Do Black Americans Use U.S. History To Feel Like Victims or Victors?

Thank you for tuning into healing race. In this episode our 4 guests, Marin, Susan, Landon, and Marcus, talk about how they view our racial history. Landon wonders how the other guests process the good, the bad, and the ugly of our history, particularly as it relates to race? Do we feel bitterness? Do we idealize our nation and its history, or do we feel something in between or more nuanced? Our guests also begin discussing how we should think about responsibility for the racial wrongs done in our nation's history. Does tolerance of a racial wrong, even when not committing that actual wrong, morally implicate someone in the wrong? Do our ancestors' racial wrongs implicate us now? Let's get to those conversations now. Enjoy. I kinda mentioned what, you know, the idealized history looked like for a tip a person in a typical conservative area, I would say. And I wanted to know, you know, how do you guys view United States history? You know, there's, you know, some people, are really bitter about it. Some people just have this religious viewpoint that it's straight from God's hand, and then there's all the mess in between. And so how do you how do you think about it, and where do you draw strength from your history, your story, and what values and character came out of it? I mean, I can say one of the things that my family has done a good job of instilling in me, and I worked very hard to continue instilling it, is, like, yes, I am the descendant of slaves, you know, completely like off the like when we did our family, like, history, like, off the coast of Houston is where, like, my family's purchase, my last name comes from. We were purchased by some German, immigrants, and worked there. And, you know, I our history is very, very complex where I where I would say I don't have a bitterness towards, quote, unquote, the United States. I have more of a bitterness that entire stories of entire people are left out. And I say that not only for black people, but I also think indigenous people, I think Latino people. I mean, I pay attention to simple things like, you know, growing up in Texas. Like, the very little I learned about Latino history and even some of the animosity towards Latinos to this day when pretty much we went into Mexico. Like, it like, it like, it baffles me that, like, there will be this negative reaction towards hearing people speak in Spanish. I'm like, technically, didn't we come, like, here? You know, you know, that that sort of a thing. And I still can say, you know, outside of, like, a handful of Latinos, I didn't really learn a lot about, like, Mexican history growing up in Texas. I also am very wary when people talk about, particularly black people and the victimhood narrative and everything like that. And I say, no. No. No. No. No. I was like, well, we are descendants of slaves. We're not victims. We are victors. You know, if anything, I look back on the fact that, you know, 7, 8 generations ago, my family was bought off the coast of Houston to be where we are today and to have survived Jim Crow and my family. We have a lot of sorts I mean, my uncle accidentally drinking out of, like, a white only fountain and my great grandfather having to sit up with a shotgun waiting for the Klan. Like, those sorts of, like, those sorts of stories to come to, like, where we are is one of unbelievable triumph, unbelievable pride, unbelievable faith. Faith is a big part, like, my family. And so when there is kind of this narrative that seems to come from conservatives around, like, don't teach that, don't teach that, you know, you're just beating it to them being victims. Like, I feel it’s actually you trying to rob us of a story that should give us unbelievable pride that literally we can overcome anything? You know, like, if we're really taught about what it is that we overcame. So that's more of the view that I have. I mean, I guess, I just believe it's in that I don't know the full history of the United States because there's still so much that I am learning about black history alone, and I'm not even gonna pretend to touch on Asian, Native American, like, just all the different population, the people who all have their own stories, you know, being here. I mean, Todd, last time I was in DC, I went to the US Holocaust Museum for the first time. I have my own opinion. I think some of that I think they were getting some of that a little whitewashed and a little wrong. But, like, just this very patriotic, like, we were the heroes of World War 2. I was like, uh-uh. We knew that was going on for a long time. Stop it. But, you know, that, but still, it was my first time seeing certain images that I was like, you know what? There's a lot. I just don't know. Yeah. But I think we have to be okay with knowing that not everything is black and white, good and bad. I mean, even amongst, you know, amongst all of the populations that we all kind of come from and identities that we represent, no one is, like, the good guy and the bad guy. Like, we all have just, like, these really complex and we just for some reason, as a nation, we have a tough time with nuance. It's like George Washington, hero or villain. What do you think? Right? You know, Martin Luther King, hero or villain. What do you think? And I'm like, I don't think it's that simple. Like, why are we, like, almost encouraging this simplistic thinking rather than really paying more attention to the nuance? That's really nice, Mara. Thank you. Yeah. Who else goes who wants to go next? I would just agree with Marin. I don't think I necessarily have a resentment or a problem with American history or the history of the United States. It's more so the