Despite what you may be inclined to think about the Black
Graduate Students Association staging a re-enactment of a lynching
last Wednesday, no black people are losing sleep about a possible
lynching.
At the end of the day, the display came off as tacky and
confusing. What exactly were passersby supposed to gain from it
all?
Of all the things that could have been used to make a point
about the black experience, is that the best they could come up
with?
Black history is a long and epic story infused with sorrow,
frustration and futility as well as triumph, achievement and
gladness. Black History Month is not a synonym for “Racism
History Month,” as tempting as it may be to make it such.
Why didn’t we get treated to an alfresco rendition of
“The Color Purple” or “Raisin in the Sun”?
How about a faux question-and-answer panel with the 332nd Fighter
Group out of Tuskegee, Ala. ““ a 450-man all-black World War
II bomber-escort division that was awarded more than 850 medals and
never lost a bomber in escort?
Even telling the saga of the improbable Amundsen-Scott
expedition to the South Pole would have been better than seeing a
ridiculous, uncreative re-enactment of a lynching ““ which
were often far more brutal and vulgar than could ever be expressed
with low-budget theatrics.
The overdone refrain of victimhood, which the re-enactment
obviously was, not only fails to tell the whole story of the past,
but gives the absolutely wrong impression, if any at all, of what
the black historical heritage means for the future ““ fawning
Daily Bruin editorials aside.
History’s ultimate benefit is its ability to serve as a
magnifying glass, uncloaking the misunderstood events of times
past, hence the common expression “Hindsight is 20-20.”
The only lesson to be gleaned from this stunt: “Lynchings are
bad and the people who do them look really uncouth” ““
hardly a revelation.
Here is another message that intellectuals and leaders need to
send, which even the most optimistic of us can understand: All is
not well in black America, and dwelling on the past will not help
us fix the problems of the present. Nasty-looking lynching
re-enactments provide no insight for the future.
One issue that could have been explored, for instance, is
something that I am increasingly concerned with, since cousins
around my age will be giving birth to black sons of their own
pretty soon: the relative failure of black America to raise its
sons safely and successfully.
Being young, black and male in America has become hazardous to
one’s health. Black males are about half as likely to attend
college as a black female, and only 55 percent participate in the
formal labor market.
Once they make it into middle adulthood, a black male will
statistically have a higher risk of divorce, lung cancer and
prostate cancer, as well as HIV/AIDS, than any other group of men
in the U.S.
Even the suicide rate, traditionally low among black males, has
tripled since 1980.
With startling irony, almost as many black males are slain by
other black males every year than were ever lynched. The national
life expectancy for black males has stagnated at 69 years (an
outrageous 58 years if you have the misfortune of being born in
Washington, D.C.).
Something is seriously wrong out there and history will not
reflect kindly upon the deafening silence surrounding contemporary
black issues like this.
It would be great if self-appointed black advocates like the
members of BGSA could use history and Black History Month to more
fully and honestly explore the origins of these kinds of threats to
the quality of life for black people in this country, so that
history will not show a downward spiral that continues unchecked
into oblivion.
Hopefully the impetus to stage dramatic and largely pointless
pity-parties about a sad-sack black America, such as with the
lynching display, will fade as time steams relentlessly forward,
whether blacks are on board or not.
Williams is a UCLA student.