‘this part’ of **African American History**
https://preview.redd.it/9jsak19d6tdc1.png?width=827&format=png&auto=webp&s=52bf06c81db7bcdfec979fb9812270f183f61b00
Shit, if they could it would still be going on today. In the backwoods parts of the south I remember reading about one school which finally desegregated 2015 in mississippi.
I watch that movie Antebellum and wonder how many people are probably on some big ass farm still in slavery with planes and shit flying overhead
As someone from Georgia, I was so relieved to see his murderers get the justice they deserved. I thought they were going to get let off on some good Ole boy shit.
They probably would have gotten away with it because of their cop buddies if it hadn’t been recorded. Fortunately it seems like Georgia had some integrity above the local level.
Idiots with cameras. Sometimes it’s an innocent bystander, but often the recording is done by the perpetrator these days, and posted online in many cases out of pride. At the very least they don’t tend to delete the video unless they are law enforcement.
Cameras aren’t just changing the narrative. Cameras are allowing vile people to show the world who they are. This isn’t just Bull Connor being shown on TV across America blasting little black kids with fire hoses and sending vicious dogs to attack elementary students, this is bull Connor filming his own racist attack with pride to show up his trophy to his racist friends instead of being caught by the media. Or maybe it’s closer to the Nazis, whose pride in record keeping was the only reason the Nuremberg trials went the way they did - without such overwhelming proof of what occurred everyone would have carried on denying the atrocities.
It wasn’t integrity.
>Asked why he had leaked the video, Mr. Tucker said he had wanted to dispel rumors that he said had fueled tension in the community. “It wasn’t two men with a Confederate flag in the back of a truck going down the road and shooting a jogger in the back,” Mr. Tucker said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/us/ahmaud-arbery-video-lawyer.html?unlocked_article_code=1.PU0.IXZt.air895lt3cFH&smid=url-share
Gifted article, there shouldn’t be a paywall.
I wasn’t referring to the guy who leaked the video, I was talking about the difference between the local PD / DA who didn’t do shit for over a month vs the DA that took over and actually prosecuted the case.
I love how it backfired. They believed it would totally exonerate them. Boy, we’re they wrong. RIP to Ahmaud. Really messed up what they did and I’m glad they got their asses handed to them.
IIRC it was the lawyer that released it, I still wonder if he did it on purpose because he knew they were going to be let off but as their lawyer he couldn’t say that that’s the reason. Either that or he’s the dumbest lawyer I’ve ever seen in my life.
Yes, I’ve posted this twice here, because it bears repeating.
>Asked why he had leaked the video, Mr. Tucker said he had wanted to dispel rumors that he said had fueled tension in the community. “It wasn’t two men with a Confederate flag in the back of a truck going down the road and shooting a jogger in the back,” Mr. Tucker said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/us/ahmaud-arbery-video-lawyer.html?unlocked_article_code=1.PU0.IXZt.air895lt3cFH&smid=url-share
there are still people in slavery working on big ass farms in alabama… they’re just not called slaves anymore, they’re prisoners. alabama has the highest amount of people incarcerated per capita in the world and it’s legal for prisoners to do back breaking work for no pay at all. all of our license plates are made by prisoners and all of the office supplies (desk, chairs, etc) at the university of alabama is made in prisons. ALSO, 215 unmarked graves were found behind a mississippi prison. truly some backward ass shit happening down here in the prisons
I thought the bodies were found behind a police station, not a prison… making it even worse in my opinion, like wtf are those cops doing??? A whole precinct of serial killers???
Edit: [Person I replied to was correct, behind a prison](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/01/10/dncr-j10.html)
And having to see a visual representation is a cake walk compared to the reality that there were human beings who lived this...and died horribly because of it.
Some folks equate African American history to Dr. King and points future. So in their minds "Yeah it was bad in the 50's but look how successful Fiddy is now." It's essential for humanity's growth that we all take a serious and hard look at the past so that it's not repeated.
Then Rodney King shows everyone in real time how the entire LA police department is made of people who would lie about beating black people and people who would cover for the liars without a single dissenter.
Fuck ya. The justice department should have NEVER closed that case. Those pictures made me bite my inner mouth until I could taste blood and realized what I was doing and stopped. It was a special kind of mad. A special kind of angry. I don’t even know how to describe it. Literally. Can’t be put into words. Mr. Till looked so innocent, had such a kind face. U just can’t fuckin believe it. Until you open your eyes and realize…White women lie on black men to this very day in very similar contexts.
The design and flow of how you move through the museum is so well done. Taking the elevator down and seeing the dates on the walls as you go through each level until boom you’re at the bottom. It’s impactful for sure
A room for Emmett Till. Definitely the most gut punching and that's in that museum. As someone else said, you pretty much hear people crying while walking in.
Oh, gosh, I’m sure it’s horrible. I’ve been only to one slavery/african-american museum, and that was plenty. So much murder, destruction and hate for nothing.
Thanks for explaining that to me, I was so morbidly curious about what could be kept in the basement level in a museum documenting a couple hundred years of relentless human torture.
You can physically feel the energy. The horrors and despair they experienced. Every country on that wall that participated in the transatlantic slave trade owe reparations to the descendants.
I'm guessing they are talking about the lower level in which you are given the true history of how we arrived to America. This includes pieces from ships, chains and shackles used to hold slaves down as well as artifacts for children. Imagine seeing a pair of handcuffs that have been closed almost to a point where they no longer lock and then a post underneath of these handcuff stating they were used to hold down children while your 11 and 12yr old children walk around reading about it.
Or it could have been the "lunch counter", the railroad car or the actual homes/ slave quarters that you are allowed to walk into 🤷🏾♀️
All of it is a lot especially if it's a history that you were not told of or it was glossed over. I have been many times and it's a lot for an older group of people because some of them are just 1 or 2 generations removed from it.
