Let's Do the Time Warp, Aga-inn | Jackson Free Press | Jackson, MS

Let's Do the Time Warp, Aga-inn

This is a hard column to write. Sometimes something is so painful, so heart-wrenching that you don't want to expose it. You just want to ignore it, and hope no one notices. As much as I'm a fan of open dialogue and brutal honesty about our history, I sometimes want to close my eyes and say, I did not read that. I did not hear that. No one thinks that way in 2004. Not in Jackson.

But they do.

I was flipping through the July 22 issue of The Northside Sun, and I paused on page 4A looking for publisher Wyatt Emmerich's usual corporate apologist editorial. I saw a headline on a guest column by Dan McCullen at the bottom of the page: "Free flowing traffic can revive Capitol St." (a suggestion I agree with). A publisher's note at the bottom caught my eye, announcing that McCullen is the winner of the Sun's column-writing contest and was getting $100 for the column. "The local angle and insightful commentary made this column stand out," the publisher gushed.

The column started out talking about why the Jackson airport shouldn't be named after Jackson's most prominent civil rights hero. "Medgar Evers has no connection whatsoever with the airport and the suggestion by City Council and some of the media that his name be emblazoned on the airport is simply pouring acid into old wounds," he wrote. Now, naming the airport after Evers is debatable, but the "acid" part piqued my interest. Whose "old wounds"? I wondered. After all, Sun editors and friends often tell us, those wounds are healed. Race problems are over. So I kept reading.

After meandering about the embarrassing City Council and dissing Farish Street's renovation--the usual bash-Jackson stuff from the Sun--McCullen gets to the point at the bottom: that we should all shut up about race. "We learn from history, but that doesn't mean you live in the past," he said. I roll my eyes; I hear that all the time. I'm not shocked, yet.

Then he brings up "post-slavery syndrome," which is apparently an excuse that some man somewhere who murdered his child tried to use to explain his heinous crime. You might wonder what that man's attempt to stay out of jail has to do with Medgar Evers and Farish Street. Well, here goes: "I wonder if he realizes that if his ancestors hadn't been sold from slavery in Africa that he would still be living under tribal slavery in Africa," McCullen writes. Holy flying elephants! Did he really just use one of the talk-radio, wing-nut excuses for the institution of slavery--in an award-winning column in The Northside Sun?!?

I should have stopped reading right there. But I would have missed the zinger, which appears right under his photo: "Every black in this country ought to give thanks every day that their ancestors were brought to this country where they were ultimately given every opportunity that everyone else has." Now, read it again. And remember that publisher Wyatt Emmerich--a man whose grandfather was a hero editor because he stood up for civil rights in the 1960s--gave Mr. McCullen an award for typing those words.

Yes, Mr. Dan McCullen, a Northsider and author of a book about his World War II heroism (ironically titled "Lest We Forget") just said that every black American should give thanks for slavery. A man who argues elsewhere that we should not forget history just forgot some, or hasn't bothered to learn it all. It is sheer ignorance to overlook the fact that Europeans took slaves from some thriving communities in Africa, or to simply sidestep the effect on Africa's history that the European slave trade, and later colonization, had on that continent (talk about destabilizing a region), or, hell, to even try to argue that two wrongs could possibly make a right.

Perhaps Mr. McCullen doesn't know the history of the Middle Passage, or our state's black codes, or that every level of white Mississippi society worked in cahoots to keep blacks down well into the 1970s (with effects still felt today). Has he heard of red-lining (by banks that routinely drew red lines through applications filed by blacks for home and business loans)? Has he heard of racial profiling? Sharecropping scams? Poll taxes? Discrimination against black farmers in the news because these hard-working men and women cannot get what they're owed in 2004? How about unfunded education mandates? Crumbling buildings and open sewage in black neighborhoods?

No, sir, this playing field has never been level, and slavery is a curse upon every American, regardless of race. But it can be overcome, and leveled, but not through re-writing of history, but by facing it.

Mr. McCullen has the right to his opinion, and Mr. Emmerich has the right to publish it. But just because you can doesn't mean you should, much less reward it. Most disturbing, what does this say to young people who pick up the paper to see their own smiling mugs (especially those who aren't taught adequate U.S. history)? Who in their right mind publishes (or believes) in 2004 that black people ought to give thanks for slavery? Opposite the column are lots of happy ads from places like the Farmer's Market, Alltell, BankPlus and real-estate developers. Have I slipped into a time warp here? It could be 1964 all over again, except for the black man grinning in the Alltel ad. No wonder we can't get people to help rebuild communities and support the public schools; they're too busy making up silly excuses for the past.

My message to Mr. McCullen and Mr. Emmerich is this: It is silence, and ignorance of our history, and distrust of each other, and ridicule of those who want to move us forward, that has kept this state hovering near No. 50; that has driven smart, young people of all races out of the state; and that has caused us to be an easy target for ridicule because apologists try to whitewash our history. We have allowed ourselves to be divided and conquered by this sugarcoating and burying of our history for too long.

I'm sorry, gentlemen, it's all too important that we talk about race problems and solutions. And honor our fallen heroes like Evers. You know: lest we forget.

Previous Commentsshow

What's this?

Support our reporting -- Follow the MFP.

Comments

Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.