disregard or the attempt to whitewash it and just act as if everything is fair. And, oh, yeah. The black people, they were slaves, but we're all good now. Like, it's the disregard for calling a spade a spade. And so that would be the problem that I have. I don't have a problem with the history of the country. Just more so when you think of teaching the facts and diving into it and unpacking it, it's as if we don't wanna we don't wanna go beyond being superficial. It's more so, no. It didn't happen that way. Let let's not talk about that. That's in the past. We're good now. So and, Marcus, what would that education look like to you diving into the facts and diving into the nuance of it all? Like, what would you like to see? I would like to see it go beyond a headline per se. Go beyond Martin Luther King. Go beyond Rosa Parks. Let's talk about what happened and just unpack it all and tell the truth and just be real. Be real about it. It's horrific. It's very horrific. It's a lot to unpack, but it is what it is. And if we don't want to repeat what has already transpired and happened, then let's talk about it all. That's the only way you're gonna prevent it from reoccurring. So it seems like there's a sense from the 2 of you in, before we move on to Susan and Landon, how they experience history. There's a 2 there's a there's a sense that just to relate it to Landon's story specifically, because Landon, you said you didn't, you kinda got that superficial history is basically what I what I heard from you. And so you it would seem that we would want everybody, you know, the Landon's of the world, let's say, me included, by the way. I'm not just picking on Landon. But just to hear more of the complexity of the story, both the good the good, bad, and ugly, is kind of what you're saying. Is that am I hearing that right? Yes. But it sounds like I don't know. How do you Landon, was the answer you heard what you expected from Marin and Yeah. I I've I guess I expected, you know, based upon I think that a lot of people kind of they have the 1776 view or the 16/19 view, now. And I think that those are polls. And Marin brought up all the ethnic groups and different peoples that have come to this country, and they have, you know, their own massive stories. You know? My wife is from Honduras. She moved here when she was 20. So she has her own story, her culture, you know, that has become part of me. And so, you know, it's hard to for all of us to understand all of those stories, but each story is just complex, and the people you know, each of us are, you know, this massive interactions of experiences and evolving interactions. You know? And so I like, as Ben mentioned, I think it's really easy to bend people into polls, you know, and it's also easy to do that with history. And do you see those polls as being kind of, like, the US history was horrible. We just need to feel horrible and guilty and upset about it all versus, like, our history is amazing, and, like, we are the enlightened ones and we brought all that is wonderful to the world in terms of how to govern ourselves. Is that is that the kind of is that what you're saying with the 1776 versus the 16/19? Yeah. To some to some degree. I mean I I'm exaggerating. But right. And I, you know, my family is, came from England and Ireland, and they came over as poor immigrants as Mormons. They converted to Mormonism, and that sailed across the Atlantic. The Mormon history is pretty complex. You know? It's a tale of, you know, an American religion that was hated, basically, and then driven from different state to state, and some pretty barbaric acts included in that as well. But not nearly the kind of history as, you know, black people have, in America, but still it was also one of tragedy. But the Mormon people have always taken those tales, and that's their greatest strength in some ways. You know, they really hold on to the fact that we walked across the United States, to go to Utah. And it resulted in a set of self-reliant values for our communities in in the warm communities where, you know, we always they talked about those things and derived very powerful values and lessons, for the young from those stories. And I so I imagine that, you know, you guys also have some of that in your communities, and, Marin, you definitely do. And I think that that's, you know, that's a source, a wellspring of strength and values in some respects despite the tragedy also that accompanies it. Right? But, Landon, let me ask you a question. How do we get to a place of respect? So and I guess I'm gonna challenge the group with this. Because as I hear you all talk, it reminds me of a family. Right? And you have the kids in the family. Some kids like mom and dad. Some kids hate mom and dad, but no one can ever really agree on what's the history of the family. And in my experience of my own sort of healing work, like, you have to get to a place of just saying, you know what? Maybe this I don't know everything about the set of facts, and maybe that wasn't my experience, but a place of acknowledgment and respect. And especially you and Susan who've done braver angels, where you try to heal divides, how do as a country, as a nation, do we get there? Well, that's my second question, actually. That is that's a second question. That's true. And I wanna know the same thing because I you know, it's I think it'll be One of the things that makes me uncomfortable when we do talk about, you history, especially when it comes to slavery and different things like that, is I feel that there can be a level of defensiveness from white people that comes into the well, my family didn't know slaves. And I think this might even touch a little bit on one of my questions, which is, you