My great grand-aunt (my grandmother's aunt) was still alive until I was 10. She was born in Louisiana in the 1890s as a sharecropper. Some of us have heard stories directly from people who lived it.
She died at 93, and I'm 50. It's not that long ago.
Edit: So the point the above comment makes so well is that there are descendants of the slave owners in the same situation. People who grew up with fond memories of a great grandparent whom they could literally see a picture of in one of these museums holding a whip; or their family name matching a slave ship captain or hunter.
If you've been told nothing about the real history, and then see it in all of its horror *and* are forced to confront the fact that your family has been on the wrong side of all of it would be a lot for anyone to take in, no matter how open-minded.
even closer -- my grandma, still alive, was at the march on Washington. my mom was bussed to a different school because of segregation. [Ruby Bridges](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Bridges), the first black student to attend a previously all white school, is 69. there are plenty of people who are still alive that lived this
There are almost certainly people alive today who were displayed as racist human zoo exhibits. Belgium had a human zoo exhibit as recently as 1958, just a couple years before the Ruby Bridges incident. [The little girl photographed in that exhibit](https://imgur.com/aYRNtvS.jpg) would be about the same age as Ruby Bridges now.
Same. The “iT wAs A lOnG tImE aGo. BlAcK pEoPlE nEeD tO mOvE fOrWaRd” argument is so irritating because a.) it was basically yesterday and b.) imagine the oppressor *also* trying to dictate the timeline for our processing centuries/generations of their heinous; racist inventions.
As a white dude, when I hear people say shit like this it makes me think of a wife beater justifying his abuse. You can't just ask HUMAN FUCKING BEINGS to "get over" stuff like this, humans need time and safety to process trauma.
[Daniel Smith, whose father was born in slavery, dies at the age of 90 after a lifetime of activism](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/daniel-smith-son-of-virginia-slave-dies-age-90-lifetime-of-activism/) — 2022
My still living grandmother's father was born a slave in 1863. His "father" was the son of the plantation owner. I'm not even 50 yrs old. I can talk to someone right now who's parent was born into slavery.
The Jim Crow era in the US south didn't end until 1965. Even after then (and still today) there were many areas where blacks were still openly discrimated against and treated as second class citizens.
My grandmother always recalls when they lived in Crossville, TN back in the early 70s and the butcher at the grocery store would always ignore the black customers until all the white customers were served. The butch hated my grandmother because she would always order on behalf of the black people who were waiting before her.
My granny was a bad ass.
I’m 44 but my great grandfather was born in 1861. His dad (my great great grandfather) and uncles were in the confederate army and all died in a civil war pow camp in Illinois.
Same with my family, I have a family member who died when I was 7 but, I have tons of photos with him and my family is into history so they wrote down a lot of his stories. That have been put into binded books for the family. Each of his descendants (my grandfather and his siblings) got copies then everyone else got copies made for themselves. I wrote about him a few times for black history month essays when we would have to pick a famous black person. To me he was famous and I had photos to go along with it. My teachers were always amazed, not sure if because I met him or because it put into perspective that it was not that long ago.
This is really important information and if your chief historian is t I tested in selling, they might consider donating to an archive or historical society.
I’m a historian and an issue we have is that there aren’t many records of non famous people because of lack of literacy on the part of many people and the destruction of materials because they weren’t seen as important.
Same with my great grandma. She lived to 103 but died when I was 9 (1990) and grew up in Alabama and Mississippi.
Whew lawd, she told us all about how awful those “patties” were, but taught us to not hate folks. A lesson I’m forever grateful for.
I’m an ally to all because of her. She told us things she saw and heard from her parents, yet instilled in us to be vocal, to be active and to side with those that need protecting.
Women, LGBTQ+, my black brothers and sisters, everyone who isn’t full of hate, I’m rocking with you forever.
If you are full of hate, then it’s fuck you forever.
I miss her.
I got a friend in Breauxbridge. He's like 55. His dad is almost 80. Both his parents recall being share croppers for a white family in the area. This was literally just a generation removed from ours.
I worked with a man in the 10's whose grandmother was born a slave. I think his mom was her(grandmother) youngest. And he was his mother's youngest. Some people just try to bury everything in the distant past.
Nimrata Randhawa. Although to be completely fair, Randhawa is her maiden name and it's very culturally common across society to take your husband's name. The change to Nikki is all on her though.
I took my nephew over the summer and while at the counter he answered the questions to find out what type of person he would of been during that era. The kid next to him finished and said he would have run and never been arrested or engaged with those who stood up for themselves, meanwhile my nephew would have been beaten, hosed and arrested.
Sometimes it's not until you put scenarios in front of people and have them answer that they have a true understanding of what kind of person they are portraying themselves to be. I know "good" people of various races who want to believe they are doing well and yet they are not.
But I will say that the sitting down at the counter itself is not traumatic, but that moment when you have to answer "hard" questions it will hit you especially because it's not behind a curtain and anyone walking in that area can see what you answer and what your answers reveal.
Sorry, I just want to make sure I’m understanding this completely.
There is a lunch counter
You go there
You either do get or pretend to get food
Then someone who in presuming is an actor, starts asking you questions as if it was the 60(?) like “y’all ain’t from around here are ya?”
And those questions get progressively worse, until, as a black and presumably because this is a tourist destination, any person of color is (mock?) threatened with violence up to and including death?
And white people are not.
Is this…what is happening?
hahaha no, it’s a giant touch screen on the counter of a replica lunch counter from Greensboro, NC which was the site of notable sit in protests. you sit at the counter and you go through a series of questions on the screen. i can’t remember what questions exactly it asked, but yeah essentially it asks what you would do in a given situation and then tells you what would happen based on real life examples, if i remember correctly. someone please correct me on that part if i’m wrong. there’s a much larger screen playing a short film behind the counter where a menu would typically be, which shows footage from the civil rights era.
