Portland observer., March 10, 2021, Page 9, Image 9

March 10, 2021
Page 9
O
PINION
Sugarcoating America’s Shameful History
Truth of our
history has been
written in blood
o sCar h. b layton
The American news
media constantly re-
minds us that the false
narrative by Donald
Trump and his support-
ers claiming that Joe
Biden did not fairly win the 2020
presidential election is “The Big
Lie.” But The Biggest Lie, which
much of the American news media
continues to perpetuate, is “This
is not who we are” whenever the
notion of white supremacy pro-
duces a horrific act of violence or
destruction.
There were those who said
“This is not who we are” when
neo-Nazis marched through Char-
lottesville, Va., with tiki torches,
spewing vile racist and anti-Se-
mitic chants.
There were those who said
“This is not who we are” when
armed white rioters stormed the
Michigan state Capitol while
white supremacists plotted to ab-
duct and possibly execute that
state’s governor.
There are those who continue
to say “This is not who we are”
each time another unarmed person
of color is murdered by a police
officer intoxicated by a militarist
law enforcement culture.
And there were those who said
“This is not who we are” when
predominantly white insurrection-
ists invaded the U.S. Capitol to
disrupt democracy in the United
States by voiding the free and fair
election of Joe Biden as the 46th
President of this nation.
How much more murder, may-
by
hem and raw hatred must be put
on full display before Americans
finally admit this IS who we are?
As much as America tries to
sugarcoat its shameful history,
the truth of our history has been
written in indelible blood-
stains over many centuries
and from sea to sea. Before
America was even America,
the extermination of Native
Americans by Europeans
settlers set the tone for the
destruction of people and land in
the name of civilization and prog-
ress.
This has always been a civili-
zation backed up by lethal force,
under the guise of law and order,
that punishes and executes anyone
who appears to be a threat to white
supremacy. In the minds of many
whites, because Black people were
brought here to build and maintain
a white Christian country, we are
allowed to remain here for only as
long as we serve their needs.
To claim that this character-
ization is far-fetched is to deny
the bones of our ancestors at the
bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and
scattered across every inch of this
land. This nation was founded
upon rape and murder and there
are those who wish it to contin-
ue this way. The death of George
Floyd speaks clearly to this point.
Every murdered innocent tes-
tifies to the fact that this is who
we are. Every individual of the
First Nations who dies for lack of
proper health care testifies to the
fact that this is who we are. Don-
ald Trump could not have gotten
away with locking children in
cages if this despicable display of
inhumanity was not cheered on
by millions of supportive bigots.
Franklin Roosevelt could not have
gotten away with herding innocent
and loyal Japanese Americans
into concentration camps without
the tacit approval of the majority
of Americans, including those of
Italian and German ancestry.
There are many white Ameri-
cans who know this country’s ma-
jor problems are all about race. A
large portion of America’s white
people have a maniacal fear of
people of color, who they deem
to be “the other,” and who they
believe want to deprive white
people of what they have. But
what does the poorest and least
educated white person have be-
sides his whiteness? Abandoned
by the wealthy elitist of their race,
these wretched of the earth are
positioned as pawns to barricade
the doors to opportunity against
people of color. These loyalists of
white supremacy diligently carry
out their charge without realizing
that the only way they can carry
out this mission is to remain out-
side the doors themselves.
Many of the first Europeans
who populated this land were from
the prisons of England. There are
estimates that approximately 10
percent of migrants to America
between 1718 and 1775 were Brit-
ish convicts.
The character of the American
people is not so saintly as to war-
rant a blind faith in our goodness
in the face of racial hatred
and race-based violence and
murder on display every day.
Many Europeans who came to
America’s shores were fine peo-
ple, but the proof is in the pudding
– and we need to put an end to the
biggest lie and stop denying that
this is who we are.
Oscar H. Blayton is a former
Marine Corps combat pilot and
human rights activist who practic-
es law in Virginia.
Letter to the Editor
On Gun Violence Spike
I read with interest the excellent Letter to the
Editor by Sam Sachs of Portland’s No Hate Zone
(“Our Gun Violence Crisis”) and the Charleston
Loophole story (“Taking Aim at Gun Law”) in the
Portland Observer’s Feb. 24 issue. The spikes in
gun violence in Oregon and across the country need
addressing now. With the Biden-Harris Administra-
tion now in office, we have a good opportunity to
stop the bloodshed!
There are far too many guns available in our soci-
ety. People in the U.S. are 25 times more likelihood
to die via gun violence and mass shootings than
people in other industrialized countries. In Portland,
there were over 800 shootings in 2020 amidst a
27-year-high in gun deaths. Nationwide, Black men
between the ages of 16-34 comprise about 30% of
the 40,000 gun deaths each year, while representing
only 2% of the population.
The Portland Gray Panthers is taking action by
supporting a boycott against Walmart to get the
large corporate citizen to stop its outsized sales of
guns and ammo. One in five bullets sold in the U.S.
is sold by Walmart.
Two excellent civic leaders -- Keith Wilson, a
Portland trucking business owner, and Pastor Matt
Hennessee of the Vancouver Avenue First Baptist
Church – were supportive of our efforts to reduce
gun violence when they spoke at a Panthers commu-
nity forum last month.
As we know, there has been a logjam in Con-
gress preventing the passage of sensible gun laws,
including a ban on assault weapons and high capac-
ity magazines. In 2017, U. S. Rep. John Lewis of
Georgia, the late African American civil rights lead-
C ontinued on P age 10