Uncover painful truths and spark change this Black History Month

Uncover painful truths and spark change this Black History Month

Commentary By Sarah Henn Hayward | FāVS News

February is Black History Month, and one way I celebrated it was by reading books by Black authors.

This month, I’ve revisited “The Strength to Love” by Martin Luther King, Jr and read “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead and “The Message” by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I’m wrapping up with “Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge” by Erica Armstrong Dunbar. In the past, I’ve learned from books like Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’ “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States.”

When you read enough of these books, gruesome patterns begin to emerge. I was disheartened to see the bloody, circular path from America’s origins and the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the Holocaust to South African Apartheid to the genocide in Gaza and recent anti-immigration tactics in the U.S.

The first ship bearing enslaved Africans landed at the Jamestown harbor a year before the Mayflower. From our earliest inception, the “Land of the Free” was built on stolen land with stolen labor. Hundreds of brutal years of Indian Wars, broken treaties, forced removals and slavery with all its horrors followed.

U.S. Influence on Nazi Germany

Isabel Wilkerson taught me how in their early days while creating the Nuremberg laws, Nazi Germany looked to the U.S. for guidance and inspiration on how to keep the white race pure and protected. The Nazis co-opted racial slurs based on the American eugenicist Lothrop Stoddard, referring to Jews and non-Aryans as Untermensch, or subhuman. In fact, Stoddard’s book on white supremacy became a standard text for the Reich’s curriculum. Hitler’s self-proclaimed Bible was another American publication: Madison Grant’s book “The Passing of the Great Race.” Hitler even sent a thank you note to Grant. The U.S. was the great inspiration for how to commit the Holocaust, with one Nazi tasked with studying U.S. race laws for inspiration even commenting that he “thought American law went overboard.” This blew my mind.

Hitler was also inspired by our Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 and cheered on as we committed a near-genocide against Native Americans. Violent campaigns against Indigenous communities continued into the late 1800s, followed by broken treaties, shrinking reservations and land grabs. Residential boarding schools were built to strip future generations of their Indigenous cultures.

Colonization in America and Israel

An “Indigenous People’s History” goes into depth on the methods used to expel the existing tribes from land that European Americans felt entitled to colonize. I felt a disturbing sense of déjà vu while reading about American campaigns against the Indigenous while also hearing about recent Israeli aggression in Gaza on the news.

The use of “unlimited war” developed by the settlers and early colonists is eerily similar to what’s happening in Gaza right now — “war whose purpose is to destroy the will of the enemy people or their capacity to resist, employing any means necessary but mainly by attacking civilians [including children] and their support systems, such as food supply.” Dunbar-Ortiz referenced that quote taken from military historian John Grenier’s book “The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier.”

After the brutal attack from Hamas that killed over 1,200 Israelis, Israel’s vicious counterattack has now killed over 48,000 Palestinians, over 45% of whom have been children. Besides bombings, Israel has cut off aid, water and food supplies, creating a massive famine for folks living there. Multiple international organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders, have declared Israel’s actions to be a genocide against Palestinians.

I couldn’t help but see echoes from the American campaign against our Indigenous population to the Israeli state’s treatment of their Indigenous peoples. I know the Jewish people have been through hell, and it seems perfectly reasonable that they have a safe place to call their own, but there were already people living there. It wasn’t empty desert.

Ta-Nehisi Coates traveled to Palestine in 2023 and researched the history of Zionism, the Palestine-Israeli conflict and apartheid. In his book, “The Message,” he navigates the tightrope of acknowledging the centuries of abuse and discrimination faced by the Jewish people worldwide while also admitting that Israeli treatment of Palestinians is reminiscent of South African apartheid. In fact, Israel was a financial backer of South Africa during apartheid until they were pressured into sanctioning it by the U.S. in 1987.

Once apartheid ended, Nelson Mandela visited Israel. Seeing the segregation there led him to criticize their treatment of Palestinians. In 2023, South Africa formally sued Israel over their genocide of the Palestinian people at the International Court of Justice.

Observing the random checkpoints, seeing the Israeli army and government occupy Palestinian homes and demolish them at will, and observing the differences between traveling the region with Israeli versus Palestinian guides was eye-opening for Coates and for me reading about his visit.

In his research, Coates came across statements from early Zionists including Theodor Herzl and Ze’ev Jabotinsky concerning the people already living in the land that they set their sites on for the new state of Israel. Herzl, the father of Zionism, started things off by gently suggesting that they withhold jobs and opportunities from the Palestinians while arranging for them to emigrate to neighboring countries.

His followers grew more direct. Jabotinsky owned that the Israeli goal was colonization, while acknowledging that no native group of people has ever been colonized with their consent. Violence and aggression would be required. Jabotinsky directly compared the Arab race in Gaza to the Aztecs in Mexico and the Sioux in the U.S. Colonial patterns repeated worldwide.

The Cherokee Nation, after being slaughtered, sickened and forcibly moved on the Trail of Tears, made this statement:

“We are aware that some persons suppose it will be for our advantage to remove beyond the Mississippi. We think otherwise. … We wish to remain on the land of our fathers. We have a perfect and original right to remain without interruption or molestation.”

Folks that Coates spoke with in Gaza who have deep roots to the land of their ancestors feel likewise. Gaza is their home; they have nowhere else to go.

Back to America

And to bring it full circle, I’ve watched as fear-mongering, xenophobia and scapegoating have demonized the immigrant population — legal or otherwise — in the U.S. ICE raids increased during both Trump’s and Biden’s presidencies, but there was a recent uptick on the last Sunday in January, with more than three times the average daily arrests performed in cities across the country.

The father of a family in my community was snatched as he was out for a haircut. He was here legally with an official work visa. He has not been returned to his family since. His wife is struggling to continue on her own with two young boys and a newborn baby to care for without her husband. There is a Gofundme to help them if you find yourself so inclined.

The cyclical nature of oppression makes this quote from Anne Frank timeless:

“Terrible things are happening outside … poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”

Learn from the resistance

It’s tempting to throw up our hands and give up all hope. Things feel dire when they keep happening again and again, making me wonder if this is our doomed destiny. But I pull myself back from despair by focusing on the resistance. There have always been resistance movements, in the antebellum South, in Indigenous cultures, in South Africa, in India, in Palestine.

And they’ve been effective. Slavery is outlawed. The Holocaust ended. South Africa is desegregated. India is free. Indigenous Americans are winning land back is several areas of the country, from the Wampanoag in Cape Cod to the Yuroks in the California Redwoods.

The work is far from done. Racism didn’t evaporate when Lincoln emancipated the slaves or when Barack Obama was elected President. Unequal treatment didn’t stop with the end of Jim Crow laws and desegregation. But we have abundant examples of abolitionists, civil rights activists and ordinary humans who have stood up for the rights of others.

We can look to MLK, Harriet Tubman, Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Frederick Douglas and Harriet Beecher Stowe. We can study John Lewis, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Maria W. Stewart, Sojourner Truth and Frances Harper. I personally take heart in stories of white people who didn’t stand by and benefit from the systems set up for their success. Folks like Virginia Foster Durr, J. Waties Waring, Anne McCarty Braden and Herbert Kohl. Luminaries who we can learn from and emulate to better the path forward for us all.

If it’s true that history repeats itself, let us be a part of the pattern of resistance that’s been woven throughout every story. Let’s fight for justice, equity, inclusion and kindness. Let’s make this world a better place to be for everyone.

The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.