Written by Don and Peggy Doman
Immigrants, slaves, illegal residents and indigenous people all have reason to share bad memories of our American history. The land of the free has as many nightmares as it has dreams of success. How do we work our way through our past, our present and enter into the future? I’m not sure, but I think we are going to need time, to recognize our faults, and accept who we have been, who we are now and who we can become.
The movement Black Lives Matter is pushing a number of people’s buttons currently, and I think that’s a good thing. Currently, I am producing five videos for the Chinese Reconciliation Park Foundation. In case you know nothing about the history of Chinese residents in Tacoma, I’ll lightly skim over the incident. In 1885 incident, Tacoma’s mayor with business owners and other “upstanding” citizens ran as many Chinese residents as they could find out of town, uprooting their lives and businesses, strictly because of their race. They were taken to the train, then in Lakewood, and sent to Portland. Their homes and businesses were burnt down the next day. Of course, as we all should know, there is no such thing as race. We are all the same people.
On a recent Saturday morning I was listening to NPR on KUOW. It was about two sisters of Cherokee heritage who drove and visited places along the Trail of Tears. The Trail of Tears was a series of forced relocations of approximately 60,000 Native Americans in the United States between 1830 and 1850. The Cherokee were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States in 1838 and moved to the Indian Territory, which became Oklahoma in 1907. They walked all the way. Of the sixteen thousand Cherokee starting the journey, a quarter of them died on the way. The two sisters who look completely different from each other (their grandfather nicknamed them Injun and Swede) undertook a journey of the Train of Tears. If you have the opportunity, listen to them describe their journey on the Trail of Tears.
Injun and Swede – https://www.thisamericanlife.org/107/transcript –
It seems like every week we hear about one of our national heroes being excoriated for having faults. I think we all have faults in our past, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are bad people. However, I do think we need to recognize that times change and what was acceptable a few years ago or two hundred years ago or thousands of years ago are not acceptable now.
The Biblical Israelites had slaves, and many of our founding fathers had slaves. We should find that abhorrent, but it doesn’t make them any less a hero for creating our country. America was almost torn apart and destroyed because of slavery and those states that withdrew from the nation in order to fight for enslavement. I had relatives who fought on both sides in the Civil War and other relatives that probably were forced to walk on the Trail of Tears. I think it was past time to remove the Confederate statues throughout the South. I can understand the resentment of those who have long carried and endured hatred and prejudice over the color of their skin. To fear the police because of the color of the skin is reprehensible.
What I find even more reprehensible is the fact that our “Land of the Free” incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. Our prison population is 2,193,798 people, which is 500,000 more than #2 – China, and two and a half times more than #3 – Russia. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), in 2018 Black males accounted for 34% of the total male prison population, white males 29%, and Hispanic males 24%.
This is the total make-up of the U.S. population:
- Hispanic and Latino (of any race): 15.3%
- Non-Hispanic white: 63.4%
- Native Americans and Alaska Natives: 1.3%
- Black or African American: 13.4%
- Other designations: 5.6%
“Prison costs taxpayers $80 billion a year. It costs some families everything they have.” – https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/12/17/the-hidden-cost-of-incarceration
Think what $80 billion dollars a year could do to help our country.
A growing trend is profiting from locking people up: “The United States has the world’s largest private prison population. Of the 1.5 million people in state and federal prisons in 2016, 8.5 percent, or 128,063, were incarcerated in private prisons.1) Another 26,249 people -73 percent of all people in immigration detention- were confined in privately-run facilities on a daily basis during fiscal year 2017.2)” – sentencingproject.org/publications/capitalizing-on-mass-incarceration-u-s-growth-in-private-prisons/
Fact: 6.1M Americans are barred from voting due to felony disenfranchisement laws.
With 34% of our Black population spending their lives in prison and the another 66% worrying about being stopped for “driving while black” is it any wonder that a few Black Lives Matter supporters are angry? Really angry? And as a whole, they are not being listened to. Ignoring the problem only exacerbates the problem. It festers and eventually erupts. President Trump is using the anger to further himself by appealing to white voters. He claims we will see more rioting by BLM crowds if Biden is elected. The contradiction is that the rioting right now is happening while Trump is in office, while he ignores the problem by blaming Black, indigenous people and immigrants while positioning himself as the Law and Order Candidate. If Donald J. Trump is not re-elected and Biden and Harris are, then we will probably see some real dialog and change. I call it living while reasoning and planning . . . with an eye to the future . . . and a better world.
