Civil Rights Summer

Just a few nights ago, we were trying to describe the American mindset to some Norwegian tourists with whom we were dining in an ecolodge in the middle of the jungle in Costa Rica.  It is hard to explain and not sound (or feel) like a crazy person.  “We’re individualistic, you see, we value personal rights over societal good.”  “It’s just not that way in Norway”.  Statistics and philosophies about schools in Finland were provided (“They give money to poor kids and put them in classes with only 7 students per teacher to try to help them.  They believe that you need to help the poor people even more than anyone else.”).  They were genuinely curious about what it’s like to live in the US, a place that is watched like a good train wreck by the rest of the world.  

This was, of course, the day before Zimmerman’s acquittal, now a part of history that I wouldn’t even know how to explain.  Justifying reasonable doubt by invoking that famous Ben Franklin quote that it is better for 100 guilty people to escape than have one innocent person suffer doesn’t make it feel any more right.  Knowing that the jurors followed the instructions of the law as they were supposed to doesn’t help either.  Watching the reaction on Fox News is like watching American culture through some distorted and ugly kaleidoscope.  Coincidentally, I happen to be reading “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets”, written by one of my personal heroes, David Simon, and serendipitously, I happened to read his thoughts on justice the day after the acquittal.  By his estimate, you have only a 40% chance of being convicted if you kill someone in Baltimore.  The jury, he says, “shreds the detective work to pieces…Juries do not like to argue.  They do not like to think.  They do not like to sit for hours at a time, wading through evidence and testimony and lawyers’ arguments”.  And it is human nature to want to doubt the most heinous of human actions, especially if the accused is sitting there calmly wearing a suit/tie.    If a jury is to find a defendant guilty, they want to know he is a bad person and they, in turn, are not bad for convicting him.  So that’s the American justice system, I guess. 

“The effect of race on the judicial system is freely acknowledged by prosecutors and defense attorneys—black and white alike—although the issue is rarely raised directly in court.”   David Simon’s book was written in the late 1980’s.  Has much changed?  We spent a week in June in what is described as “The Most Southern Place on Earth”, visiting places where just 50 years ago, sadistic crimes against African-Americans were a part of the cultural fabric.  Today, not even a mile away from where Emmett Till was kidnapped and killed, a fleet of tractors still bear confederate flags and an old man tells Natan that Theo has “colored hair”.  Are they just blissfully unaware of what those artifacts, both tangible and spoken, mean?  Do they not care?   

This is not to say that the MS Delta was a horrible place with awful people.  One of the workshop participants was a white man from the state who said that MS deserved its reputation and would likely never live it down, though it pained him personally.  We actually loved a lot about the culture—the slowness, the beauty of the state, the hospitality, the small-town feel, the omnipresence of our country’s history.  But as outsiders, we had to decide if we wanted to patronize a restaurant that was turned into a “private club” during the civil rights movement in order to exclude African Americans and still owned by the same guy.   I think it would not be a place to easily live with a good conscience.   There’s still so much black poverty there, the kind that has certainly never been in my consciousness—the kind where a family literally does not have pencils to send their kids to school with.  I disregard pencils with impunity because they are staples in my life, not luxuries.   The workshop, like any good one, was honest about the history of the state and the potential consequences of the (at the time undecided) Supreme Court ruling on the VRA.  I got to see impoverished communities where requiring an ID to vote would prohibit many of them from voting—if they are skipping school because they don’t have a pencil, then how in the world would they ever (without a car and without money) procure a state ID?  But the workshop was also about the blues, and the power of art to provide community, an outlet for oppression and ease the drudgery.  

On Day 1, we focused on poverty and the way the Mississippi river shaped the culture (and played a prominent role in the blues—muddy waters, when the levee breaks, etc.)

The levee break of 1927 caused nearby towns to be flooded with 10 feet of water

The mighty Mississippi with boat

State park MS river lookout tower (closed to the public since the 2011 flood)

 The Levee break museum (in Greenville, MS)

On Day 2, we focused on immigrant culture in the Delta—there were large populations of Jewish and Chinese people who settled there. 

Greenville, MS 

 Chinese Cemetery

The Chinese Cemetery was across the street from the Black Cemetery , where the only African American to fight for the confederacy (Holt Collier) was  buried.  

Jewish Temple

I had really long days, and this little guy spent a lot of time playing on a king sized hotel bed, driving around with his dad and out-eating him at many soul food restaurants.  He loves BBQ and fried okra.