Don’t talk to me about Susan B. Anthony.
When I was younger, a teacher tried to make me (we drew names out of a hat) do a report on Susan B. Anthony. After spending time in the school library I went back and asked for a different historical figure to write about. My teacher spent my lunch period talking to me in a patronizing and condescending (yes, they really are different things) tone explaining why it was important that each person complete the task as assigned and that he could hardly see what problem I could possibly have with my person and that I should feel lucky because not many girls got to do their report on a woman -- probably because he didn’t put that many female names in the hat to begin with -- of significance to American history.
I listened and tried to keep calm. My mom hated being called to the school when I lost my it in class - which may or may not have been a common occurrence in my junior high years - because she worked third shift and slept during school hours. I took a step back then I told him it really was a BAD idea to have me to do a report on Susan B. Anthony; especially since we had to give presentations in front of the class as part of the assignment. He folded his arms, cocked his head and told me to give him one reason why I should be given the chance to switch to a different person.
I said, "she's a flaming racist." I thought his head would explode (his face was really really REALLY red) before he got it together. He sputtered and flung his arms out bellowing at me. I stood there while he went on about how she fought for equality, how she fought for a woman’s right to vote, that she worked for social reform and how she was against slavery. He blustered and waxed poetic about how I should be in awe of her achievements and delighted to tell my classmates of them.
I told him being anti-slavery doesn't make you pro-black and that this lady gave not the first f** about black people in her day. I said she called black men terrible names and used her connections to work to undermine the 15th Amendment because it didn't serve her agenda. I said she thought black people were stupid and not equip to participate in the governance process. I said if he made me do a report on her I'd go Nat Turner on paper and go all out in my oral report. I didn't like her and couldn't respect how she used her power as a person of importance.
Giving (another) report that required me to edit the truth in a way that would permit me to received a passing grade didn't sit well with me. I'd already had problems with this teacher because he didn't like the questions I asked during class. He'd previously given me a poor grade because I refused to say the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery -- my alternative answers of: it was fought over lost income due to a coming need to pay cotton field workers didn't fly either -- on a test. I'd had three meetings between this teacher, the principal and my mom. I really wasn't up for launching another round of "your head is squarely up your ass" meetings to keep from failing history. Plus I was TRYING to do him a favor because there was no way I was writing the "hearts & flowers" report he clearly expected about this chick.
This may not make sense to you but I lived in the South (North Carolina) through the late 80s and the 90s. I went to a school where being given a failing grade for refusing to take a test over (I got an A the first time but the teacher's pet failed) wasn't unheard of and was very difficult to fight. Where receiving a failing grade on a report was as subjective -- read: based on what color you were -- as whether you got after school detention or suspended for talking back to a teacher (I spent a lot of time in lunch detention, they were rightfully afraid of my mother) and having being smacked across the face by a fellow male student in class deemed my fault because I refused to accept being called a bitch silently (don't worry I hit this dude with a chair and went to the office happily) in front of the (male) teacher of a neighboring class. This is also the same place where later in high school I got in trouble for going off on a (white) guy who called me a nigger in between classes.
Teachers didn't like to talk about race or slavery. They didn't like to talk about the hypocritical stance most public figures took on issues of race and slavery particularly in the south. They also didn't like students who refused to call it the "Northern Aggression Against the South" when talking about how succession and the war started. Black History and Women’s History month(s) activities were heavily scripted and monitored if not flat out avoided by the school administration.
Teachers REALLY didn't like it when you pointed out that the Emancipation Proclamation didn't actually do a thing to free any slaves seeing as it was directed only at slaves in southern states fighting against the Union and only protected them if they made it North then subsequently entered the military ranks. That it directed it's words to people held captive in a south that had already succeeded from the Union, patently rejected its governance, and violently refused to recognize it authority or laws.
For the record, teachers don't respond well when you blurt you "Lincoln didn't give one red hot damn about the slaves. He was trying to recruit an army and win a war" either. Mostly because it's a) true and b) definitely going to derail the lesson plan for class discussion that day.
