Thread by @rudepundit

I first heard about the Tulsa Race Massacre sitting at a table at the MLA conference in 1994. I don't remember his name, but I asked one of the people sitting with me what he was working on, and he said an article about the destruction of Greenwood. I asked what that was.

I felt sick to me stomach that I hadn't heard about it. I asked for details, and he told me the whole story. I told as many people as possible for a few years after because I felt so betrayed by my education (which at that point included graduate school).

The racist history of this country always shocks my students. I taught Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' play Appropriate this semester. It focuses around lynching photos. The students were confused and appalled because they hadn't heard about that.

By "that," I mean the photos, not lynching itself. They didn't know that lynchings could be a big town event where everyone gathered like it was a concert. Or that photos were sold as souvenirs. Or that people would cut off pieces of the victims as trophies.

I always tell them, "The real history of this country will wreck you." I mean especially racial history, but also the violence against workers, like the Battle of Blair Mountain.

The point here is that we don't become a better country by hiding this history. We can't move forward until we confront it and own it. Willful ignorance hurts us and divides us. Confessing your sins is the beginning of the path to redemption.

Here's a thing I wrote about this idea a couple of weeks ago. It all starts in our schools: rudepundit.blogspot.com/2021/05/how-pu…

In the second tweet up there, “me” should be “my.”