Our History As Told By Our Museum

During the five plus hour plane ride to Washington, D.C. I passed the time by reading a novel titled “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead. The novel tells the story of a runaway slave named Cora as she attempts a daring escape from her hellish life on a Georgia plantation to freedom in Canada. The author does a masterful job transporting the reader back in time by capturing the lives of slaves in extremely graphic details. The book is littered with tales of slave catchers, night riders, public lynchings, savage beatings, and other sordid particulars that I’ll spare you. Those sinister thoughts clouded my mind as I, a mere three generations personally removed from those real-world accounts that influenced Whitehead's fictionalized atrocities, stood in a line waiting to enter the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. The museum has only been open for a little over a month and experts had estimated it would garner some 7,500 visitors a day but reports say upwards of 30,000 people a day have attempted to enter it’s halls.

The building ironically stands a mere stone's throw from a towering monument to our nation’s first President, a man who’s vast wealth and position is partly owed to the work of slaves. It was hard not to think about that as scores of people, who's skin color would have relegated them to this man’s property, stood waiting to learn their shared history outside a building that rest in the shadow of the world’s tallest obelisk honoring a slave owner.

It’s that echoed history and a kinship of mutual and understood generational suffering that bonds African-Americans to one another. It’s why we could be total strangers to one another with no blood relation and greet one another as "brother" or "sister." It’s why in a crowd of people, when Black faces are scarcely seen, if we meet one another’s gaze, we exchange a nod. Outside the museum, there was an apprehensive yet truly joyous atmosphere of mostly Black faces swelling with a sense of pride and togetherness unlike anything I've ever personally been apart of. I saw one woman walking with her children, smiling as she said to her older daughter, “I like when I hear people say, it’s our museum. I like that. It IS our museum.” I saw older Black women dressed in their finest Sunday outfits. Older Black men wearing those cheap “Obama ’08” hats you'd find at corner stores throughout America's ghettos as if they were stately garb. Young Black men and Black women with dreadlocks falling down their backs toward the bend in their knees and afros stretching skyward wearing "Black Lives Matter" tees. Different corners of the country house us, age separated us, and contrasting events of life have molded us, but when you stood in that line, if you are an African-American, we all shared the same palpable excitement as each of us was eager to behold the unknown and forgotten history that awaited us.

Auction Block

Once inside the simplest way to describe what I felt initially would be a perplexing mixture of profound sadness and suppressed rage. The permanent exhibit of the museum begins in the early 1400s at the start of slavery and works it’s way forward in time to chronicle life for Africans and their descendants throughout our nation’s complicated history. In the earlier parts of the exhibits, you see people in tears, or people fighting back tears, but you mostly see saddened head shakes and hear the sucking of teeth. It’s not everyday you see pieces of a slave ship and read the firsthand accounts of people ripped from their lives to be herded onto a ship with conditions wholly unfit for brainless livestock let alone men, women, and children. You don’t typically see auction blocks and know that is where hundreds of untold human feet, BLACK feet, stood apprehensively awaiting an uncertain fate. In your daily life you don’t get to read a story sewn onto a bag meant for gathering cotton that a mother once filled with a lock of her hair. The bag and that hair was then given to her child moments after the child was sold because she (the mother) had no other possessions to bequeath to her beloved, whom she knew she'd certainly never see again.

Often there was a lot of these hushed exchanges as strangers shared unknown details from something they'd previously learned before their visit, adding a layer of nuance to a given story or artifact on the wall. It’s not until you get to around the 1870s do the personal connections start to build with the museum. An older woman told me a story of remembering the nicest clothing her grandfather owned was his Union soldier dress uniform he received for fighting in the Civil War just like the one we stood in front of. Or another elderly woman offered me details from a childhood memory of seeing the scars her great-mother still bore from a beatings that left her back in a similar condition seen in Private Gordon’s famous photo.