I still honor the contributions of our forefathers and foremothers to build our country. I also think we need to acknowledge their failings and faults, just as we need to fess up to ours. But I also think we need to remember them as creatures of their time. We need to strive to do better in our time.
Thank you Don for a well researched and articulated message. I agree with your thoughts throughout. The entire history of our country, as it relates to today, should be thought-provoking for all Americans.
Will,
Thank you for commenting: “The entire history of our country, as it relates to today, should be thought-provoking for all Americans.” is exactly what I was aiming at. I hope others understand that as well. We all need to work together.
Thanks for sharing.
Don
You can wallow in the past if you like being a victim or look to the future if you like becoming a success. An obsession with the past, especially a past you never lived, is unhealthy mentally. At some point it becomes a self induced post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)…………just like those in my generation who can’t turn loose of Viet Nam from 50 years ago. If you remain “stuck” in the 1860’s you’ll wind up with the same symptoms as those stuck in the 1970’s; frozen in time in the past while the present moves into the future without you. This self induced psychosis is unhealthy for the individual as well as society. Learn from the past so as not to repeat it.
John,
Thanks for commenting.
Your comment “This self induced psychosis is unhealthy for the individual as well as society. Learn from the past so as not to repeat it.” speaks volumes. People have not learned from the past and that is the problem. They repeat the same offenses over and over again. You can’t build a better tomorrow, when you’re mired in the same reactions and thoughts that ruined and destroyed lives and dreams over the past hundreds or even thousands of years. The glory of America must be open to all.
Thanks for sharing.
Don
Which “people” are you talking about? White race? Sounds a bit racist to me. We are individuals not just members of some group defined by our skin color. Or does racism come in many skin colors? And how do you propose to identify and cure these “people” of their racism? A pop quiz? Self criticism sessions? Re-education camps? Imprisonment? Exile? Secret police? Neighborhood informer programs? Sounds like some of the techniques used by failed socialist totalitarian regimes. Yes the glory of America must be open to all and that can only happen in the future over which you have control, not mired in the past which you can never change but only learn from. It begins with every individual improving themselves which takes time, perhaps generations. Want to change the world for the better? Begin with yourself.
Kim,
Thank you for commenting.
You were correct. I misspoke. I meant to allude to the 65% of Black adults who have felt targeted because of their race.
Thanks for reading, fact checking, and sharing.
Don
While I appreciate your research, one if your last remarks in your article is misleading:
With 34% of our Black population spending their lives in prison and the another 66% worrying about being stopped for “driving while black”
Perhaps you meant that 34% of the US PRISON POPULATION is Black, which is true by many statistical reports. But not 34% of the entire US Black population as a whole. You imply this by referring to the remaining 66% of Black population. See the enclosed article:
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/raceinc.html
Another very interesting fact is that overall prison population is declining. Unfortunately the percentage of Black people in prison hasn’t declined much. See this article from May 2020:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/30/shrinking-gap-between-number-of-blacks-and-whites-in-prison/?amp=1
Please be careful when editorializing and stating erroneous data on these sensitive topics. We all need to more aware and educate ourselves to be good citizens.
Christy’s 1940 masterfully organized “Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States” (1787) speaks to the lesson for which we may again thank Don Doman. In viewing the scene, it is important to notice both who is present, and who is not – speaking to Don Doman’s thesis, the central problem they, we, and our Constitution have yet to happily resolve.
A visit to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scene_at_the_Signing_of_the_Constitution_of_the_United_States# will help to identify the cast, gender exclusive, wealth and white. History reveals, but only if we look.
