Good evening, Kossacks, and welcome to WYFP. First, here is a word from our sponsors:
WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
In light of the recent events in Baltimore, and the on-going history of voter suppression and police brutality, I want to talk a bit about my own history. I am the classic White Anglo-Saxon Protestant; all my ancestors came to the US from Britain and Ireland, some as early as the 17th century. I have an ancestor who was born in Jamestown in 1635. My great grand-father was William Seay. He fought in the Union Army during the Civil War. He was not exactly a military hero. He developed dysentery and was discharged as medically unfit after nine months. Not an exemplary military career, but he was on the right side of that conflict. He was married to Zilla Harlan, a member of the Harlan family that gave us two justices of the Supreme Court. John Marshall Harlan, the great dissenter and only member of the SCOTUS to vote against Plessy v. Ferguson, is a not-so-distant cousin.. So far, so good, right? Well, it is not that simple. Please follow me below the fold.
I have had some correspondence with one of my dad's cousins from the Seay side of the family. As it turns out, William Seay's family owned five slaves at the time of the Civil War, so I am facing the same issues that Affleck tried to avoid during his appearance on the PBS series, Finding Your Roots. Unlike Affleck, I think that it is important for those of us on the left side of the political spectrum to admit that we and our ancestors have benefited, both directly and indirectly, from slavery and its aftermath. We can draw a fairly direct line from slavery, the failure of Reconstruction, and Jim Crow to the police brutality, discrimination, the school-to-jail pipeline, and voter suppression that we see today. The past lives on in the present, and this can be seen clearly in disparities in wealth and health that we see between black and white Americans today. This is not about "thugs" and bad parenting. (Hey, Rand Paul, I am looking at you. Your kid has been arrested for drunk driving twice.) It is about systematic inequality that affects all aspects of our lives. It should not be about punishing parents and kids on food stamps. It should be about addressing police brutality, a corrupt criminal justice system, and providing real hope, education, and jobs for the citizens of Baltimore. To begin solving the problem, we must be willing to face our past.