Time has removed nearly all of those firsthand accounts from the world, but it’s when you move further into the 20th century that you learn a lot of our history is still living. There were men and women who could recall what they were doing and where they were when key moments of the Civil Rights struggle happened. For example, a woman acknowledged to me that she heard the bomb that killed four little girls in Birmingham because she lived there at the time. Watching older faces come alive as their past once again comes into focus was as much a part of the experiance of the NMAAHC as any of the aged artifacts on its walls. There were all these conversations about feeling a sense of open racism in 2016 not felt since the days of their childhoods. You'd see and hear scores of people truly fearful of what someone as duplicitous as Donald Trump possibly becoming President means for our nation. Especially what that means for us because African-Americans know all to well how easily our nation can bend toward hate and cruelty.

Ultimately it was a truly moving experiance and one I’ll never forget. I’m eager to go again with my children and I would recommend ALL AMERICANS make the journey to our nation's capital to absorb the museum's wonders firsthand. As cliche as this sounds, African-American History and Culture is AMERICAN HISTORY AND AMERICAN CULTURE. It’s a museum that tells the very uncomfortable truth about the horrors this nation has actively inflicted onto millions of people solely because of their skin color. Further more it reminds us of what little our government has done to truly correct that unforgivable sin.

As saturnine as a visit to the NMAAHC can be, there is something greater to be found at the nadir of our suffering; our strength. You can feel our resilience. You see that African-Americans have always found hope, even in the darkest of places and times. You learn that we've always grown loving families even from poisoned soil that was watered with our blood. You see our capability to find a sense of self and community even as those things were actively being stripped from us. Yes, you see our shameful passivity, but you also see our moments of quiet and open rebellion. You learn about our perseverance, witness our will to survive, and in some cases, our ability to triumph in the face of a government philistine not only to our culture, but indifferent to our very lives at times. The National Museum of African-American History and Culture is a living testimony that highlights the unwavering spirit of African-Americans. Despite an alarming deficiency in love, kindness, and basic human dignity from a majority of the people we’ve shared this nation with, for a majority of our time here, African-Americans DID NOT PARISH. That’s what I think that edifice was build upon. Our collective courage that has culminated into now. "Now" is not our journey’s denouement. "Now" is a continued battle for true equality that I’ve personally never been more inspired to fight for.

"...And Martin Luther King Jr Had Hoes"

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity”

As insightful as I am, the quote above is not from my own hand. It’s from the famed African –American socialist W.E.B. Du Bois. What you’re about to read here holds nowhere near the intellectual gravity of something like The Soul of Black Folk.  This is a tongue-in-cheek and very politically incorrect social commentary on a few age-old "certainties" in the Black community.

Self awareness is the hardest thing for anyone to do, so I don't expect this to be easy to read if you're Black. And it shouldn't be. I believe that we, as a Black people, need to shine the brightest light on ourselves. 

The Police Aren’t Always Out to Get Us!

Let me tell you a little secret. Most people live their lives with little to NO interaction with law enforcement. Why is that? Because they don’t place themselves in situations where the police SHOULD be involved. Sure, Blacks are sometimes unfairly treated by the police. I myself have been “harassed” a time or two, but a lot of times, I must admit I was doing something I shouldn't or I was in a place where someone else was doing something they shouldn’t. Think really hard about an interaction with the police. Remove your emotion and you'll see that 99.999% of the time they probably had a fair and reasonable excuse to be there.

Two sides to every story. Don't do anything to get you a**kicked
then mostly you won't get you ass kicked.

During a conversation with a police officer, (And he was a Black police officer) on a film set I learned something that makes a lot of sense. "If the police is soap and every neighborhood is a body, the police in your neighborhood has to deal with the “armpits” and "asshole" " the officer said. "Every part of the body is the same color, and not all parts smell. In fact, some parts are really nice, but when you're always getting jammed in the ass you're just going to assume everywhere stinks and needs to be scrubbed." 



You have to be mindful that the police never get calls where people say things like “Hey we’re having a party and just wanted to see if you guys wanted to come hangout with us.” 

