A massacre straight out of America's history
The massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, comes straight out of America's history books.
It throws us back to the founding of our country, when blacks were considered property.
It throws us back to the Civil War, a revolution waged by white supremacists and abetted by an anti-federal government frenzy in the South.
It throws us back to the assassination of the signer of the Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln, murdered by an avowed white supremacist.
It throws us back to the 19th and 20th centuries, when black churches were bombed and burned — including Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston — and when vigilante "justice" administered lynchings of blacks and civil rights activists.
It throws us back to the 1949 Rodgers and Hammersteinmusical "South Pacific" with "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught," its moving and controversial song about how racism spreads.
It throws us back to 1960, when Harper Lee published "To Kill a Mockingbird" about the brutality of racial inequality.
It throws us back to the mid-19th century Oregon Territory, when a Salem saloon owner was booted out of the territory due to his skin color, and when the new State of Oregon constitutionally excluded black residents.
It throws us back to the late 20th century, when violent white supremacists found a foothold in the Northwest, and whose later brethren carry on those beliefs, if not ... so far ... the same violence.
It throws us back to last week when, during a public hearing, an Oregon legislator remarked that white males couldn't get scholarships back in the days when he went to graduate school. Apparently, he has bought into the myth that people of color somehow have gained special treatment, a falsehood that he proceeded to unwittingly debunk by mentioning his own college scholarship.
It throws us back to every day in public school, where our educational system has allowed students of color to lag behind their counterparts academically — because they lacked the societal, economic and educational advantages of their colleagues.
It throws us back to practically every day in Oregon, one of the whitest states in the union, where some people act as if it's an affront, or at least unusual, to work, shop or socialize with people of color.
Racism lives. It spreads its ugly untruths about "others": They're lazy. They're dishonest. They commit more crimes than "we" do. They get special treatment from government and allow "us" to be suppressed. They are the butt of our jokes — "no harm done." We'd be better off without them.
Oscar Hammerstein II was right. Racism is not genetic; it is planted, fertilized and spread. Someone — undoubtedly many someones — nurtured the white-supremacist beliefs that enabled a shooter, whom authorities identified as Dylann Storm Roof, to take nine lives on Wednesday at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.
And it was the family members of those victims who voiced an antidote to racism: We forgive you.
Stand up to the racists. Speak out. Do not accept their prejudice as humor or as fact. Yet treat them with love instead of disdain. Show them that they have nothing to fear.
We cannot rewrite our history.
We must overcome it.
