CommentaryPhoto Caption: In the early 60’s Ben and Dorothy Davis integrated the all-white Brookside Elementary School in Montclair, New Jersey
I watched the debates in the House with respect to impeachment. I was struck by all the citations to Lincoln’s Second Inaugural by all sides in the debates, with his emphasis on healing of the Nation. Such beautiful words, weren’t they?
But here is the weird thing.
I was absolutely appalled that not one member of the Congress mentioned that only a few months later, Lincoln was assassinated by a fanatic similar to those who rushed the Capitol. So much for a rush to healing. These healing arguments drawn on Lincoln without mentioning this obvious point made no sense. Has anyone seen that subtle point mentioned?
Then, I thought about Appomattox and the Union and Confederacy leaders sitting down for a game of cards after the surrender, as has been reported. Some of that healing.
But, then I remembered the Devil’s Punch Bowl near Natchez, Mississippi where Union soldiers threw over 20,000 freed black enslaved people into a concentration camp (separating men and women and children) and starved them to death. So much for the healing of those freed black enslaved people.
Remember the 1876 election compromise, taking federal troops out of the South and leaving blacks to the terror of whites in the Restoration? Anyone remember the Ford Pardon of President Richard Nixon to heal the nation? Or the Bush Pardon of the Iran-Contra defendants to heal the nation? Or the Obama “look forward not backward” on the Bush torture to heal the nation? Not much healing came; rather, the events just fade into oblivion.
Who is healing in all this? At most, it seems to me that the healing being described is about healing among the class of leadership following the classic Washington, DC norm of “condemn the policy, but not the person.” Seems that it is a strong norm that both sides of the aisle are at least seduced by.
What a sick norm for there is no accountability in such a bizarre practice.
In all the cogitations going on, when will there be a deep discussion of the racial dimension of what happened at the Capitol?
I mean more than the “if they were black, they would have been killed” as a hypothetical. Back to reality, black people in the form of a few Black Panthers did this peacefully at the California state capitol back in 1967. They were promptly arrested but ultimately released as they had not broken any law. They knew how to act, while the folks at the Capitol a couple of weeks ago were doing a violent insurrection and coup attempt to overthrow the election through violence and death.
Well, one thought is that when I hear Président Trump make his plea about his 2020 landslide, I hear three things:
1. He had a landslide victory among white Americans, winning 57 percent of their vote.
2. In this view, non-white American votes are irrelevant as they are not real Americans. Hence, the focused attacks on voting in districts and precincts with significant black populations in the cases brought since the election (all of which Trump lost).
3. Ergo – Trump was robbed because he won the white people who are the only ones that matter in his world.
The American White Rage we saw in the Capitol insurrection and what we are likely to see in the next days and months, appears to be drawn substantially from this sense of a loss of the entitlement of whiteness as being the only thing that makes one a true American in this view. That whiteness is almost like having a property right – as some authors have said – similar to the propertied white male voters back in the time of the Founders and Framers.
And non-whites who acquiesce to this white nationalist view are tolerated under the heading of “conservative” – so closer to whiteness, but still not white enough.
I heard that this was discussed on Morning Joe, but I have not seen the cogitations really deal with this view of what happened.
When I listened to the debates on impeachment, I did get a sense that the white speakers on both sides were really talking to white people on the other side and not really me.
I noticed that when Rep. Green rose to speak, CNN cut away from him, and yet, he had been the first to file articles of impeachment back in December 2017 and again in July 2019 (before the Ukraine call), both of which were tabled. He could clearly see the clear and present danger Trump represented – as did many of us back in 2015 and 2016 – and yet, neither white Democrats nor Republicans could understand how much of an existential threat Trump and his movement of white nationalism were and are to America until the Ukraine call.
As to the vote, I was also amazed that after a physical attack led by the Executive against the Legislature with the risk of Congressional members and staff being injured or killed, STILL just 10 Republicans were willing to break with Trump and vote for his impeachment. This tells me about the Republican fear of the American White Rage which they have stoked, one that is so palpable that these members suffer from a kind of Stockholm Syndrome – aligning themselves with those who showed they were amenable to killing them.