They get called because someone in f**king up. They’re almost exclusively dealing with people committing or suspected of committing crimes. So when this officer was in a black neighborhood, he was always dealing with the lower end of Black culture, and as unfair as it was he too started to get a “slanted view” of all Black people. Same thing happened with Mexicans when he worked that beat. Same thing was happening now that he was working a beat in a White neighborhood. That's just human nature man. Unfair? Yes, but anyone would start to feel that way. “Cops who work in White neighborhoods look at all White people the same way cops working in our neighborhoods look at all Black people; potential suspects.”

Soul Food SUCKS!

I’m writing a movie and I have a great line about soul food that I’ll use here and now. "The easiest thing for a people to pass down is their food and their recipes. An important part of a culture is what the people eat. Unfortunately for African-Americans we were victims of slavery. This means we were left to eat whatever our masters didn't. Pigs feet, chittlins, hog maws, neck bones and all the other shit that wasn't originally meant for human consumption. So in turn we've passed down a shitty diet from generation to generation."

The "soul" may be the only think this meal is good for,
because it damn sure ain't good for anything else in your body.

There is a reason that Blacks are more likely to have high blood pressure, be obesity, or get diabetes. Most of these diseases are centered on a person’s diet and Black people have been eating so badly for so long that our genes were literally reshaped! As good as soul food is, few things on the menu have real nutritional value. We as a people need to put down the fried chicken and collard greens and pick up some steamed veggies and baked fish. We need to introduce healthy recipes to create a better diet for our children and start to reverse at least one of the effects of slavery that still impact us today.

OJ Probably Did It.

Guilty.

Really nothing else to say. That negro’s guilty.

We Don't Give The Good White People Get Enough Credit

If you know me, I can be a bit… should I say “militant”. There are times where I say things that make Kanye West look like Carlton Banks from Fresh Prince. Look at Civil Rights like a game of a tug-of-war between giants and men. We needed a few giants to switch sides, pull WITH us, and swing public opinion for more giants to join in. Civil Rights took a real turn after this moment.

John F. Kennedy, the most powerful and recognizable White man in the country, instantly helped vilify every racist in a way Martin Luther King JR never could do. They were not only shamed by one of their own but the most important of their own. What JFK really did was act as an example for the rest of White America on the fence about Civil Rights to follow. He helped Whites that would have otherwise continued to stand pat, get off their asses and join our cause. In a sense, he  “co-signed” for us and that helped fast-track civil rights.

My greatest point is this: A White person that TRULY cared about Civil Rights in 1960’s showed real courage. If you were Black in 1960's, you were supposed to show courage. If your house is burning down, you’re SUPPOSE to run in and save YOUR kids. Hell it’s YOUR house! Sure it’s still a brave action but it’s an EXPECTED, and I’d even say a required action. You see your neighbor on the other hand doesn’t have to lift a finger. Why should they? Their house is fine, their kids are fine, why should they risk their lives? 

Can you name the two white guys in this picture and/or tell me
why the greatest Civil Right leader is holding it?

That’s not only a brave action but it’s a selfless sacrifice. A White person siding with Blacks on Civil Rights in early 20th Century would mean becoming a social outcast, and in the south, it could even mean death. Yes, more White people were on the opposite side of the fence, let’s not be so quick to dismiss the ones that were willingly hand-in-hand with us. We should honor those that fought with us because they are just as much a part of Black History. Because Black History is American History.

The Union Winning The Civil War Was The Worst Thing to Happen to The Country.

This is so much more complex than you think. If you’re still reading, this one is going to change the way you view that war forever. It’s going to take a minute but stay with me.

There is no debating it. The Civil War had to happen. Slavery is a black eye that this country WILL never erase. Ever. While the Union’s victory propelled the country forward, that same victory sealed us to a fate, in some respects, far worse.

What makes this country different from every other country on this planet? It’s not our freedoms and liberties. Canada, England, and France enjoy many of the same ones you and I do. In some cases, like free health care, even better ones. What about our wealth and technology? Japan is just as advanced. China’s just as rich. Then what makes us different? We’re the only country where the people have a fear of the government and not the other way around.

