Two of the classes I teach at North Star this year are “Election 2020” and “Race Relations.” This month has felt overwhelming. Where to start? What to say? How can I help teens make sense of what we are seeing every day? There is so much to cover, and so much historical context to offer.
This week I listened to Trymaine Lee’s podcast “Into America” episode called American Coup. He provides some essential context and history, discussing the 1898 coup in Wilmington, North Carolina with Inez Campbell-Eason and Dr. Sharlene Sinegal-Decuir. (I reviewed Wilmington’s Lie by David Zuchinno about that coup in a blog post last year.)
I encourage you to listen to the full podcast. Here are a few highlights:
- Trymaine Lee: “What happened last week was a new chapter in a very old story.
- Trymaine Lee: Well, then let me ask you this, though. I mean, we’ve had this summer of this so-called racial reckoning. Do you think any of what we saw in the last several months has kind of primed us to really reckon with who we are and actually see this violence for what it is?
“Now, as un-American as the sacking of the Capitol Building may feel, that kind of racialized political violence is as American as apple pie. At nearly every turn where this country bent toward freedom, there was a violent backlash.”
Dr. Sharlene Sinegal-Decuir: I think we are. I think we are in position to see it clearly now. It’s always been there. Black people have always seen it, but white people have not always seen it. But I think this is forcing everyone to take a look at themselves, at their families, at what America really is, at African American people, at their colleagues. It’s really making America look at itself. And not just America, I mean, we have the world looking at us.
3. Trymaine Lee: Do (African-American) communities come out stronger (after riots destroy them)?
Dr. Sharlene Sinegal-Decuir: “No. No. Whenever African-American communities were decimated like that (Wilmington and Tulsa), it was extremely hard for them to come back and to gain any kind of prominence or dominance that they had once had. It was just completely lost. So, no.”
4. Trymaine Lee: Do you agree with Biden that what we saw last Wednesday does not represent who we are at all?
Dr. Sharlene Sinegal-Decuir: No. I think it is exactly who we are.
5. Trymaine Lee: “America can be so much better than it’s ever been before.”
In Election 2020 class, I raise more questions than I answer:
- If we believe the basis for this riot is invented (the election results are accurate and there was no fraud), how do we talk to the insurrectionists?
- How do you make sense of rioters using American flags to attack police in uniform while contending that “Blue Lives Matter?”
- Can the Congresspeople trust the Capitol Police to protect them? Can Congresspeople trust their colleagues in terms of basic physical safety?
- They wanted to “Hang Mike Pence?”
- Will the rioters be held accountable?
- After the current president leaves office, what will become of this movement?
- How do we feel watching these events? What are some ways we can act in response?
In Race Relations class, I have noted what I observed to be a widespread and immediate recognition of the contrast in how the police responded to this insurrection in comparison to how they have responded to Black Lives Matter protests. I saw mainstream news commentators, personal family members, and President-Elect Joe Biden explicitly note this contrast in their first conversations. That feels like some sort of progress. Meanwhile, whatever optimism I felt in that regard was immediately dampened last week by watching Miya Ponsetto’s interview with Gayle King. (In class, the question was, “Do you think this woman would have accused you of stealing her phone?”)
We are in a frightening time, with Covid-19 seemingly out of control, the vaccination program delayed, and this election-related violence feeling unpredictable. At the end of our weekly Community Meeting last week, I borrowed a line from the 1980s TV show Hill Street Blues: “Let’s be careful out there.”
Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Happy Inauguration Day, 2021.