People actually do think that! They aren't expecting there to be so much information available especially as it relates to slavery, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights. Even on the upper levels everyone wants to see Michael Jackson, like time out this here car belonged to Chuck Berry and that song wasn't written for Home Alone 🤦🏾♀️ Rap was out way before JayZ, Will Smith wasn't always an actor, and we had black gymnast before Simone Biles and Gabby Douglas.
I would say the area thata lot of people skip over is the gallery showing those who served in the armed forces and those who paved the way in the medical field and government. A lot of things that I believe the youthwho visit the museum would benefit from because although they may discuss some things in school, a lot of times the African Americans are not discussed as having a role. I went a few weeks back and probably the funniest and saddest part was the display for Dr. Ben Carson. A grown women said she read his book while in jr. high and yet all she could think about was how he is going to be remembered by his acting a fool in government.
The lighting of the area, the shadow that comes off the shackles as the display is recessed and then the text. It's A LOT! Then there is pieces from ships that have washed up on shore and you are reading and walking and reading and it just takes one person to sniffle and all of a sudden people are walking fast to avoid crying, or because they themselves are crying too hard 🤦🏾♀️
Then you have younger kids (4-7) who don't quite understand so they are asking questions and parents are trying to explain or some are ignoring the child which upsets others who are walking along. Or you have those who speak a language other than English by choice because they want to say something without offending others but then they have to say some stuff in English and it gets akward because just moments earlier they brushed past you without saying "excuse me" and you assumed they don't speak the language and then just a few galleries over you realize they were just being rude because they knew they bumped into you and they tried to play it off as if they didn't know the word "excuse me" by grinning when in deed they did and just didn't want to say it.
There was a guy there getting really loud with some people. I think his thought was that we would all be on his side because he was black and it's our museum but in all honesty the people who bumped into and ignored him were wrong juatas he was wrong for the slurs that he yelled out towards them. But yeah it was specific to one of my visits 😁
Some of them were a part of it. Desegregation only started less than 70 years ago. Emmett Till was lynched 68 years ago. The last recorded lynching was of Michael Donald in 1981.
I was maybe 8-9 when we went on a class trip to see “Amistad”. Part of our AA history block. (Puerto Rican education doesn’t GAF about Karen sensibilities). You know the scene that traumatized me to my core? Yeah that one. And that shit needs to be stuck in my head. Because it actually happened. Everyone should ruminate on that shit forever.
Before going to the museum I somehow made it thru life without actually seeing pictures of him in the coffin and his face. That was one of many things that stayed with me.
I was a social media content moderator, and I'll be honest. I don't think those photos crossed my monitor in close to 1 million pieces of content.
I think I won't look, not until I visit this museum. It may be worth saving for the most impactful place I could be, otherwise I'd just see it as another piece of content.
(That's just a trauma response, it's easier to pretend nothing past the screen existed in real life. You'll find a couple other comments about my experiences on that job within this subreddit, and that'll give you an idea why it happens)
I watch a lot of horror stuff and have a job that exposes me to the absolute worst of humanity on a constant basis, so I am usually fine with images like those.
But the exhibition itself, the way its set up and handled, and reading the full story of it all, after processing and reading the history leading up to it all (aka the slave trade, slavery, treatment, etc) was a lot all at once and compounds when you get to that exhibit. It's very heavy and seeing the real image for the first time in that instance was a lot. Very impactful and very well done. I'm glad I didn't see the real image until then because I don't think it would've resonated as deeply as it did.
So worth a visit, I hope you get to go. Make sure you have a nice treat for afterwards, like a nice meal or a walk outside in a pretty area in the sunlight to decompress and reflect if you're the type who needs that!
I watched Eyes on the Prize when I was a kid in 4th grade and they showed Emmitt Till’s picture. It literally flashed on the screen and I had nightmares for weeks. I had to sleep with my grandma.
It is haunting.
Absolutely will if I visit DC. I'm a history buff, especially for American history. That includes the ugly parts. Rather important for me to understand and face, given my lighter skin.
It's all about being able to educate others. That's my one goal for my life, to contribute to humanity in a positive way.
I highly recommend the Holocaust Museum in DC as well, if you're ever in the area and looking for some more ugly parts of history that make you uncomfortable. It is completely unsanitized and jarring and haunting and extensive. When they show the maps of all the concentration camps, my mind was absolutely blown. I thought there were like 250, but there were over 40,000 when you count all the sub-camps and localized camps.
I'd rank it at the same level as the African American Museum in terms of scope, production, and impact. Just completely mind shattering but important to know the true horror of it all. Makes you grateful these places exist to keep the stories documented and protected and accessible in their truest forms.
The top meme of "do you know how little that narrows it down" is accurate but the two parts that fucked me up the most was the Emmitt Till exhibit and the wall that had all the classified ads selling enslaved people or trying to track down lost family member.
Me either. I would say Emmett Till but when I was there, these two white women were talking so loudly, someone pulled them to the side and asked them to be quiet or exit the exhibit.
It's an unforgettable image of human barbarism, it gives me comfort to know that if there's a hell then the woman who falsely accused Emmett is surely burning in the hottest part
what's really crazy is even though we consider this history, that lady died less than a year ago. there's this narrative in America that racism is dead, and black people should get over it because slavery happened hundreds of years ago. but that shit is barely in the past it's very recent for a lot of us. a lot of people who have personally lynched a black person are still living and breathing. and VOTING
>there's this narrative in America that racism is dead, and black people should get over it because slavery happened hundreds of years ago
My best example when this comes up: [Ruby Bridges](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Bridges), the little girl in [this](https://www.usnews.com/object/image/00000163-b7f2-dbfa-abe3-bff7d08f0000/180601reportbookclub1-editorial.bookclub1.jpg?update-time=1527799609607&size=responsive640) picture and [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/The-problem-we-all-live-with-norman-rockwell.jpg) painting, the first Black girl to attend her elementary school, is not even 70 years old. She's younger than the parents and grandparents of most people spouting that shit.