Sure there are other governments that are far more ruthless, but it’s because those governments have a real and palpable fear of its people. For a good reason too. Every great civilization have been able to successfully overthrow their government at one point or another. Look at what happened in the Middle East a few years ago. Those people were successful in overthrowing incompetent and cruel leaders, giving their country new starts from the ashes of rebellion. Of course some of those situations still aren’t ideal and most have years of unrest ahead, but you know what? They were still ABLE to do something which is more than us here in America can say. We can’t do anything to change our government.

Why is that? How can issues that have over 90% of the voting population's support still not pass in Congress? Why can’t something as universally agreed upon like raising the minimum wage happen? How can the vast majority of the public think something should change and it still not change? Why do lawmakers seem to do whatever cooperations want and NOT what the people want? Because all those years ago when Robert E. Lee surrendered, he also surrendered the people’s ability to ever truly question our government ever again. That victory empowered US government over the people and the stranglehold has never loosened. In fact, it was tightened, with added agencies like the FBI, NSA and the CIA. And with laws like the Patriot Act.

 

The Civil War was a MUCH needed moment in
American History, but it was ultimately a waste.

By trying to keep the asinine and archaic practice of slavery intact, those idiots in the South forced the government to stand on the right side of history. We, the Independent American people, post Revolutionary War, used our first chance for Civil Revolution to keep f**king slavery intact! Really?!

It’s like going to a school where some of the policies suck for it's students. Not all but things really need to change. Say you somehow break into the principal's office, hijack the intercom and you have a chance to talk to the entire school. A chance for the students to be heard. A chance to make a real impact, but you use the platform to try and keep an even stupider policy intact. The powers that be then break down the door, kick you off the intercom AND punish you…severely. The school then goes against your suggested policy, thus making them look smarter and you dumber. Because of your stupidity the school tightens security and kills any chance of EVER letting a student speak up. All the while masking the real problem; that some kind of CHANGE needed to happen. You’ve successful empowered a flawed system into thinking it’s flawless.

Since 1865, the government's have been looking at the American people as simpleminded boobs that can’t think for themselves. Foolish simpletons that would be lost without Uncle Sam’s guiding hand. They don’t listen to the people because the last time the people had a real chance to talk the people stood up for something really really really stupid.

Closing Thoughts

Now before you call me an "Uncle Tom", let me tell you a few things about me. That opening quote you read? I knew it by heart. I’d venture to say before reading this, most of you didn’t know who W.E.B. Du Bois was, much less read something like The Soul of Black Folk, which I have. I can tell you the day Fred Hampton died. Do you know who that is and why he's important? I’ve read Alex Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X… twice. I knew about Solomon Northup some ten years before his story became the Oscar winning film 12 Years A Slave because I read part of the book in high school. I say all these things to let you know I'm someone that knows my history and knows the history of his people.

I get it. There are tons of things that happened in this country that were well beyond our control. If life is a race, and America is the stadium, from 1776 to about 1900, Blacks were expected to run AND win a race from OUTSIDE the stadium. From 1900-1975 we were in the stadium but expected to win starting 20 yards behind the other runners WITH 15 pound lead shoes. From 1975 to now, Blacks are running that same race, finally free of the weighted shoes, but we still start about 15 yards off the pace.

If anything, our disadvantages should make us stronger, better, faster, and smarter than everyone else not weaker. But we don’t think like that. We just see limits and hurdles rather than building blocks and strengthening opportunities. Too often we quit before we even try. We don’t have the same drive as the generations before us. We’re too comfortable. Most Black folks think "The Struggle" is over. Why? Because we have a Black President, we can sit in the front of a bus and sh*t in same toilets as White folks?

Even with those early handicaps, Blacks like Fredrick Douglas, Mary McLeod and Garrett Morgan STILL made something of themselves. They found a way to rise above the circumstances of the world they lived in and outshine Whites that had far greater advantages. If you're reading this and you're Black tell me something; what's your excuse some 100 years later? I'd hate for heaven to be a real place, have someone like Booker T. Washington ask me how come I didn't make something more of myself, me have to look him in his eyes and say, "It was too hard". 