know, yes, that might absolutely be true. But, you know, for slavery to exist, you didn't have to own slaves to tolerate it. For Jim Crow to exist, you didn't have to personally be hanging whites only signs or, you know, anything like that. Like, there is a certain level of, like, we as a society, this was a norm, you know, that we all had to It was more than a norm. It was law. Yes. It was law, which means it was, like, passed, discussed, you know, everything of that sort. And so, I mean, a lot of times what makes me uncomfortable is when there is this, you know, like, don't blame me. Don't blame my family. We didn't own slaves. Like, we came over as, you know, poor farmers or it was only rich white people that own slaves or anything. So it's like that suddenly made, you know, the fault of it only lies on, like, a 100 people. You know, this was an institution that went on for a 100 of years up and down, like, not only, you know, our nation, but, you know, throughout the globe. And there was an acceptance of this that just quite frankly allowed an injustice to go on. And I think there just has to be a reckoning with that. I mean, my mom used to say all the time, if everyone who claims they marched with doctor King actually marched with Doctor King, there would have been no reason to march. Right? Like, it would have been alright. But no one, you know, no one wants to say, you know yeah. I really wasn't feeling that. Yeah. I think there's a good segue there, actually, to kind of what we're getting to. So, Susan, you haven't got a chance to answer Landon's question, but I think can I give you both of the questions at the same time? Because it's like you having grown up in the South with the Klan active. Right? Yeah. Probably have an interesting connection to kinda history and present. And how do you deal with those tensions, and how do you, you know, how do you answer kind of the, you know, Marin's question as well around where does responsibility lie for the history that we have? You know, I mean, I clearly have a just full disclosure. You know, I think I said my grandparents were in the Holocaust. Right? And, Mary, you mentioned, you know, how long it took for us to intervene. And there's countless stories. You know, one of the stories in history that makes me of recent history that makes me the most emotional is Rwanda, you know, for the very reason that we didn't go in there. And it was, you know, I'm an American. You know, I've watched a documentary. I'll say this one last thing and then and then turn it over to you, Susan. I've, you know, probably the time I've, you know, I've had reason to cry in my life, but the time that I broke down the most in my life was watching this documentary called Ghosts of Rwanda. And then there was someone who escaped from Rwanda, who was a Tutsi and made it over talking to the administration. I don't know if he was talking to Clinton. She was talking to Clinton's chief of staff. And the answer was, you know, about intervening and what was going on. And the answer was America doesn't have friends, America has interests. And the thought that we just have interests, that we don't have a motivation to preserve humanity, you know, lives was just, you know, hit me to the core, especially being the grandson of Holocaust survivors, right? So I very much resonate with some of kind of what you're saying, Marin. And, yeah, I don't know. Susan, how do you how do you feel about all of it? What is it what is it sparking you? It sounds like that was an epiphanic moment for you. I call those the epiphanies in my life where something just strikes to the core and just changes me fundamentally in an almost in a moment. Yeah. Well, just talking about history and epiphanal things and that I learned about history was mostly kind of to answer Landon's question, it was mostly the sanitized version that he was talking about. You know, this happened, and this happened, and these were the great people, and then here's how we should feel about them, and rah, US. You know? Look how far we've come. There were you know, we learned about the civil rights and everything, but I think it was I think it was largely sanitized. And I resonate with what Marin said about, you know, big gaps and learning about things like that. I didn't know about Tulsa until a few years ago. How is that? Oh my gosh. Is that you know, that's my fault for not knowing that. So, yeah, there's just too much glossed over. And you talk about Rwanda. Interesting. Because I was in Rwanda. I desperately wanted to go to Africa. In 1989, I went to Rwanda, and it's pre genocide. And, then went again with my husband after we got married. We went there on our honeymoon in 2006. So to see pre genocide and post genocide, Rwanda was a fascinating thing, and it and it and it hurt me to my core because, you know, watching the genocide happened knowing that people I had met there and helped me greatly while I was there, chances are they might have been slaughtered. I don't know. And how did you how did you feel knowing that the white bilge divided these people into the Hutu and the Tutsi? And, you know, through their normative practices, kinda use some of Merit's parlance, that's what led up to that journey. It absolutely did. Yeah. And I read Paul Recessabagina's, memoir and just tried to learn more about it, having visited there and wanting to know more about why that happened, and it was foisted upon them. It was an artificial construct of who these people and these people are divided, and then the words that just people were hearing about the other. And so when people say words aren't violence, but, you know, it's a cycle of words lead to violence and violence leads to words and they feed each other. And