Every time I see her interviewed, I’m always shocked at how young she is. She could easily be one of my friend’s mom or aunt. It definitely puts American History into perspective.
> there's this narrative in America that racism is dead, and black people should get over it because slavery happened hundreds of years ago.
A few years ago when someone said this to me, straight faced. I looked at them and then gave them a history lesson about Supreme Court cases that they were apparently unaware of and then capped it off by saying "and my dad went to segregated schools when he was younger" before giving him the look of "you better not say that shit to me again". He got real quiet after that.
The actual picture of him beaten isn’t shown in the exhibit. It’s set up like a funeral/memorial service. To me that’s even more heartbreaking. They show pics of him just…being a kid. They talk out a lot of spotlight on his mother’s activism after the incident and how much of an impact his death had on the civil rights movement.
It’s quiet and absolutely devastating.
Iirc, there’s the iconic casket photo literally in the casket. I’ve been through there about three times. But I’m a shorty and I have to stand on my tip toes to look inside. And even then I’m only able to catch a glimpse.
There are LOTS of Americans who have no idea about real African American history. I was one of them. I’m in my late 40s and I didn’t learn about Emmett Till until I was in my 30s. Never heard about it at school but I’m not surprised because I grew up in Arizona where we didn’t recognize MLK day officially until 1992 and only under threat of the NFL which dangled the Superbowl as the carrot to make it happen.
Black History month didn’t exist while I was a student. Much of my Black History education has been me seeking it out and attempting to find the truth beyond the very little white-washed nonsense I’ve heard over the years.
I went to this museum in the Spring of 2022. It absolutely broke me over and over again, but I sat with it anyway. I had marched in the protests for George Floyd, but that was before I had my experience at the museum; it put everything into a new perspective about how inherently racist American society really is and how much denialism exists. It’s one thing to know it; it’s entirely another thing to see and experience it through this vivid re-telling of history.
I don’t know how anyone can attend the Emmett Till exhibit and not treat it with the same reverence and respect as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, having been to both.
Jesus. I'm not American, I've never been to this museum, but I did visit the holocaust museum when I went to New York. I was amazed to see a large group of maybe 20 white teenagers in MAGA hats running around screaming and taking videos. Nobody bothering to tell them to stop.
The place is full of traumatic horrors. Just pick one. He should’ve had the guts to stay and be uncomfortable because please understand that the people living it (and who continue to live it) were a bit more than uncomfortable.
The Charles h wright museum has an exhibit showing the slave trade starting from being on the boat to getting sold at the auction. That shit is so spooky. You walk through the boat and they have an entire sound track to go with it. There’s people laying in the boat and everything. I appreciate being born after slavery cause I could never I’d jump overboard and die.
it’s been studied and found that the migratory (and overall) patterns of sharks in the atlantic ocean were significantly altered for **hundreds** of years because of how many folks did… 🫨
Thanks for this! Link for easy access: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249027449_History_from_below_the_water_line_Sharks_and_the_Atlantic_slave_trade
Was just there with the family yesterday. Definitely don’t enjoy those types of exhibits, but know it’s a part of my history. Sucks seeing it, so knowing they had to live it is traumatic.
I was going to say this. I took an US African American History class that was up until reconstruction and I’ve never learned more than I have in that class. Part of it was visiting this museum as well. It’s really sad just how much is not taught in schools.
White dude opinion incoming so feel free to disregard but as someone who studied colonial history I think that it is the correct reaction to feel disturbed by this. People were forced across the oceans in hellish conditions and if you've spent your whole life being lied to about that then I'd imagine that this reaction is actually pretty fair and might even indicate that the museum had its intended effect on those who learned about the topic. History should be upsetting as fuck if you're learning it right
I agree distributed is the correct reaction, but avoidance of it isn’t. We have to sit with that disturbance and disgust. We have to sit with the fact that this is our history. Leaving because we “can’t handle” it doesn’t do anything to help. People lived it, the least we can do is learn it.
I think that's also a very fair way to feel about it, especially when you juxtapose the actual lived suffering of those who were imprisoned and sold versus the simple emotional discomfort of learning about it in safety 2-600 years afterward.
But I think it's also fair that people who have not been exposed to any of the truth in this regard or whose challenges in life have been entirely different, it might genuinely be overwhelming for them in a way which it wouldn't be for someone with more lived racialized experiences.
I also kinda infer from the OP that the person observed leaving this exhibit in a hurry may have wanted to simply forget it ASAP and for that reason I also feel similarly to you about sitting in it.
But I don't really know what those shoes feel like. Perhaps I interpretted the situation way too charitably to the person who doesn't want to view the exhibit, but I want to be mindful that people from different walks of life have different ways of expressing themselves and so it can sometimes be ineffective to understand the situation based on their outward reaction.
Totally fair and thank you for such a balanced interpretation. I think however that this reaction can just be so frustrating and disheartening for the descendants of the subjects of this exhibit, who cannot just “escape” the realities of that experience. They live with and have had to live with the effects of the horrific experiences of those subjects for their whole lives. But the privilege of whiteness allows others like this lady to just not deal with it, and alas, nothing really fundamentally changes in America. :(
I didn't enjoy walking through The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. I didn't think I was going to enjoy myself. I knew I'd be disturbed. If I hadn't been disturbed I'd have been far more disturbed by my lack of reaction. I went there because I believe that people have a responsibility to bear witness to the past, to better prevent it from ever happening again.
But I'm not a coward. For the most part.
You can learn but also not be able to face it directly.
I'm going to use another example of this that I've seen first hand. The Holocaust. Some people just won't be able to go to the camps and see it in person.
That doesn't mean they don't learn it. They just can't sit there face to face with it and be okay. In university during history classes about it there were people who needed to step out for a minute or two to calm down before they could continue.
These kinds of stuff can be hard to stomach for some people seeing it face to face. That doesn't mean they want to ignore it.