The Great American Blackout: Why it doesn’t PAY for the Black Athlete to be BLACK

BE ADVISED, SOME LANGUAGE AND IDEAS MAYBE VIEWED AS OFFENSIVE

I’ve always thought that sports are the world’s greatest reality TV-show. It’s unscripted and unpredictable. Sports are equal and fair. (Save for some funky refereeing every now and again.) You roll a ball onto a field, or a court, you throw away your differences, all the talking ends, the game is played and the better men, or women, win. It’s simple. You’re completely at the mercy of your and your teammates’ ability to overcome the other team’s desire to win. Sports has always been the place where it’s about the team you’re on, the color of your jersey and NOT the color of your skin. They (Sports) provide an easy way for White America to accept a black man as “one of their own”. People have a vested interest in their team, so why wouldn’t they have a vested interest in the players, even if some of those players were Black. That’s why sports stars of color had an easier time being accepted than they would at any other job. 

Earlier this year, I had the honor of speaking with a retired Black police officer from Jackson, Mississippi. He was an older gentleman that served as one of the first Black police officers in Jackson’s history. We talked about the struggles he and his fellow Black officers had to endure. When the Black officers tried to arrest White suspects, they were sometimes “vetoed” by White officers. If they did arrest White suspects, the Black officers had to speak to them (the White Suspects) like they would any other law abiding White citizen; like a child speaking to an elder. “I always found it humiliating to have to watch my words when speaking to a criminal" the gentleman said. "With the White officers around, we were always on eggshells. It’d always be “Boy what da hell you just say to him” or “Boy he’s a White man and you’re still just a nigger. That badge only gets you so far”. What we got from the community was bad, but the treatment from our fellow White officers was far worse.”

Sports are nothing like that. Teams were usually isolated from that level of hatred. When your livelihood depends on someone else’s actions, or non-actions, you tend to bond with them regardless of who they are. (When I was in the US Army, a White superior once told me about an old Army saying. "When the bullets are flying, I've never seen a nigger, or spik, or a kike in a foxhole. Just someone in the same uniform that I got on, who could save my ass.")That “us against the world” mentality always helps a team grow closer together. Teams are like families and what's the best thing about family? Family accepts you no matter what. In Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama, places where Blacks aren’t "too popular with the locals", there are plenty of White people in those same stands that cheer like crazy for Black athletes all day that wouldn’t stop for five minutes to help me fix a flat tire.

Somethings need not be said on TV. Even if you are on First Take. Rob Parker knows that now.

About a week or so, ESPN First Take contributor Rob Parker questioned if Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III was a “real brother” or a "cornball brother". Whether or not he was “down with the cause”. (Parker was subsequently suspended for 30 days by ESPN and forced to issue a public apology.) I’m not going to lie, I’ve had conversations like that about some black athletes, not RG3, and none of those conversations took place on national TV, nor should they. Questioning something like THAT about a Black person shouldn’t be discussed outside of the barbershop. Your barbershop, with people you know and people who know you. It's like calling a Black person an “Uncle Tom”. (Put it this way, I’d rather be called a “nigger” by Rush Limbaugh than be called an “Uncle Tom” by a random Black person on the street. I’m going to go out on a limb and say a lot of black people feel that way.)

Does this make you uncomfortable America?

In sports nowadays, it’s almost career suicide to be too “Black”. It’s good to be a "little Black" because being Black/Urban is seen as being “cool” or “hip”, but it’s a very fine line to walk. Only a few Blacks have the same "pull" in the Black community as they do in the White community. (Only White person I can think of that does this, Eminem.) Hip-Hop provides the perfect example of this theory. Jay-Z can go into any "hood" in America and get just as much love as he would in any suburb in America. Nas is equally, if not more talented in some people’s eyes, as Jay-Z but he doesn’t have nearly the same level of overall appeal. Nas crosses the line of what makes White people "comfortable" and he doesn’t care. Jay-Z doesn’t touch on the same social issues plaguing the Black community that Nas willingly addresses.  (That clearly keeps Jay-Z “cool” in the eyes of White America. Jay-Z's Black but not Nas "free my people" Black or Kanye "Bush hates Black people" Black.) Black athletes are forced to walk that line. It’s why Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson didn’t want Cam Newton to get any tattoos. It’s why the NBA implemented a dress code. It's why Kevin Durant and Dwyane Wade don't have any visible tattoos. Being too black hurts the bottom-line. The leagues know it, the owners know it and the players know it. (The tattoo thing doesn't hurt LeBron James because he's so freaking talented he could come out on the court wearing a blonde wig and he'd still be loved.)

