Happy #BlackHistoryMonth !
I'm still not onto Black history. I'm still working through white US history.
Q: Why do Black folk get so upset when people ask them if they live in this neighborhood? I saw a Black stranger in my building and I just asked him if he lived here and can I see 3 forms of government ID, and now I'm the racist? How? I voted for Obama! Twice! Why are Black folk so sensitive about this?
A: Racism. This is a legacy of slavery and ethnic cleansing. Seriously.
During slavery there were slave patrols. Slave patrols enforced the "slave codes," brutal laws that dictated what slaves could or could not do, and where they could exist. Slave patrols were formed of white slave owners and non-slave owning citizens.
Any white man was allowed and expected to stop any Black person and interrogate them to make sure that they're not up to sneaky Black stuff.
During the civil war, many Southern states codified into law this expectation that all white men should be on the lookout for Black people sneaking around, living life free and stuff. States like Georgia brought their "citizens arrest" law into existence in 1863 for this exact reason.
"Now we are all slave patrol!"
("We" means "white people.")
After slavery was abolished in 1865, slave codes evolved into "Black codes," brutal laws that governed what Black folk could or could not do. Slave patrols evolved into official Black patrols (AKA the Police force) or unofficial Black patrols like the Ku Klux Klan, also formed in 1865. It was an eventful year. 🤷🏿♂️
Any white man was allowed and expected to stop any Black person and interrogate them to make sure that they were not up to sneaky Black stuff.
The Black codes evolved into Jim Crow, brutal laws that governed what Black folk could or could not do. Between the police, the KKK and the white citizens' councils, there were lots of official and unofficial groups policing Black folks' movement.
White folk could harass Black people themselves, or they could escalate up the chain of violence, either the official one, or the unofficial one. "I'll call the police on you!" Or "I'll call the Klan!" Or "I'll call my husband and his brother on you!"
@mekkaokereke I wonder, since I've only relatively recently learned, how many people know that Hitler and the Nazis modeled much of their policies and philosophies, like the Nuremberg Laws, Lebensraum, and the ghettos and death camps, all or in part on U.S. policies and philosophies, like Jim Crow, Manifest Destiny, and forced Native removal and reservations.
Partly because the Nazis saw them as effective, and partly to head off any U.S. objections or interference (which worked).
@ricardoharvin @mekkaokereke Those of us to whom it's personal know this. I've been amazed how many Americans don't know about the Internment Camps during WWII, Manifest Destiny, The Trail of Tears, how far Segregation went, and how many Exclusion laws there were regarding immigration. Not knowing what our history is like makes it easy for Americans to accept incremental laws to bring it all back and more.
@winjay @mekkaokereke I knew our history but had no idea that we gave the Nazis the blueprint for so much of what they did.
In retrospect, it's obvious, but I had to read how they used Jim Crow for the rest to immediately click in my mind.
As a kid in the 60's, we were taught that the Germans during the war were an exceptional form of evil.
In truth, like in the old anti-drug ad, they learned it from us. They were just like "us".
@ricardoharvin @winjay @mekkaokereke Exactly. Mr. Hitler never intended or expected to find himself at war with the United States. He expected the U.S. would side with the Axis, given what he had read about what went on the U.S. with Jim Crow, forced sterilization, eugenics, and all that. Plus, support for Nazi Germany was strong in the U.S. He underestimated the unbreakable connection between the U.S. and its mother country, England.