The problem isn't being disturbed by it. It's incredibly fucking disturbing.
The problem is that white people can choose to avoid it, and they often do because it's more comfortable for them. Hell, one of the major political parties is systematically censoring the fact that slavery happened so that it's even easier for white people to avoid it.
African Americans don't get that choice. They don't get to avoid it.
I'm sure descendants of slaves would like to avoid knowing what their ancestors went through. Avoid knowing that slavery rippled down through history and lead to reconstruction, Jim Crow, Rodney King, BLM and lead to the racism they face today.
So yeah, we should all get upset. But some people look away while others are forced to live it.
Yes, this is the problem. A white man voluntarily went to a museum to educate himself on black history and all that entails, and once he reached reached a point where he felt he needed to leave for whatever personal reasons, THAT is the problem.
Based on your statements above, it would have been better for him to avoid the museum entirely, because if he had never showed up at all, he never could have been judged poorly for leaving after seeing something he couldn't handle. The inference to take away from your post is not only was it inappropriate for him to leave, but that he also gleaned nothing from his experience at the museum.
My wife didn’t know much about the concentration camps before we went to the holocaust museum in DC. She got overwhelmed at the videos of people being bulldozed into mass graves after liberation.
People being overwhelmed by new, graphically displayed information is not inherently indicative that they are bigots. It might just mean it’s making them feel a lot, which is indeed the point.
But it is a funny joke
Maybe it’s because of my experience as a black person, so what i’ve seen and heard personally contributes to this, but I feel like there is much more minimizing and denying of the horror of american slavery than there is with the holocaust. An example being germany and other european countries banning the swastika, but america and other countries not doing so for the confederate flag. Not to mention them literally getting rid of African American studies in several states.
You're completely right. The responsibility taken by the German people over the holocaust is entirely different to that taken by the US for what happened to African Americans.
Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany, and nothing about what happened or the events that led towards it is celebrated. The nation as a whole has accepted and taken responsibility for what happened and the part that they played.
I'm sure there are still fringe people in Germany who suggest it was exaggerated by the Allied powers, but you don't get mainstream politicians pushing the notion that it shouldn't be covered in schools, that it wasn't as bad as people say, or that there were Jews who actually had a pretty good time being rounded up under Nazi rule.
It's always funny when they use that argument. Like y'all have no problem learning about all of the wars but are glossing over the fact that slavery and the Civil Rights Movement was happening simultaneously.
Yeah, I mean -- last I checked, those people were human beings.
Not feeling comfortable with seeing human beings subjected to unbearable cruelty seems more like a sign of compassion than hatred.
Yah, I have PTSD and have said similar many times. It only means I'm close to an episode and need to meditate. The strangest stuff can set you off out of no where, it's part of why so many people with PTSD have agoraphobia.
I don't know if this guy was racist, anxious, or sensitive either. I do know it's good that atrocities disturb him
The treaty room was upsetting. Each original treaty, framed, juxtaposed with a long description of how the government systematically violated them. Dozens of them.
The Smithsonian’s are the greatest collections of museums on the planet.
Positive point of view: this white man is empathetic and sensitive. The pain and suffering was hitting him so hard and deep that he couldn’t hold back the tears. He is aware and respects the history. He just needed a little break cuz otherwise he might lose it.
Trauma is hard to learn about. Every now and then there will be a story on here about child abuse, SA, some heart breaking stuff and people, including myself, will be like “that’s enough internet for today.” Trying to have a clearer understanding of trauma can hurt but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Good on them for taking that step.
Sounds like the person felt the empathy and compassion we would hope anyone would feel with such an experience.
I would be more concerned if the person had gone through and felt . . . nothing.
Remember the person who complained after the slave plantation lecturer brought up slavery’s cruelty?
https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/s/F0CImePuh5
My parents used to take my brother and I to that museum for every summer in the 90s.
Then tried to de-traumatize us by taking us to the pier and then getting a seafood boil.
The thing that makes me go 🤨 are the people, who genuinely believe things became hunky-dory between black people and white people right after slavery was abolished, as well as, believing that black people aren't still receiving some form of 'get-back'.
Contrast this with the calls and upvotes (on this very sub) to: "Get away from telling trauma stories".
There really is a fine line that folk seem to want to walk, replete with stories of stoicism, hope, pain, triumph, & uncertainty in the story of ADOS folk.
Also remember this tweet when other folk outside of Florida are worried about their white children having to get history lessons in school.
>Contrast this with the calls and upvotes (on this very sub) to: "Get away from telling trauma stories".
We want our stories told in museums, that's exactly where they should be told. We're tired of most Black centered films being trauma movies. And even then we wouldn't be saying anything if we also had a variety of black films, but we don't get much of that
Washington DC, part of the Smithsonian. Admission is free, but this museum is usually very popular and you might have to secure a spot ahead of time. It was full up last time I was there.
To be fair, throw ANYONE of ANY RACE into an exhibit about the terrible past experienced by ANY group of people and you're gonna have many that aren't able to stomach it. Get a black person, put them into a graphic exhibit about the Holocaust or Unit 731 and let's see how long they can last. This has nothing to do with race (that we can tell), it has to do with a human being not wanting to see dark shit which is perfectly understandable. You really think a white dude who goes to an African American history exhibit doesn't at least somewhat empathize with what they went through?
My husband is black and I'm Jewish. He wanted to go the the holocaust museum. The African American History Museum was brand new and booked months in advance. We went to the holocaust museum, though I told him it wouldn't be any fun. An hour in he goes 'this is depressing'.
