A lot of people know about this dark episode because of the HBO Watchmen series - but regardless of how you found out about it, it's an important event in American history that should be more widely discussed. The wikipedia page is very detailed, helpful to get this kind of synopsis of the events.
Before moving on, let me state that I do not mean to minimize the horrors of that massacre. But it was just over a century ago and while it still has effects that carry over through to today - I am referring to it to make a point about Gaza. Do I believe that a lot more needs to be done in the name of reconciliation? Absolutely 100% yes. And not just for the events from 1921 - but also the godawful racist bullshit treatment that followed for generations afterwards. But, like almost everything, it kinda vanishes when compared to the scale of the genocide that is currently happening in Gaza.
So, back to 1921. The precipitating events to the massacre were the outbreaks of violence on May 31. 10 whites and 2 Blacks were left dead. And then the backlash exploded - the National Guard was fully mobilized to act against Americans and white people went about burning Black Wall Street to the ground. While the official death toll was in the dozens - almost certainly it was hundreds that were killed. 10,000 were made homeless, thousands more were incarcerated. It was just a massive orgy of violence, where fire bombs were dropped from airplanes into residential neighbourhoods. Air strikes - in 1921.
And even back in 1921, it was recognized by some that this was a shameful and horrific act of violent racism that needed to be addressed. But, in the way white society almost always deals with their heinous acts of racist violence, it got ignored for generations. Just memory-holed and forbidden from being discussed for as long as they could get away with it. The wiki lists a couple dozen items under "In popular culture" - one self-published book from 1923 - and then nothing for the next seventy years. It wasn't until 1996 that a commission was finally convened to investigate - prompted by the shame and knowledge that the remaining survivors were now quite elderly and might never see any official acknowledgement of this hate fuelled crime against humanity.
Restitution still has not meaningfully been made - but the story is now at least a little better known. And not just from Watchmen - the majority of the wiki's "In popular culture" list is after 2000. And on the 100-year anniversary, the presiding president finally officially attended the site. In that speech Biden stated:
Some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous, they cannot be buried, no matter how hard people try.
So - an official state response to violence perpetrated by a small group of an oppressed minority got massively out of hand resulting in the flattening of entire neighbourhoods and order-of-magnitude disproportionate deaths. That's the Gaza genocide, but only about 1% of the scope. Gaza has a hundred times more dead and injured. A hundred times more damage to civilian infrastructure. And Gaza has been going on for over a hundred times as long. IOW, the genocide campaign in Gaza is the Tulsa Race Massacre, only continued for a hundred times longer. At least that's where it is now - there is no signs of things stopping, and in fact things are still getting worse.
One hundred Tulsa Race Massacres. Black Wall Street getting firebombed, but one hundred times over. That's Gaza. If the destruction of Greenwood was "so heinous, so horrific, so greivous, they cannot be buried, no matter how hard people try" - well what does Joe think about Gaza? Does Joe think that people will be able to bury those injustices?
No comments:
Post a Comment