On February 7, 1904, in the Mississippi Delta “hundreds of white people picnicked and watched as two Black people — Luther Holbert and an unidentified woman — were tortured and lynched by a mob.”
This was a tweet by the Equal Justice Initiative commemorating the date. The accompanying article notes that “the audience of 600 spectators enjoyed deviled eggs, lemonade and whiskey” as the two were tied to trees, had their fingers cut off and given out as souvenirs, were beaten, tortured with a corkscrew and finally thrown on a fire to burn to death.
The Equal Justice Initiative is a nonprofit organization that provides “legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons.” It is “committed to changing the narrative about race in America.” Its provocative and often uncomfortable tweets contain the admonition, “To overcome racial inequality, we must confront our history.”
Racism today, of course, is not always so blatantly obvious. But make no mistake, we still see it every day. For example, the Legislature just considered a bill relating to race-based hair discrimination — when employers or schools or other authority figures make rules prohibiting certain hairstyles that are natural for minorities, like corn rows or braids or Afros.
State Sen. Derrin Owens was in hot water for telling Black women in the hearing room, “You people are beautiful,” and for sharing photos of black children he met in a grocery store.
He argues that he had no ill intent, and was therefore not racist. He voted against the bill. I don’t think his comments were even the most egregious of the day. Sen. Ron Winterton, who also voted against the bill, said he was “dumbfounded” that race-based hair discrimination exists.
Winterton continued, “As I’m with my wife and we see somebody that has a different lifestyle or different hairstyle than ours, we have to smile, because we have some kids,” Winterton said, adding that his daughter dyed her hair purple at one point. As if a Black person’s natural hairstyle is akin to an adolescent phase or rebellion.
For Winterton, discrimination over hairstyles is “nothing [he’s] ever considered.” And that is the point. That is what we must start doing — considering how policy and systems and prejudices affect people besides ourselves.
Black History Month has an especially poignant meaning this year with the unrest stemming from the police brutality and double standards illuminated last summer. Yet we still have those who resist understanding how Black history informs Black present and Black future. Indeed, all of our futures.
For example, Utah recently made national headlines when parents at a charter school in North Ogden tried to opt their kids out of the Black History Month curriculum, which is based on state social studies standards.
The principal didn’t share what the parents’ reasoning was. And apparently they changed their minds after the national public backlash. But, as my teenage daughter noted, the fact that it was even an option to opt out of such curriculum is a problem in and of itself.
The point of Black History Month is to educate people on what being Black in this country really means. Education hopefully leads to understanding, empathy, and change.
If you don’t think anything needs changing, you’re just plain wrong.
That’s the focus of EJI — to educate. Before we can improve, we have to acknowledge. And until you can acknowledge that Americans used to picnic in front of lynchings as a family activity, and that vestiges of that history continue today, then you can’t understand, or improve, anything.
This is what Rep. Dean Phillips from Minnesota was trying to convey in remarks earlier this month on the House floor. He recounted his experience during the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt inside the Capitol and his efforts to blend in so Republican rioters wouldn’t harm him.
“I screamed to my colleagues to follow me, to follow me across the aisle to the Republican side of the chamber, so that we could blend in — so that we could blend in.”
It was only then that he realized that his colleagues of color could not “blend in.”
“So I’m here tonight to say to my brothers and sisters in Congress, and all around our country. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. For I had never understood, really understood, what privilege really means. It took a violent mob of insurrectionists and a lightning bolt moment in this very room. But now I know. Believe me, I really know,” said Phillips.
I know it’s difficult to challenge our own beliefs and behaviors concerning race and equality. You don’t have to intend malice to discriminate. Whether it’s police brutality or biased prosecutions or learning history or even accepting “different” hairstyles, it’s time to start acknowledging that racial discrimination happens, every day. Our personal behaviors and governing policies should reflect that such discrimination is no longer acceptable.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Michelle Quist.
Michelle Quist is a Salt Lake City attorney and a columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune.
