Hello everyone. If I had thought this out better, there would have been an introductory post that explained just what I am trying to do here. Well, poor planning on my part. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. There’s a lot going on, and there’s a lot that I want to say. I thought I could write a couple of posts to be ahead of the game, but I see that it is hard to keep up. I’m still learning how to use this medium. Look for my “About” page. It will hopefully explain my reasoning for this…..
First post …
George Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, triggered demonstrations, protests and rioting across the country and around the world. The incident occurred at the peak of the COVID-19 lockdown. Millions of people were out of work, or working from home. Thanks to today’s cellphone technology and the speed of social media, people around the world watched the event unfold in near real time.
In the days after Floyd’s death the news media turned on a dime and almost forgot about COVID-19 entirely, choosing to focus 100 percent on Minneapolis. After more than two months of COVID-19, I think my wife Christine and I were both already emotionally fatigued. As we flipped channels to follow the developments, it was both confusing and troubling. One minute there would be coverage depicting unity among the crowds that were made up of people from all walks of life joining in solidarity. The next minute we were watching the talking head of the moment making comments that did nothing more than incite more protest, not to mention the inconsistent news media and non-leadership that was coming out of our government officials at all levels. Then there was social media.
When President Obama was elected, researcher John Dovidio said in an interview that his election was made possible in part due to a decline of racial prejudice. He didn’t say we have conquered it, just that there has been a decline. Attitudes and long held beliefs take a long time to change for an individual, let alone a nation. What would the country look like if racism were eliminated? Would it be a country where Blacks and Whites live together in harmony, or would it be a world where the terms black and white have no political meaning?
A couple of mornings into the unrest in Minneapolis, I listened to Van Jones on CNN. He warned that if someone tells you they’re not racist and don’t see color, you should run, because that is the sign of a person who has never engaged with the fact that we all see color. He admits that when he walks down the street and sees a black man he gives it a second look because even he has been primed by this society to suspect black people. In case you didn’t know, Van Jones is Black.
His remarks really struck me. I began to think about my own racial biases. How did my current day beliefs about racism develop? When did they first begin to develop, and what were the influences? I’ve always believed that everyone has prejudices and biases. I have told myself that I am fully aware of mine and have always worked hard not to discriminate because of them. Admitting you have a prejudice or bias is a step in the right direction. But does simply being aware and not allowing them to impact the way you treat others absolve a person of those prejudices and biases? In keeping with my belief that where a person stands on an issue is based on where they sit or where they’ve sat, I needed to review my experiences to understand how I feel and believe.
I was born in Centre, Alabama, in 1962. Centre was, and still is, a small town about 90 miles west of Atlanta, Georgia. The 1960’s were a turbulent time across the country, but even more so in Alabama. In 1963 Gov. George Wallace defied federal desegregation orders by ordering state patrolmen to prevent Black students from entering White schools. The Federal Government stepped in forcing the beginning of desegregation in Alabama. Sadly, there are still school districts in the state that have not completely complied with those desegregation orders.
In 1969 I entered the 1st grade at Centre Elementary. Miss Wilkie’s class included 23 White children and one Black female. In 1972, my 4th grade class gained two Black female students who transferred in. I don’t remember the circumstances of the transfer, but I remember Mrs. Strickland’s discussion with the class the day before they arrived. She asked us to be accepting of the two, and helped us to understand what was going on in our school system. I don’t remember the words, but I remember the sincerity in her voice and the time she took, making eye contact with each of us. Anytime there is racial unrest, I think back to that day.
