When the Spanish lost their "territories," the lands where blacks and Philipinos called home, to the US and left, soldiers saluting the American flag wrote letters home. And those letters were filled with descriptions of dark-skinned peoples, writes Grandlin. What great fun the soldiers had "shooting 'niggers,'" or "water-torturing 'niggers,'" or using "niggers for target practice."
In the Dominican Republic, "niggers" could be killed with impunity and, as a reward, returning US soldiers were "celebrated and welcomed home with pomp and parades." One officer wrote home that he eagerly anticipated his return to action, since there were still "'n-word toes'" and "'scalps'" to collect and bring home as "'trophies.'"
"Unalloyed hatred," writes Grandlin.
Yes, unalloyed hatred.
War is an engagement with violence, with the practice of hate and cruelty, and war abroad is an extension of the war at home--the same practice of torturing and terrorizing blacks and people of color within US borders.
At home, a surge in fear and hate seems to have engendered a new generation of white Americans to engage in the hostility and cruelty of white nationalism. But this madness isn't immutable.
I used to demonstrate for my students how difficult it would be to enter a place, say a classroom, and start insisting the students on the left of room commence killing students on the right side of the room. It's not likely to happen. I would be, and rightly so, escorted from the campus in handcuff and taken to the closest jail.
If, however, I earnestly and diligently worked with students on the left side of the classroom to create a harassment campaign that was systemic in scope and engaged other classrooms and the community surrounding this building, if after many years, my, rather, our, campaign expands into pogroms of harassment in which neighbors and former co-workers actively engaged in abusing their neighbors, co-workers on the right, then we can say, we are on our way to the day when those "evil" beings on the right, those "troublemakers," those blacks, Jews, indigenous, LGBT, those poor and homeless, must be exterminated!
Unfortunately it seems, we don't have to work as hard or as long as Hitler and his henchmen. Blacks are shot dead by law-enforcement personnel who are subsequently acquitted. And the president of the US, eyeing his supporters, announces that he has no problems with those arrested taking a few bumps and suffering some bruises. Why treat "them" gently, with compassion, at least? Let's not mention the word, love.
Love isn't in the American history of vigilantism against blacks (Mexicans, indigenous, as well). Hate for racial difference, on the other hand, hasn't ended. It travels from neighborhood to neighborhood, residing behind doors and windows wherever its history is repressed.
But there are rumblings from below, rising, speaking truth to power. Speaking. Organizing. Collecting. Recording.
Now is the time to say--no more!
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