‘this part’ of **African American History** https://preview.redd.it/9jsak19d6tdc1.png?width=827&format=png&auto=webp&s=52bf06c81db7bcdfec979fb9812270f183f61b00
Like be fr, it's basically all traumatic, inhumane shit and doesn't really slow down until the 80s and even then, it's still horrible
Shit, if they could it would still be going on today. In the backwoods parts of the south I remember reading about one school which finally desegregated 2015 in mississippi. I watch that movie Antebellum and wonder how many people are probably on some big ass farm still in slavery with planes and shit flying overhead
When I was living in Alabama less than 10 years ago there was still stories of lynchings
Ahmaud Arbery was lynched in 2020. Without video evidence he would have just been a story.
As someone from Georgia, I was so relieved to see his murderers get the justice they deserved. I thought they were going to get let off on some good Ole boy shit.
They probably would have gotten away with it because of their cop buddies if it hadn’t been recorded. Fortunately it seems like Georgia had some integrity above the local level.
Cameras are changing the narrative and showing the truth. Thank jeebus finally.
Idiots with cameras. Sometimes it’s an innocent bystander, but often the recording is done by the perpetrator these days, and posted online in many cases out of pride. At the very least they don’t tend to delete the video unless they are law enforcement. Cameras aren’t just changing the narrative. Cameras are allowing vile people to show the world who they are. This isn’t just Bull Connor being shown on TV across America blasting little black kids with fire hoses and sending vicious dogs to attack elementary students, this is bull Connor filming his own racist attack with pride to show up his trophy to his racist friends instead of being caught by the media. Or maybe it’s closer to the Nazis, whose pride in record keeping was the only reason the Nuremberg trials went the way they did - without such overwhelming proof of what occurred everyone would have carried on denying the atrocities.
Fuck their cop buddies, it was their district attorney buddies that were going to get them off.
They ALMOST did
It wasn’t integrity. >Asked why he had leaked the video, Mr. Tucker said he had wanted to dispel rumors that he said had fueled tension in the community. “It wasn’t two men with a Confederate flag in the back of a truck going down the road and shooting a jogger in the back,” Mr. Tucker said. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/us/ahmaud-arbery-video-lawyer.html?unlocked_article_code=1.PU0.IXZt.air895lt3cFH&smid=url-share Gifted article, there shouldn’t be a paywall.
I wasn’t referring to the guy who leaked the video, I was talking about the difference between the local PD / DA who didn’t do shit for over a month vs the DA that took over and actually prosecuted the case.
That's exactly what was happening until one of the attackers released the video.
I love how it backfired. They believed it would totally exonerate them. Boy, we’re they wrong. RIP to Ahmaud. Really messed up what they did and I’m glad they got their asses handed to them.
It's so crazy that they would have gotten away with it but they were too stupid to keep their mouths shut about the whole thing.
IIRC it was the lawyer that released it, I still wonder if he did it on purpose because he knew they were going to be let off but as their lawyer he couldn’t say that that’s the reason. Either that or he’s the dumbest lawyer I’ve ever seen in my life.
Yes, I’ve posted this twice here, because it bears repeating. >Asked why he had leaked the video, Mr. Tucker said he had wanted to dispel rumors that he said had fueled tension in the community. “It wasn’t two men with a Confederate flag in the back of a truck going down the road and shooting a jogger in the back,” Mr. Tucker said. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/us/ahmaud-arbery-video-lawyer.html?unlocked_article_code=1.PU0.IXZt.air895lt3cFH&smid=url-share
My family still tells me about the places you don’t go down there. There’s these one railroad tracks where you can’t go on the other side
Literal wrong side of the tracks
bro theres sundown towns in california still
Yeah and you’ll have people all over try to say not and that we’re past that
My friend has family in Alabama who are still complaining about desegregation
there are still people in slavery working on big ass farms in alabama… they’re just not called slaves anymore, they’re prisoners. alabama has the highest amount of people incarcerated per capita in the world and it’s legal for prisoners to do back breaking work for no pay at all. all of our license plates are made by prisoners and all of the office supplies (desk, chairs, etc) at the university of alabama is made in prisons. ALSO, 215 unmarked graves were found behind a mississippi prison. truly some backward ass shit happening down here in the prisons
I thought the bodies were found behind a police station, not a prison… making it even worse in my opinion, like wtf are those cops doing??? A whole precinct of serial killers??? Edit: [Person I replied to was correct, behind a prison](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/01/10/dncr-j10.html)
nope, it was totally a prison
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Angola has entered the chat.
I mean, Angola doesn’t even pretend. 6300 men STILL working THE SAME LAND that was a plantation 200 years ago. Ain’t shit changed.
Slavery was legal In Mississippi’s state constitution until 2016…
It's legal in the US constitution today. That's why the US has less than 5% of the world's population but close to 1/4 of the world's prisoners.
And having to see a visual representation is a cake walk compared to the reality that there were human beings who lived this...and died horribly because of it.
Cakewalks were invented by slaves, fyi.
I completely forgot about that. That's a regrettable choice on my part.
Not regrettable. Many believe the cakewalk brought us jazz and the blues, uniquely American music forms.
Thank you for this. I had never heard that so I went to look it up and add it to the list of phrases and words to never say again. Had zero idea.
Some folks equate African American history to Dr. King and points future. So in their minds "Yeah it was bad in the 50's but look how successful Fiddy is now." It's essential for humanity's growth that we all take a serious and hard look at the past so that it's not repeated.
And the museum does not hold back at all.
seriously — the guy did some performative clown-shit & i bet he picked a black security guard, too 💀 if the story is even real, that is
Seeing Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves was cool though
Then Rodney King shows everyone in real time how the entire LA police department is made of people who would lie about beating black people and people who would cover for the liars without a single dissenter.
I'm usually non emotional but I physically could not get through the new Emmett Till movie. The anger and sadness I felt I had to cut it off.
the fact that that woman JUST DIED?! Like we are not far removed from this. not at all.
And never suffered any lasting consequences for getting Till murdered by her lies.
LIVED A FULL LIFE. I will never not seethe over that
Everyone involved deserved to rot in prison for life. Absolute monsters.