Sometime in the early 70’s, during a Wednesday night business meeting at our church, Mrs. Amy Chester brought forth a motion for consensus to invite members of the Girl Scouts and their families to come to our church on Girl Scout Sunday. Mrs. Amy felt she needed to bring it up because there were a couple of Black families involved in the Girl Scouts. Pine Grove Baptist Church was a small, White country church. There were no official rules disallowing Blacks from attending. But because it had never happened, Mrs. Amy felt she needed to ask the question. The discussion was brief and the motion passed, unanimously. They were welcome to attend our church anytime. Sometime after that I was riding in the backseat of the Chester Family’s car and something came up about race. I don’t remember what exactly we were talking about or what I said, but Mrs. Amy turned to me and explained very sincerely why I was wrong. It was another teachable moment that has affected my views.
One of the biggest influences in my life was my paternal grandfather, Papaw. He was the last in a long line of farmers. He had retired from cotton farming around the time I was born and rented that land to another man to farm, retaining a few acres to raise vegetables for our families. My Dad was an only child and he and my Mom built our home next to Papaw and Mamaw. Because Dad broke from farming and chose a career with General Electric, I spent a lot of time with Papaw while Dad worked. I learned a lot about respecting all people, regardless of skin color from him. Before Papaw retired from raising cotton, he hired a couple of teenage boys from the community to help with the farm each year. The majority of them were young, Black men.
During the times I spent with my Papaw, it wasn’t uncommon for one of his former farmhands to stop by to say hello. There was always much respect that went both ways. There is a particular visit that stands out in my memory. After Papaw introduced me as his grandson, the man kneeled down and spoke directly to me. He said, “You listen to your Papaw. If it wasn’t for him I don’t know where I would be today. He taught me how to work, how to give a day’s work for a day’s pay.” He laughed and then said, “He’ll work you to death, but it will make you a man.” I saw a tear come to Papaw’s eye and he put his hand on the man’s shoulder and said, “I don’t know about all that, but I couldn’t have made a crop without you.”
My grade school years passed without any significant racial issues in our school and county, that I remember. But it wasn’t perfect. The N-word was prevalent in the community. The term was socially acceptable, or so it seemed to me. It wasn’t uncommon to hear it in conversations, even when a Black person was participating in the conversation. But there were those who spoke up against its use. It was not allowed in school.
Desegregation seemed to be a distant memory in Cherokee County by the time I was in high school. But there was one thing that occurred regularly that didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time and still puzzles me to this day. Cherokee County High School, grades 9 thru 12, included about 430 students. The entire student body could sit on one side of the gymnasium. During pep-rallies, the students filed into the gym and sat with their respective class. The band also sat together. The majority of the Black students did not sit with their class. They sat on the other side of the gym. The Black athletes, band members, and cheerleaders did sit with their class or with the band. Pep-rally was a big deal. There was a cheering competition between the classes. They were always a lot of fun. But the Black students on the other side of the gym didn’t participate. I don’t remember school leadership ever trying to encourage them to join in. And to be fair, I don’t remember the White student body making an effort either. Since the school wasn’t experiencing any racial tension, maybe the school leadership felt it was better not to try to fix what didn’t appear to be broken.
In July of 1981 after high school graduation, I enlisted in the US Air Force. I had played in the band in school, so I applied and was accepted to be a part of the basic training drum and bugle corps. There were 53 Airmen Basic assigned including 4 African Americans and 5 Hispanics. The bugle corps were co-ed, so we also had 11 females. Most of us were fresh out of high school, but there were a few that were in their late 20’s. We were from all walks of life. Our Training Instructor was a female named Sergeant Opal. The males and females lived in separate dormitories, but other than that, we completed all of our training together.
The US military was working its way through rough times. It had been less that 10 years since the end of the Vietnam war. The Selective Service System had been suspended in 1975 and the services were making the transition to an all volunteer force. Drugs were an issue and drug testing was first being implemented in the early 1980s. During basic training, we attended numerous classes on race relations that included courses in Black history and the dynamics of racial prejudice. How much this training accomplished is hard to say. For me it was the first time I had participated in a formal training course on the subject that was attended by both Blacks and Whites from so many walks of life. I found it to be very eye opening.
