Harlan: We need to talk about racism

Watching the construction of the magnificent new Landmark Building over the past year has been fascinating. It has been great to see all the trucks, equipment, and work crews and think of all the much-needed employment this project has provided at this time of economic downturn. But it struck me as odd that I had not seen one African-American on any of these work crews. Was this racial discrimination at work in Sedalia?

Concerned about this possibility, I sent letters to six different contractors who had been working on the project, but I did not receive a single reply. One electrical contractor, whom I knew somewhat, said, “I don’t want to talk about it,” when I told him I would like to visit with him about this situation.

The silence was deafening. It called to mind U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement on Feb. 18, in the midst of Black History Month, when he called the United States a “nation of cowards” on racial issues. “Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion and though they remain unresolved in this country, we average Americans simply do not talk enough with each other about race,” he said. Apparently that need for talk about race also exists in Sedalia.

We need to talk about racism in Sedalia. Talking lessens racism’s power and can break the awful, uncomfortable silence that may be there. Talking about it can make it less formidable and less frightening.

Being a psychologist, I knew that the roots of racism, bias and tensions can come from injustices inherited from the past which can then generate deep-seated feelings of superiority/inferiority, resentment, rage, suspicion, guilt and shame that need to be brought to the surface. These issues need to be exposed, explored and discussed. We need to separate fact from folklore and fiction.

So I went on a difficult trip through a tortuous past — an eight-month journey through the halls of slavery — from West Africa to the plantation fields of the Southern states, to the ghettos of New York and beyond, with some 55 references.

I learned a lot, some of which I wish I hadn’t.

A three-hour speech given in the halls of Congress by Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on June 4, 1860, prior to the Civil War, entitled “The Barbarism of Slavery” actually says it all. Sumner, who was ardently against slavery, had been “caned” for a previous speech on slavery by a pro-slavery congressman who so severely injured him that Sumner was forced to be absent from Congress almost four years to recover. Upon his return, however, he delivered the “Barbarism of Slavery” speech, which is a lasting tribute to his life.

Summer’s speech exposed five moral inconsistencies of the slavery system on which the church/religious establishment of the day “looked the other way.” While they proclaimed “man is created in God’s own image” and preached the sanctity of marriage and the importance of family bonds, the legalized institution of slavery:

• Sanctioned one man holding another human as his personal property — to be used, bought, and sold as he wished with no rights or protection under the law.

• Marriage between slaves was not recognized — but slaves were often forced to produce children who could be sold to enrich the slave holder (since children of slaves took on the status of slaves).

• The parent-child tie was broken when slave children were sold at auction.

• The gates of knowledge and advancement were closed by making it illegal to teach slaves to read or write.

• Slaves were forced to work without pay — the fruits of their labor went to the slaveholder.

Slavery was founded on violence and rooted in vulgar and brutal control. The white slavemaster ruled his plantation with the bludgeon, revolver, bowie knife and whip, but presented himself to the world as a person to be admired. As Sumner put it, “In the South, the swagger of a bully is called chivalry, and a swiftness to quarrel is called courage.” The discussion of slavery was forbidden in Congress as slavery was endangered by liberty in any form. Insults, bullying, dueling and threats characterized the slaveholding congressmen. Thus, as bad as slavery was on the slaves, it was worse on the slavemaster. This was an unheard of, widely protested, revolutionary thought in those times.

Recent studies of racism at the University of Missouri and the University of Illinois reveal this other side to racism, which was brought out by Sumner. Not only does racism harm blacks and other minorities, it can harm the white racist as well in terms of personality development.

The university researchers cited that the damage to whites usually presents itself as fear, anger, guilt and shame. Living only among their own race and denying the richness and diversity of other races can be self-limiting. Trying to somehow make compatible the coexistence of democracy and racial inequality creates a dichotomy and promotes anxiety. The researchers concluded that though the costs of racism to whites are not the same costs as the day-to-day violence, discrimination and harassment that people of color have dealt with, nevertheless, there are significant costs that whites have been trained in general to ignore, deny or rationalize away.

Unfortunately, these echoes from the past may account for Pettis County staying racially segregated while integrated. If so, this is sad. If so, the situation needs to be addressed with white-black dialogue to heal and to attain a new sense of oneness in our community.

Could possibly the six black churches and the 20-plus white churches change Sunday morning from being the most segregated hour in America? Could someday we possibly say, “Free at last, free at last, Lord Almighty, we are truly free at last — from discrimination and racism of any kind in our great country”?