| American history reveals a bitter racial and sexual hypocrisy, a terrible make-believe going on in the minds of the ruling male elite. Gunnar Myrdal wrote how "the primary and essential concern of the white man" (and the society he ran, in its official intentions) was to prevent amalgamation. It was an obsession, and a full time preoccupation. Ironically, as Abby Ferber has noted in her discussions of white supremacy, it was a one way street. White man had unlimited access to black females. No such thing the other way around. White woman was chaste, pure, and off-limits to any and all. She alone was required, expected, and forced to remain monogamous in the highest degree. She was the paragon of purity, and all her pampering, all the protection that went into her status, her exalted position on the pedestal, was directed toward the sole aim of her sacred womanhood. |
All of American history the single most intense obsession has been the insane drive to prevent interracial love and sex from occurring. Yet at the same time, all through American history there have been occurrences galore of just that -- interracial sex, and yes, surely love and romance, too, at times. The early centuries it was a dimension of slave life. It became a secret embarassment, then finally, an interracial flashpoint and a scandal used for the purpose of power and a political rallying cry.
Proof of the prevalence of such occurrences of sex and procreation exists in the mere fact that, according to estimates, as high as 85% of African Americans (not counting recent immigrants from Africa) have some European heritage in their genetic endowment. By the same token, perhaps over thirty per cent of socalled "white" Americans (not counting recent immigrants from Europe) are estimated to have at least one drop of "African" in their bloodlines.
But here's the hypocrisy. While "blacks" were proud of their European side, "whites" went to almost any length to conceal the least trace of African ancestry. I know this to be the case in my own family tree. Whiteness was a privilege, a mark of status, a badge of honor. Despite the fact that, from what we know of history, much of the interracial liason during the slavery era was far from consensual, or only barely so. Without the parity that only equals possess, there was always an element of implied duress.
A.W. Calhoun speaks bluntly about the master's right of rape. If you own a women, she is a thing to you, a piece of property. You have no obligations to respect, or even to observe the precepts of the Golden Rule. From slave narratives, and countless oral history projects, we know that there were many instances of kind masters and mistresses. But alas, from the same sources we also know that all too often exactly the opposite temperaments were recounted. Lecherous masters ... or perhaps even worse ... bitterly jealous white mistresses ... wreaked unholy fury against the vulnerable servants within their power.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. A master had one "defense" against his over-bearing, or moralistic wife. He could resort to the slave cabins. He could avail himself of a slave mistress ... and so, "teach his [white wife] a lesson." But the measure you mete out, shall be measured back again. The pampered white wife, whatever her other sins, certainly was not so dumb that she didn't know what was going on.
But to vent her fury on a helpless black woman, who in most cases may have not initiatiated the relations at all, was cruel justice indeed.
After the civil war, yankee reconstruction, for all the schools established and occasional instances of northern philanthropy, and the first creation of tax-supported schools in the South, a great deal of vindictive seeds were sown. Southern whites resented the northern do-gooders, and unable to oppose them openly, wound up venting their fury on the economically vulnerable blacks, so recently freed.
The merest token of ambition to succeed, or even independence ... shown by blacks ... might result in a "visit" by night riders, the predecessors of the KKK. And all too often the pretext for such a "visit" would be the sexual excuse of "rape." The rape of white women by black men came to be called THE ONE CRIME. Meaning, it was the single crime which represented, in the white man's fantasies, or fears, or conscience, most threatening to his entire status and self-identity.
We know, from the work of Ida Wells and others, than few, extremely few, of the thousands of black men lynched during Jim Crow, post-reconstruction days were anywhere near to being guilty as charged. Few accused were ever accorded even the flimsiest of protections under the bill of rights. Few ever made it to the inside of a courtroom.
From the vantage of our perspective today, it appears clear that lynchings, floggings, castrations, mutilations, hangings, tortures, cross-burnings, and the like ... had one over-riding purpose, to instill fear and terror into blacks, and to perpetuate the dominance and control by whites. It was terrorism and intimidation, pure and simple.
The modern era has been an effort to come to terms with America's tortured past. Are we one nation, or two? Does love really win over hate, or were the prophesies of founders like Jefferson the inevitable doom that awaits white Americans. Jefferson, after all, feared for his country when he considered that God is just. White bullying and mistreatment of the weaker and meeker amongst us cannot long be tolerated by a righteous God.
A judgment day is coming. (So said Jefferson, as he anguished over the crimes of slavery.)
Yet Martin Luther King came along, and offered hope. Perhaps there is a way out. There was some good in white history, along with an awful lot of bad. King preached, in the best and highest and most liberal sense of the words: America, ye must be born again. There must be a coming to terms in the here and now. Justice can be deferred no longer. You must treat others as you would want to be treated. Both blacks and whites must be given hope, and help, and a fair chance. We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools.
America's response has been ambiguous, right from the start. J. Edgar Hoover sent his FBI spies and informants out to entrap Civil Rights workers, and he hoped, Dr. King himself, in some scandalous offense. Indeed, he succeeded in documenting numerous instances of white activists engaging in romantic activities with black Civil Rights workers. Apparently Dr. King had ample opportunity for liasons with white supporters, ardent admirers, or just "groupies." Ralph Abernathy disclosed that Dr. King was human, all too human. He had failings as a pastor and as a husband, but J. Edgar Hoover's obsession wound up back-firing.
A new generation has come along, and the controversies surrounding Martin Luther King seem, if anything, to only increase. Black radicals and separatists villify King for being too integrationist, too accomodating, too forgiving of white America. Conservatives play into the hands of the black nationalists by embracing the socalled "conservative side" of Dr. King. Supposedly King made pro-life statements in the heat of sermons, and was on record as being biblically at odds with homosexuality. But how can we judge the man on the basis of casual statements taken out of context. Roe v. Wade ruling did not take place till 1972. King was shot in 1968.
| Also see Emmett Till Ida B. Wells Let's Mix It Up Gordon Allport Abby L. Ferber Calvin Hernton Brownmiller : rape Susan Crain Bakos Are BRUTHAs bettah? |