Demanding that the “woke” sensibilities of today be applied to the sensibilities of 250 years ago is delusional just as would a critique of breeches, powdered wigs, and buckle shoes of then with the “fashion” of today. It was what it was back then and is what it is today and all the wishing isn’t going to change that. However the nation has significantly changed since that signing and you need to recognize that rather than bash the very founding or our Country. Are you suggesting that the portrait of the Signers should have included representative samples of the then population of genders, sexual orientations, races, religions, ethnicities, economic strata, political affiliation, etc. Absolutely ludicrous! What that painting does celebrate is the idea, if not the actually accomplishment then, that all are created equal, government serves at the pleasure of the people, and that we are entitled by our creator with certain inalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is something to celebrate not castigate.
John,
Thanks for commenting. You seem to want to glorify the heroes of the past no matter what their proclivities were, while I suggest we recognize them as people of their time along with their faults and celebrate what they got right from our current perspective hence my ending comment – “But I also think we need to remember them as creatures of their time. We need to strive to do better in our time.” Surely it doesn’t hurt in giving recognition for their efforts which helped us get where we are, while pointing out their failures as well. For example, Thomas Jefferson, a great hero and truly a founder of the revolution and creation of our country. He owned slaves and fathered children with one in particular (maybe others as well?). I saw a documentary a few years ago about a friendly gathering of descendants both black and white. Like climate change some refuse to accept science and DNA – https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/jefferson-sally-hemings-descendants.html. I see Jefferson as a great man, yet a man of his times. There is room for both. Life is not an either or proposition. As President Trump says, “It is what it is.”
Thanks for sharing.
Don
Bob,
Thanks for commenting.
I absolutely loved your final comment: “History reveals, but only if we look.” So true. The world changes and hopefully improves, that doesn’t mean we have to demean those who helped it along, but it also doesn’t mean white washing everything and ignoring the truths.
Thanks for sharing.
Don
Great Article Don….E.K.C.
Eric,
Thanks for commenting. E.K.C. ? = eKnowledgeCenter”
I’m glad you appreciated the article.
Thanks for sharing.
Don
Geeze John you’re a bit snarky today.
Susan,
Thanks for commenting.
Snarky? Wow, I haven’t heard that term in . . . decades – “critical or mocking in an indirect or sarcastic way.” I think the term would apply to all three of my children . . . and they may have well passed it on. I just don’t understand where my kids picked up the attitude. Perhaps, my wife . . . no she’s a saint . . . but . . . oh, well.
Thanks for sharing.
Don
Words are powerful, instead of a massacre we could call the these holocausts perpetrated on the “First Nations” native Americans and a holocaust on black human beings sold to whites as slaves 4/5 a human being to whites. We have many holocausts besides the the Jewish Holocaust. Call them what the were and treat them like you treat the Jewish Holocaust! They were not plantations they were concentration camps! How does a foreigner invade the Native indigenous land and believe they have title to the people who were here? If I invaded your property would I have right to it? But that is the fallen human nature consciousness of the current white privileged occupiers. The United States of America has an imperialistic mentality not a We the People hold these truths to be self-evident spirit or character. The earth is the creators the fullness thereof the world and they that dwell therein.
I remember my mom telling me when I was just a maybe 7 years old this “I was working in down town Detroit in 1943 and there was a riot and these two nice young black men safely escorted me home.” I never forgot those words to this day. That was a riot that started because of a shortage of housing due to the influx of blacks and whites moving up to Detroit to work in the factories and then during the only justified war WWII. They brought their racism and prejudice with them up to Detroit. AND TWO NICE YOUNG BLACK MEN ESCORTED ME HOME. MY MOM WAS WHITE THEY WERE BLACK AND THE WERE NICE!
AKA FELONS CAN VOTE IN MANY STATES LIKE WASHINGTON GO TO http://www.rockthevote.org to find your state and see their laws. FELONS CAN VOTE!
Lynnette,
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Very apt and sweet story of the Detroit Riot of 1943. “A total of 34 people were killed, 25 of them black and most at the hands of the white police force; 433 were wounded, 75 percent of them black; and property valued at $2 million ($30.4 million in 2020 US dollars) was destroyed. Most of the riot took place in the black area of Paradise Valley, the poorest neighborhood of the city.”
Thanks for sharing your mom’s story and the mention of Rock the Vote . . . I think perhaps an article about getting out the vote should be my next big article.
Don