Things like this don't happen anymore.

 We’ll never see athletes like Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Bill Russell again. Mostly because we don’t need them anymore. In the 1960’s, for real change to happen, we needed the best and brightest Black stars to stand up and be heard. The biggest Black stars back then were the athletes. (For the reasons I mentioned above.) When things in America “changed”, White people stopped wanting to hear about “Black problems”.  They felt/feel like things are fixed. Like racism is dead because we all use the same bathrooms and water fountains. (Now that we have a Black President, that narrative has gotten a million times louder. RACISM ISN’T DEAD JUST BECAUSE “YOU GUYS” VOTED FOR AND ELECTED A BLACK PRESIDENT... AND I DON’T CARE IF “YOU” DID DO IT TWICE.) White People don’t like to talk about racism the same way your friend doesn’t want to talk about the fat chick he nailed when he was drunk. Like your friend, America didn’t “know any better” at the time and they’re totally ashamed of what they did. Your friend and America don’t want to be reminded of the horrible mistakes they made. The only real social issue left for athletes to tackle is gay rights. (I really doubt an active Black athlete will “champion” this one first, only because being gay still isn’t widely accepted in the Black community, AKA "Da Hood". Which is bull, because WE OF ALL PEOPLE KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE TREATED UNEQUAL.)

Who RG3 decides to marry doesn't say
anything more or less about him as a Black man.

So yeah, RG3 has a White girlfriend and he may very well be a Republican, but that’s not why Rob Parker and other Black people are questioning his “blackness”. RG3 just said he didn't want to be the best BLACK quarterback. He even said he didn't want to be labeled as a Black quarterback. Some Black people, like Parker, think HE SHOULD. (Want to be the best Black QB that is.) If he doesn't, that somehow makes him less "black"? He didn’t/doesn't want to limit himself. He just wants to be seen as the best at what he does, regardless of the color of his skin. Professional athletes are like that though. Ali wasn’t in the ring screaming, “I’m the greatest Black boxer in the world!”. Those guys aren’t wired that way. I’m a screenwriter. I have Black friends that are screenwriters and we often talk about wanting to be the best black screenwriter. The level of competition in screenwriting is nothing like it is in professional sports. (It's definitely competitive, but lets just say there's more testosterone at Girl Scout meetings than there is at screenwriter meetings.)

A lot of things come to mind before you get to
"Black man" when you're thinking about Michael Jordan.

One last story to leave you with. When I was younger, a White friend and I were trading basketball cards. I had an extra Kareem Abdul-Jabbar card and I wanted to trade for a John Stockton card. (Not a smart trade, but it was a rookie Stockton card and my extra Kareem card was a “final years, I shouldn’t be playing anymore” Kareem card.) He wouldn’t do it. I jokingly said, “It’s because he's Black huh?” I laughed but my friend stayed quiet. I asked “Really? I bet if this was a Michael Jordan card you’d do it.” "Yes" my friend said. “But Kareem was a better player than Stockton is. Besides, Michael Jordan is Black too” I said. “No he’s not”, he replied. “Whoa, you’re saying Michael Jordan isn’t black?” I said shocked. “No, he’s black but... I don’t know. Michael Jordan isn’t black, he’s just Michael Jordan, you know?” Right then and there, on that bus, I learned of the power sports can have. The power to transcend a person beyond their race. That there's a whole other level of famous a Black person could be. But you know who else use to be talked about like that... OJ.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to subscribe and share the blog. Join in the discussion by leaving a comment below. Follow me on twitter @ParisLay. Until next time... Enjoy the View!