Cherry-picked history

In light of the awful events of last Sunday 12 June 2016, when a possibly self-loathing and most assuredly angry young man killed 49 people, we've been hearing a great deal about "the worst/deadliest mass shooting event in American history". At the risk of being indelicate or engaging in what some would refer to as the Oppression Olympics, can we just talk a moment?

What occurred in Orlando was horrific. Let me state that at the outset. Anderson Cooper did a wonderful piece in which he reminded us that the victims of the Orlando shooting were real living breathing people, not gays, not Hispanics. They were folk with lives and loves; fights to be fought and dreams to dream; genius and stupidity and flaws and brilliance. People. Real people. People who today are no more. That said however, can we just talk about this worst in US history business?

Here's the truth: this most recent shooting event, as awful, violent, terrifying and heartbreaking as it was, was not the worst in US history and those who know a little bit of US history know this to be true. Various articles and writings have been offered that include a more exhaustive list of events with far greater death tolls so I won't belabor that particular point, I will however point out that this moving goal line that is the beginning of US history is really a huge problem and perhaps part of why some of us feel as though we're not making the kind of progress on dealing with the various -isms we should.

This summer, the US celebrates its 240th birthday. Two hundred and forty years. That's a lot of years of 'freedom'. That's a lot of years of 'equality'. That's a lot of years of 'rights'. And yet, the questions begging to be asked and answered though are freedom for whom; equality for whom and rights for whom?

In those two hundred and forty years there has been much unrest and violence against various non-White groups over these very questions: freedom, equality and rights. Some of the interactions have been rightly described in history books as massacres, because that's what they were, so it seems a little odd that we'd look upon this one awful event and say that it's the worst in US history, when it is so clear that it wasn't. Shaun King offers a long list that you should read in his well-researched article for the NY Daily News which proves the point.

The reality is that history doesn't start when we decide to start taking notice. History didn't start after 9/11, no matter how much we like to pretend that it did; neither did history start after the liberation of Europe. History also didn't start after the bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We don't get to adjust the window according to when we started acting right, or when we were in the right and someone else in the wrong.

History is not a thing of convenience, much as we Americans might like it to be. Whether we want it to or not, all of it counts, all. So the massacre at Wounded Knee? That counts. It's history. It's ours. We own it. We built that. From the article, "The U.S. Cavalry opened fire on the Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation on December 29, 1890, killing 150 Lakota in a single incident after more and more land was taken from the rightful owners." The Tulsa Race Riots of 1921? That too counts. It's history. It's ours. We own it. East St. Louis, 1917? History. Ours.

Mob stopping street car; East St. Louis, July 2, 1917

The problem of resetting the history clock to a more convenient time (or a time when we look better) is that it prevents us learning anything from the parts of our history that we fail to acknowledge. It's like posting a picture on a dating site from 10 years and 100 lbs ago. It's not just misleading, it's an outright lie and your dates are going to call you on it.

America was born, toddled and came to adulthood bathed in the blood of the other. This is not an opinion, it is a statement of fact. (Again, Shaun King's article is a pretty good place to start your research if you don't believe me.) I acknowledge that this is an uncomfortable truth but it is truth nonetheless. Violence against our gay brothers and sisters is only a part of the larger story of violence against that which America's majority didn't like and sought to control or destroy. That's the history.

Rosewood burning, 1923

As much as a nation might like to blot out the vilest parts of its history, this isn't the way to do it. There is, in fact, no way to do it. It's yours. It's ours. We wrote it. We did it. Now, we gotta own it and in so doing, grow from it.

By pretending that other tragedies have either not occurred or aren't worth being considered, we suggest that some lives (and deaths) are unimportant.....sort of like the shooter did with these 49 precious souls on Sunday morning.