it was words in Rwanda that made that happen. It was radio blaring constantly that this other this other group, they're cockroaches. They're below humanity. I think they're really Very, very eye opening. Sorry. I think I'm deviating from your question. I have so many thoughts in my head. It's hard to Do you learn the sanitized you learn the sanitized version? Yes. You also so and you and you saw in your in your upbringing, you got to see some of the relics of Yes. You know? Yes. Well and in fact, the war the civil war was called sometimes called the war of northern aggression. You know, stuff like that. Just crazy stuff. So, yeah, it was glossed over, but then I just remember having, like, epiphanal moment moments, like learning about the Holocaust. I remember, you know, being in high school and seeing a film about the Holocaust and, like, a moment that just changed my life of seeing that. But then I didn't know enough about in learning these things, did you ever view your race differently? White people as a group? Yeah. Yeah. What shifted for you? Just feeling ashamed about these tie this this that this could happen, you know, amongst human beings. I mean, aren't we all just human? I just mean just feeling just ashamed of that things like this this can happen in the human race and about Rwanda and just feeling ashamed about that. And, in fact, the second time I went to Rwanda, Bill Clinton was there at the same time. He was staying in the same hotel, and the people there told us it was because he felt such guilt about not doing enough, that he was doing much entire crime. Mhmm. Yeah. But anyway He has a lot of remorse. Yeah. He puts a lot of energy toward Rwanda now because of it, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Where do you think to an to get to and to Marin's question, where do you think where do you think responsibility lies? Oh. So we talked about history being complex. Yeah. There are these things to draw strength from, which has come up, you know, but there's obviously atrocities, you know, horrible things. I forget what words, Marcus, you used, that that aren't getting taught, in their fullest way, right? Yeah. I, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Where do you think responsibility lies and how do we handle that in today's world? And then if you just wanna pivot to your set to your actual question because I think a lot of it could relate to Okay. Kinda how we how we approach changing society. And if you wanna give the backstory to that as well. Well yeah. But the about Marin's question about how do we deal with it now and deal with the past, I certainly think we should be teaching all of this in schools, and I hate that there's like, in Florida, what they're doing of trying to erase stuff from history books is just what in the world? I mean, you've got to have open conversations about this and learn about these things in order to you know, we have to look back to let to know where the future where to go in the future. I just don't understand the wanting to sanitize all that and get rid of books and phrases and CRT and people trying to lump all these things and call it CRT to try to demonize the whole package. Just craziness. I don't understand that. It's awful. It's censor censorship that, boy, kids, you know, are not gonna benefit from that. Their kids gonna hurt them, I think. So that's I don't know if that hits on what Marin said much, at all, but we need to learn. Thank you for watching this episode of Healing Race and stay with us for a scene from our next video. If you wanna see more conversations like the one you just watched, please subscribe to our channel, share this video with friends and family, and like and comment on the video below. If you'd like to be a guest on one of our episodes and have an open real conversation about race, email us at guests at healingracehow.com. And if there are topics you think we should cover, we'd love to hear them. So please email your ideas to topics at healingracehow.com. As always, thanks for your support. We look forward to continuing the conversation with you. Now, here's a scene from our next healing race. Marcus, what are your thoughts on protests and community and, I mean, exercising, you know, that right vis a vis the vitriol that's coming toward law enforcement? I mean, I get it. I understand the anger and the frustration that people have, particularly black people. I understand what emotion that invokes when there is police misconduct. I mean, I have the same exact emotion. I think for me being in law enforcement and seeing both sides of it, Marin articulated, or she said she doesn't agree with the message of defunding the police. She thinks that it's a bad slogan. Is that correct? Mhmm. Yeah. But at the same time, when there is police misconduct, take it out of their pension or redirect the funds to schooling or to other programs. For me, I guess the disconnect is and that's all fine and good. It can feel that way, but at the same time, we're not focused on why the funding has to be so high in certain areas. Why do we have to give these funds to the police? Why is there a need to have more police in one area versus another? Or why is there a need to direct more funds to the police on the south side than on the north? So and at the same time, when there is police misconduct and you take it out of their pension, what is that gonna solve? What are you telling or doing to the cops who actually give a damn or Mhmm. That go to work every day and do the right thing? To watch the rest of that episode, go ahead and click the video below me. To see a different compelling healing race episode, you can click the video below me. We look forward to seeing you in the next video.