My first duty station after basic and technical training was Barksdale AFB, Louisiana. The first friends I made were Ric Cantu and Michael Salazar. Ric was my roommate for about a year. They were both Hispanic. Ric was from San Antonio, Texas, and Michael was from Alamogordo, New Mexico. We did everything together. After the first couple of years, a new Non-Commissioned Officer arrived in my work center. His name was Hedibeto (Eddie) Recio. He had been in the Air Force for over 10 years. We immediately became good friends. During one of our discussions he mentioned a situation where he had been discriminated against. I looked at him and said “why would you be discriminated against? You’re not Black!” He paused and looked at me and said, “Seriously?” I had absolutely no idea that racial discrimination happened to any other race beyond Blacks. There were no Hispanics in my hometown. I had not been conditioned by my hometown community to have prejudices or biases towards Hispanics. I simply didn’t know what I didn’t know.
In 1995, I was accepted to attend the US Air Force First Sergeant Academy at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Alabama. There were about 60 of us, all senior non-commissioned officers. We hailed from bases all over the world. The class was a six-week course and as with most training environments, friendships were born. One weekend, a small group of us decided to go to Atlanta. I was the only one from the group who had been to Atlanta, so it was up to me to put together an itinerary. We toured the town and decided to go to Stone Mountain the final afternoon before heading back to Montgomery. After visiting the mountain and a couple of the museums, we stopped in a park to eat lunch. While we were there, a souped-up pickup truck, with two very large confederate flags and a group of young kids in the back entered the park. They were loud and obnoxious and we could hear them screaming racial insults as they drove through. For the first time in my life, I was embarrassed by the racist actions of people who were from my part of the country.
In 2001, I was the First Sergeant in the base hospital at Yokota AB, Japan. I worked directly for the hospital commander. I had a rather large office and needed some art to decorate. I had discovered an artist named Don Stivers. His body of work consist of mostly military paintings from all eras. Because I was a First Sergeant, I wanted one of his paintings that featured a First Sergeant. He had just released what would be his final First Sergeant painting. It was titled Top, and depicted a mounted Union calvary unit with the first sergeant in the leadership position. It was a civil war era painting.
I purchased a copy and displayed it in my office. It had been there for a few weeks and one afternoon my boss stopped in to talk. He hadn’t seen the painting because we usually met in his office, not mine. He didn’t comment at the time, but the next time we met he wanted to talk about it. He asked if I thought it was appropriate to have a civil war era painting in my office? I was puzzled by the question, and told him I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't have it. His response was, “Chris, you’re a White guy from Alabama. That painting doesn’t build any credibility with the Black airmen in the unit”. I was really caught off guard and my response was, “It’s a Union calvary unit, Sir!” I asked if there had been any complaints and he said no. I asked if he wanted me to remove it and he said, “I’m not going to require you to remove it, that’s your call. Just something to think about”. I elected to keep it and it was displayed for the remainder of my time in that office. I never had anyone question it other than him. Looking back, I wonder if it might have offended someone or caused a young Black airman to feel they could not come to me with their problems. My primary responsibility as First Sergeant was the care and feeding of the roughly 500 enlisted men and women who worked in the base hospital. Approximately 30% of them were Black.
On August 12, 2017, white nationalists and counterprotesters clashed over removal of Confederate monuments. While not the first city to do so, Charlottesville’s decision to remove a Civil War monument quickly led to the governor declaring a state of emergency after an Ohio man drove a car into a crowd of protestors killing one. As more and more locations voted to remove statues, I wondered where it would stop. Our country is covered with historical references to the past. When driving down any byway, you will find many monuments and historical markers that reveal the things that happened in a given location over the course of time. It’s hard to drive through parts of the south without seeing numerous markers for the Civil War battles, the Trail of Tears, and countless others. If we remove the symbols, will we eventually forget those parts of our country’s history? I feared the loss of civil war era history. I thought I had a good understanding of racism and its causes. But I have come to understand that I am clueless when it came to understanding how Blacks view such things as Civil War monuments, statues, and flags.