Teachers liked to talk about Fredrick Douglas and then skip right to Martin Luther King and JFK like nothing worth mentioning really happened in between (let’s hear it for "yellow box" history lessons).
I was not that kid. I was never going to be that kid. My mother raised me to be unbiased about knowledge and encouraged my curiosity. I was a big fan of the word juxtaposition and spent massive amounts of time practically applying it to the world around me to better understand how the hell my dad ever thought it was a good idea to trap my ass in the South without a road-map, a guide fluent in southern speak and the proper passport and papers for safe travel.
My twist tie wearing, puffy ponytail (my hair like to unbraid itself by lunch time) having, not scared to get kicked out of class because it was better than getting an F I had to explain to my grade-watching mother self didn't budge. My teacher made me sit through him and another teacher talking at me for two more days. He called my mom and tried to get her on board. He sent me to talk to the school counselor - because clearly I must have been crazy to not want to talk about a racist white lady. I explained to all of them I didn't want to write a report about an old racist lady who didn't care about black people just as long as she got what she wanted for white ladies. I told them if they made me, then my report would be about a racist white lady who tried to kill the 15th Amendment and and called black men Sambos.
My mother eventually intervened and explained to them they had a choice 1) accept that I was going to write a seriously unexpected angle on the life of Susan B. Anthony that not one parent of my majority (there were 2 other black kids in my class) white class would like and they’d be decidedly up in arms about or 2) give me another chance to pick a name from the hat and take their chances I wouldn't find something to lose my sh** over that would lead to school board meetings and emergency parent-teacher conferences.
Needless to say, I still do not like Susan B. Anthony. I dislike her so much I go out of my way to exchange money so I never had to have a coin with her face or name on it. I am to this day wary of people who come talking gender equality, voting and Susan B. Anthony. I find them to be suspect at a minimum and highly prejudice as a given -- yes, I'm biased but I also haven't been wrong yet. History doesn't happen in a vacuum. People don't live on pedestals and their actions don't retain meaning without context. When you examine the position of someone who purportedly stands for you best to know exactly what you're co-signing.
If you ever hear tale of me taking a trek to this chick's grave to slap an "I voted" sticker on it you can be assured I'm doing it in the largest group of black women I can find so we can take a picture surrounding her grave in a manner guaranteed to have the ground shaking as she rolls and rolls beneath it in bitterness and disgust.
There's a reason today’s social activists boil the sentiment down to its roots: Black Lives Matter. It's the slogan AND the message. There's reason there's yelling: Solidarity means nothing in silence (we tried that) and "allies" purporting to stand for us don't even bother to check our talking points before speaking. There's a reason you don't understand where it's all "coming from" and seems so very "hostile:" Revisionist history, Edited lessons, Blind adherence to the safe status quo and an entrenched refusal to see that in order for there to BE change, people are going to have TO change; their thinking, their bias, their presumptions and assumptions, their rabid fear of intermingling, their belief in the inalienable right of some to lead and to define.
Because patriarchy and supremacy are not the same thing but they do serve the same master.
Because America’s not a house I'm expected to enter through any door other than the servant's entrance and you expect me to be grateful you left the door unlocked this time.
So please, miss me with statements about how people of color and poor people (to some that's redundant I know) don't understand they're voting against their interests. How if we just "got" how democracy really worked we'd know how to vote and why the new voting laws are really here to "protect" us all and the process. Pass me by with that sorry not sorry issued after some shade throwing commentary you hoped would fly under the radar gets outed. Don't wave your example of the one person yet to be proven false as why I just don't understand how this really is a "post-racial" America and I’m the one being divisive.
Come talk to me when you're ready to admit the documents that spread "freedom" from sea to shining sea never once purported to offer warmth or protection to me and mine. then tell me what you plan to do about.
Oh, and if you’re wondering, much to my mom’s amusement and my teacher’s relief the name I drew out of the at the second time was: Ida B. Wells.