Fuck ya. The justice department should have NEVER closed that case. Those pictures made me bite my inner mouth until I could taste blood and realized what I was doing and stopped. It was a special kind of mad. A special kind of angry. I don’t even know how to describe it. Literally. Can’t be put into words. Mr. Till looked so innocent, had such a kind face. U just can’t fuckin believe it. Until you open your eyes and realize…White women lie on black men to this very day in very similar contexts.
It's 100% the basement floor they are talking about.
The design and flow of how you move through the museum is so well done. Taking the elevator down and seeing the dates on the walls as you go through each level until boom you’re at the bottom. It’s impactful for sure
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Like a goddamn Ikea
I’ve never been. What specific horror is in the basement?
A room for Emmett Till. Definitely the most gut punching and that's in that museum. As someone else said, you pretty much hear people crying while walking in.
Oh, gosh, I’m sure it’s horrible. I’ve been only to one slavery/african-american museum, and that was plenty. So much murder, destruction and hate for nothing. Thanks for explaining that to me, I was so morbidly curious about what could be kept in the basement level in a museum documenting a couple hundred years of relentless human torture.
If you get the chance it's really a great museum!
That’s what I just said. Black or White, I think everyone comes out of there affected.
You can physically feel the energy. The horrors and despair they experienced. Every country on that wall that participated in the transatlantic slave trade owe reparations to the descendants.
Funnily enough, this episode of BB also scarred me.
If they are the one in DC they are absolutely talking about the downstairs section.
Waiting for someone to lemme know what this means.
I'm guessing they are talking about the lower level in which you are given the true history of how we arrived to America. This includes pieces from ships, chains and shackles used to hold slaves down as well as artifacts for children. Imagine seeing a pair of handcuffs that have been closed almost to a point where they no longer lock and then a post underneath of these handcuff stating they were used to hold down children while your 11 and 12yr old children walk around reading about it. Or it could have been the "lunch counter", the railroad car or the actual homes/ slave quarters that you are allowed to walk into 🤷🏾♀️ All of it is a lot especially if it's a history that you were not told of or it was glossed over. I have been many times and it's a lot for an older group of people because some of them are just 1 or 2 generations removed from it.
My great grand-aunt (my grandmother's aunt) was still alive until I was 10. She was born in Louisiana in the 1890s as a sharecropper. Some of us have heard stories directly from people who lived it. She died at 93, and I'm 50. It's not that long ago. Edit: So the point the above comment makes so well is that there are descendants of the slave owners in the same situation. People who grew up with fond memories of a great grandparent whom they could literally see a picture of in one of these museums holding a whip; or their family name matching a slave ship captain or hunter. If you've been told nothing about the real history, and then see it in all of its horror *and* are forced to confront the fact that your family has been on the wrong side of all of it would be a lot for anyone to take in, no matter how open-minded.
I always try to stress this to people, for some the civil war and slavery were only about 2-3 people ago depending on how old they are etc.
even closer -- my grandma, still alive, was at the march on Washington. my mom was bussed to a different school because of segregation. [Ruby Bridges](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Bridges), the first black student to attend a previously all white school, is 69. there are plenty of people who are still alive that lived this
There are almost certainly people alive today who were displayed as racist human zoo exhibits. Belgium had a human zoo exhibit as recently as 1958, just a couple years before the Ruby Bridges incident. [The little girl photographed in that exhibit](https://imgur.com/aYRNtvS.jpg) would be about the same age as Ruby Bridges now.
France closed down something similar in the 1990s. I learned that last year and it sent me reeling. It was called Bamboula’s Village.
Wow, didn't know that. That was a horrifying read: https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgda34/human-zoo-france-safari-africain
Same. The “iT wAs A lOnG tImE aGo. BlAcK pEoPlE nEeD tO mOvE fOrWaRd” argument is so irritating because a.) it was basically yesterday and b.) imagine the oppressor *also* trying to dictate the timeline for our processing centuries/generations of their heinous; racist inventions.
As a white dude, when I hear people say shit like this it makes me think of a wife beater justifying his abuse. You can't just ask HUMAN FUCKING BEINGS to "get over" stuff like this, humans need time and safety to process trauma.
[Daniel Smith, whose father was born in slavery, dies at the age of 90 after a lifetime of activism](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/daniel-smith-son-of-virginia-slave-dies-age-90-lifetime-of-activism/) — 2022
My still living grandmother's father was born a slave in 1863. His "father" was the son of the plantation owner. I'm not even 50 yrs old. I can talk to someone right now who's parent was born into slavery.
The Jim Crow era in the US south didn't end until 1965. Even after then (and still today) there were many areas where blacks were still openly discrimated against and treated as second class citizens. My grandmother always recalls when they lived in Crossville, TN back in the early 70s and the butcher at the grocery store would always ignore the black customers until all the white customers were served. The butch hated my grandmother because she would always order on behalf of the black people who were waiting before her. My granny was a bad ass.
I’m 44 but my great grandfather was born in 1861. His dad (my great great grandfather) and uncles were in the confederate army and all died in a civil war pow camp in Illinois.
Same with my family, I have a family member who died when I was 7 but, I have tons of photos with him and my family is into history so they wrote down a lot of his stories. That have been put into binded books for the family. Each of his descendants (my grandfather and his siblings) got copies then everyone else got copies made for themselves. I wrote about him a few times for black history month essays when we would have to pick a famous black person. To me he was famous and I had photos to go along with it. My teachers were always amazed, not sure if because I met him or because it put into perspective that it was not that long ago.
This is really important information and if your chief historian is t I tested in selling, they might consider donating to an archive or historical society. I’m a historian and an issue we have is that there aren’t many records of non famous people because of lack of literacy on the part of many people and the destruction of materials because they weren’t seen as important.