It wasn’t until George Floyd’s death that I began to think in different terms. Many symbols are very hurtful for many people. Imagine that you are African-American, and you need to go to the courthouse in your town. As you pull up, there is a Confederate Flag flying under the state flag or the Confederate flag is used as a part of the state flag. Or along the path where you regularly exercise stands a prominent statue of a Confederate soldier or proslavery leader. How do we ensure we never forget from where we came historically without fanning the flames of racism?
Following the death of George Floyd, I began to see people posting offensive material to their timelines on social media. Someone redesigned the Coexist Interfaith Peace Symbol Sign using the Confederate stars and bars as the letter X and was offering them for sale. Then there was a post depicting a person wearing a surgical mask with the Confederate Flag depicted. I asked the person who posted those items if they thought their timing could be any worse. What followed was an attempt to explain why the Confederate Flag isn’t a racist flag. I really wanted to suggest that he go to Minneapolis and set up a little souvenir tent offering those items for sale during the protest and riots there. As protests and demonstrations occur around the country, companies like Ben & Jerry’s came out in support of racial justice and NASCAR banned the Confederate flag from all events. Unfortunately, NASCAR hadn’t considered that someone would fly a plane over one of their events with a Confederate flag in tow.
My thoughts on the events since George Floyd’s death, considering my life’s experiences, leave me here. I have not experienced racism the way that African-Americans, Hispanics, and other races have. I can read about it and discuss it with those who have, and maybe understand it to some degree. But I can never feel what they have felt. Nonetheless, my experiences have influenced me. Just as Van Jones says he takes a second look when he sees a black man on the streets, I take a second look when I see a Confederate Flag flying high in front of a home or displayed on a car bumper, t-shirt, or tattoo. In case you missed it, I’m White.
I am not an advocate of tearing down statues and monuments that represent our history, but my beliefs are shifting towards evaluating the time and place of their display. Preserving history is important, but we have to get away from using it to covertly or overtly fan the flames of racism. If you listened to President Trump’s commencement speech at West Point, it was laced with references to the Civil War. Yes, all references were about the Union forces and Union victories. But if my painting of a mounted Union calvary unit may have offended some members of my unit as my hospital commander suggested, the president’s reference to the Civil War certainly offended some of the 1000 cadets graduating that day. The fact that it was given during one of the worst periods of racial unrest in our country’s history certainly didn’t help matters.
This I know. Racism is much bigger that police brutality towards Blacks. Overcoming it will not happen quickly and will not happen without leadership at the highest levels advocating for it. We need a national dialogue. I’m not sure I can offer any soulutions, but I want to be in that discussion.
That’s where I stand.
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Notes
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/post-racial-society-distant-dream/395255/
https://www.facebook.com/vanjones/videos/its-not-good-enough-to-be-non-racist-we-must-be-anti-racist/177906256975329/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/this-day-in-history-desegregation-alabama-schools_n_3896460
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/14/us/gardendale-alabama-school-desegregation-ruling/index.html
https://theundefeated.com/features/if-you-truly-knew-what-the-n-word-meant-to-our-ancestors-youd-never-use-it/
https://www.bmtflightphotos.af.mil/Portals/20/Flight%20Photograhs/1980s/1981/8%20-%20August/031101-F-1981A-012.jpg
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1986/05/success-story-blacks-in-the-military/306160/
https://www.sss.gov/history-and-records/vietnam-lotteries/
https://www.donstivers.com/product-page/top
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/04/race-relations
https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears
https://www.wspa.com/news/hate-or-heritage-the-history-behind-the-confederate-battle-flag-sparks-debate/
https://www.benjerry.com/values/issues-we-care-about/racial-justice
https://www.al.com/news/2020/06/plane-protesting-nascar-flies-confederate-flag-above-talladega.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/13/trump-west-point-speech-graduation