This happened. It happened a great deal. We (meaning white people) - TopicsExpress

This happened. It happened a great deal. We (meaning white people) generally dont know about it, dont talk about it, and dont want to face its implications. Whenever you hear about thugs and looters, in strictly historical terms, those are white people. Towns burned, houses looted, land seized? Yup, thats us. Just ask a member of your local Native American tribe. Thats *our* culture of violence. (If you dont like being included in us and white people here because *you* never burned down a town, maybe now you understand how black people feel when included in them and black people, when referring to violence, drug use, crime, broken families, etc.) Far from being considered obviously monstrous, the seizing and burning of one predominantly black town is considered so controversial--I repeat, the seizing of a towns worth of private property, followed by the driving off of its inhabitants into the woods to be shot down like game, in America, in the 20th century, is controversial--that the sign commemorating the town didnt appear until the 1990s, and even that sign is wishy-washy and apologetic to the side that did the seizing, looting, hunting and burning. Theres a scene in my mothers book where the black church in the town is burned to the ground. The white reverend who is the voice of the book has a touching communion of sorts in the ashes. It is touching, and human, and beautiful... and it completely ignores the implications of what just happened. (My mother very expressly intended the contrast; as if to prove her point, very, very few white reviewers have even noted it.) And so, here we are.