Thread by @TrevonDLogan

Me: When did you know it would really change?

Dad: When they killed Chaney Goodman and Schwerner in ‘64.

Me: Why?

Dad: They thought they could kill white folks like they did black folks. No sir, no sir! That was their biggest mistake. You can’t do that. Police messing up

1/N

In his Ellisonian way, I think my Dad has a point. In our history, abuses to black people are socially acceptable. We’ve seen footage since motion pictures began of atrocities committed against black people. Before that, we have photos. They are an American perennial. 2/N

But if there is one thing that white people in a white supremacist society will not, under most circumstances, accept it is being treated like black people. It is part of the racial compact. Irrespective of ones politics, every white person is supposed to uphold this. 3/N

When they killed Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in 1964 it was a simple coordinated law enforcement murder. They shot them and buried them in shallow graves. But you just didn’t do that to white people so blatantly. And certainly not with the FBI and everyone else looking on. 4/N

While they were searching for the the three civil rights workers they found eight other bodies— including Charles Moore and Henry Dee, two men who’d been abducted and killed by Klan members a month earlier, in May of 1964. EIGHT OTHER BODIES! None sparked a national outcry. 5/N

You don’t kill white folks and then let everyone know that law enforcement (sheriff and police) organized the murder and bragged about it. Unapologetic! Refuse to prosecute for murder even with overwhelming evidence. But they did, because that’s what they did to black people. 6/N

When James Reen was killed in Alabama in 1965 it was the same result. They had beaten black people to death in Alabama, but not white ministers like this on a public stage. And not with a hospital that refused to treat him because he was an integrationist. 7/N

The march from Selma to Montgomery was organized in the response to the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was beaten and shot by state police during a peaceful protests. In fact, police served him with an arrest warrant while he lay on his death bed. Little national coverage 8/N

Those events turned public attention to the cause of civil rights not because they exposed America to what racists were doing, but they exposed the depths that racists would go to keep their way of life. They were willing to burn the racial social compact publicly to keep it. 9/N

(Aside— we need to have a conversation about how many white WWII veterans were involved in murdering black civil rights activists. I think it’s related to the ways that patriotism is racialized today. These racist veterans believed their murderous actions were patriotic.) 10/N

But you can’t burn the racial social compact like that. That scares white folks. Even if what you’re trying to do is maintain your treasured elements of a white supremacist system, you have to play by the rules. Failure to do so comes with punishment, like federal oversight. 11/N

If you look at the police today they’re making the same mistake. The unprovoked abuse, the teargas, the rubber and wooden bullets, the pepper spray. All of it is a show of force that they are metering out indiscriminately. They are treating white folks like black folks. 12/N

In their attempt to hold onto their absolute power as police, they are willing to sacrifice the racial social compact. But you can’t do that costlessly. It upsets white people. And history has shown that when you do you’re on the way to losing what you’re fighting to protect 13/N

That’s just one narrative (and it’s not a completely correct one), but it’s an interesting perspective that helps me rationalize what’s been happening the last few days. None of this is new to anyone paying attention, so something else is afoot. Maybe Dad is right about this 14/N

Perhaps with COVID19, with the callous treatment of essential workers, ineffective economic policies, poor public administration, voting in a pandemic, and police brutality, too many examples of white people being treated like black people.

It’s worth a thought...15/15