Does anyone else, especially my white colleagues, see all of ‘this’ in this way?
I have referred to ‘this’ as Lee Atwaterism because this seems to be the continuing morphing of the American race snake.
If I were a white American, and I am part white with the admixture of ancestors, I would be exhausted at this effort to somehow raise again the flag of white dominance/supremacy/privilege/nationalism/that thing.
It would exhaust me because for the most part in my day to day interactions with whites, I do not have their whiteness being flung at me the way it is done in these debates. But maybe it is in the non-flinging manner, which just means that it is such an ingrained thing that it all goes without saying.
I also do not accept the distinction made between educated and uneducated and rich and poor whites that some try to make to explain where Trump’s support lies. The numbers don’t add up. Same as in 2017. Trump support was significant up the income scale (Professor Faisal Chaudhury at the University of Dayton also pointed me to a similar myth with respect to votes for Hitler in 1932 which I found fascinating).
Rich or poor, this imbibing of a sense of whiteness being special is something I think all whites are exposed to (though there is evolution as to who really buys into it since at least 1961 when I first started integrating previously all white spaces).
But maybe folks are just going to delete this submission as that “crazy black man ranting again”, which is of course, your right. But, it would be nice, I think, if there was some way to dialogue frankly about the obvious racialized nature of these movements, prone to the kind of violence we have seen to be stoked by Trump. But, he is not the only stoker. Stories are coming out of Congress people and forces of order-types helping these rioters.
Rather than engage, it seems the fear of reprisal (not being white enough – the Lee Atwaterism morph of he is an n-word lover of the old days) plagues too many of my white American brothers and sisters. As I love to say, if you surrender to the fear, you are not free.
The military brass reminder – an entity that has gone leagues ahead of the rest of America in integrating forces with a common purpose – seems to exemplify the capacity for strong leadership in order to see a problem and deal with it. Better than it was back in WWII, but give some kudos where they are due.
That whole replacement theory thing is rearing its head so much. Like when black populations were free and whites in the South freaked out after the Civil War. I do not want to replace you. I just want to live an ordinary life without dealing with white mind-games rearing their heads every once in a while. It has been nearly 60 years of this crap for me and maybe I am just old and crotchety, but please, enough of the tripping on yourselves.
One hilarious irony was hearing one of the insurrectionists say, “we built this Capitol.” Like they have no knowledge of the enslaved people who built it or the black Americans who cleaned up after them. Who built these blind spots into these people’s heads?
I wonder if whether the dead cops were black, there would be such an outpouring of concern about that on both sides of the aisle – but, especially among the Republicans who do seem to be a bit craven about someone trying to kill them or injure them.
I write this because I feel the sickly finger of fear creeping into hearts as, out of love, family members and friends encourage non-whites to lay low during this time of white crazy. But, I am brought back to a Resistance fighter I met in Paris in the 1990’s, whom I had asked why he resisted, given that he had only a carbine and the Nazis had all of their war machinery. Expecting a complex analysis, I was struck by his answer which was “This was not possible in France.”
Fascists and authoritarians, particularly on race, have been existent in the United States for generations, of course. But that willingness to resist without quarter, to compromise not a jot with their nonsense, and to work toward a cooler Age of Aquarius space, also stays with you. And, as Hans Fallada wrote in his great book Every Man Dies Alone, “The Main Thing Is, You Fight Back.”
It does seem exhausting being white. Pardon me? Or pardon me. Stop tripping and let’s keep stepping towards that better place. It is not as good as it ought to be, but it is better than it was.
Benjamin G. Davis is a Former Chair of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution. Currently, he is a Professor of Law at the University of Toledo College of Law.
Suggested citation: Benjamin Davis, It’s Exhausting being White: The Sick Rush to “Healing” from the Capitol Insurrection, JURIST – Academic Commentary, January 19, 2021, https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2021/01/benjamin-davis-exhausting-being-white/.
This article was prepared for publication by Akshita Tiwary, a JURIST staff editor. Please direct any questions or comments to her at commentary@jurist.org
