree heat, and people collecting food stamps are working at Wal-mart with unpaid overtime and no health benefits. Sure, there are people who use credit cards incorrectly, but more than 60% of US bankruptcies are caused by medical debt, and student debt is crushing more and more people now.

People find it just as easy now to decide that other people are the problem as they did to decide that slavery was right, or that forcing Native Americans onto reservations was right, because the other side was somehow less. And there were people who benefitted, and they got their homesteads, sure. However, one thing I know from other reading is that usually to succeed as a homesteader you need to already have some funds, and so you could probably already afford to buy land.

So then, and now, there is always this trend towards greater aggregation of wealth, and now seems like a particularly bad time for it. Greed does bad things to societies and individuals. Racism, and ignoring of history, allows those skilled at manipulation to cover their greed.

The thing I hate most of all is how often the manipulated feel so righteous about it, and I feel great inadequacy in having made this point at all – that this needs to be clearer or more elegant, and I can’t seem to manage it. But of course, my point is for people to read more, and if they do that, maybe they’ll get those points on their own. However, there is one thing that keeps coming to mind, so I’m going to end on these words from Pastor Niemoller:

“First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”