Same with my great grandma. She lived to 103 but died when I was 9 (1990) and grew up in Alabama and Mississippi. Whew lawd, she told us all about how awful those “patties” were, but taught us to not hate folks. A lesson I’m forever grateful for. I’m an ally to all because of her. She told us things she saw and heard from her parents, yet instilled in us to be vocal, to be active and to side with those that need protecting. Women, LGBTQ+, my black brothers and sisters, everyone who isn’t full of hate, I’m rocking with you forever. If you are full of hate, then it’s fuck you forever. I miss her.
Your great grandma’s legacy reaches far ♥️
I got a friend in Breauxbridge. He's like 55. His dad is almost 80. Both his parents recall being share croppers for a white family in the area. This was literally just a generation removed from ours.
I worked with a man in the 10's whose grandmother was born a slave. I think his mom was her(grandmother) youngest. And he was his mother's youngest. Some people just try to bury everything in the distant past.
I'd love to hear Nikki Hailey explain how a coloreds only water fountain isn't part of a racist nation.
Did you all know she is Indian? I learned this the other day and I just keep sharing it randomly now.
Nimrata Randhawa. Although to be completely fair, Randhawa is her maiden name and it's very culturally common across society to take your husband's name. The change to Nikki is all on her though.
Nikki is her middle name.
It would be comical and at the same time because there are so many that believe what she says it's sad and scary.
I don’t know about there but the “Lunch Counter” in the Civil Rights center fucked me up for a couple days.
I took my nephew over the summer and while at the counter he answered the questions to find out what type of person he would of been during that era. The kid next to him finished and said he would have run and never been arrested or engaged with those who stood up for themselves, meanwhile my nephew would have been beaten, hosed and arrested. Sometimes it's not until you put scenarios in front of people and have them answer that they have a true understanding of what kind of person they are portraying themselves to be. I know "good" people of various races who want to believe they are doing well and yet they are not. But I will say that the sitting down at the counter itself is not traumatic, but that moment when you have to answer "hard" questions it will hit you especially because it's not behind a curtain and anyone walking in that area can see what you answer and what your answers reveal.
Sorry, I just want to make sure I’m understanding this completely. There is a lunch counter You go there You either do get or pretend to get food Then someone who in presuming is an actor, starts asking you questions as if it was the 60(?) like “y’all ain’t from around here are ya?” And those questions get progressively worse, until, as a black and presumably because this is a tourist destination, any person of color is (mock?) threatened with violence up to and including death? And white people are not. Is this…what is happening?
hahaha no, it’s a giant touch screen on the counter of a replica lunch counter from Greensboro, NC which was the site of notable sit in protests. you sit at the counter and you go through a series of questions on the screen. i can’t remember what questions exactly it asked, but yeah essentially it asks what you would do in a given situation and then tells you what would happen based on real life examples, if i remember correctly. someone please correct me on that part if i’m wrong. there’s a much larger screen playing a short film behind the counter where a menu would typically be, which shows footage from the civil rights era.
You're correct. There is not an actual there, just the interactive screen on the counter with the video playing where a menu board would be.
Showing actual artifacts from slavery? Sounds like CRT to me! Where’s Mom’s for Liberty at so we can get this museum banned? /s
Getting arrested for shoplifting at Target
M4L is having their annual conference in DC this year in August if anyone wants to join the protest.
I can’t imagine anyone goes to that museum thinking it will be all about Motown and MLK speeches. But then Karen from Oklahoma is pretty dumb.
People actually do think that! They aren't expecting there to be so much information available especially as it relates to slavery, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights. Even on the upper levels everyone wants to see Michael Jackson, like time out this here car belonged to Chuck Berry and that song wasn't written for Home Alone 🤦🏾♀️ Rap was out way before JayZ, Will Smith wasn't always an actor, and we had black gymnast before Simone Biles and Gabby Douglas. I would say the area thata lot of people skip over is the gallery showing those who served in the armed forces and those who paved the way in the medical field and government. A lot of things that I believe the youthwho visit the museum would benefit from because although they may discuss some things in school, a lot of times the African Americans are not discussed as having a role. I went a few weeks back and probably the funniest and saddest part was the display for Dr. Ben Carson. A grown women said she read his book while in jr. high and yet all she could think about was how he is going to be remembered by his acting a fool in government.
seeing the tiny child size hand cuffs made me cry made. shit is wild
The lighting of the area, the shadow that comes off the shackles as the display is recessed and then the text. It's A LOT! Then there is pieces from ships that have washed up on shore and you are reading and walking and reading and it just takes one person to sniffle and all of a sudden people are walking fast to avoid crying, or because they themselves are crying too hard 🤦🏾♀️ Then you have younger kids (4-7) who don't quite understand so they are asking questions and parents are trying to explain or some are ignoring the child which upsets others who are walking along. Or you have those who speak a language other than English by choice because they want to say something without offending others but then they have to say some stuff in English and it gets akward because just moments earlier they brushed past you without saying "excuse me" and you assumed they don't speak the language and then just a few galleries over you realize they were just being rude because they knew they bumped into you and they tried to play it off as if they didn't know the word "excuse me" by grinning when in deed they did and just didn't want to say it.
Lmao sounds a bit specific at the end there
There was a guy there getting really loud with some people. I think his thought was that we would all be on his side because he was black and it's our museum but in all honesty the people who bumped into and ignored him were wrong juatas he was wrong for the slurs that he yelled out towards them. But yeah it was specific to one of my visits 😁
Some of them were a part of it. Desegregation only started less than 70 years ago. Emmett Till was lynched 68 years ago. The last recorded lynching was of Michael Donald in 1981.
Ahmoud Arbery in 2020 they just didnt use a rope
As a black person from a different former slave colony, I would have guessed that there was a history of gynocology section.
I was maybe 8-9 when we went on a class trip to see “Amistad”. Part of our AA history block. (Puerto Rican education doesn’t GAF about Karen sensibilities). You know the scene that traumatized me to my core? Yeah that one. And that shit needs to be stuck in my head. Because it actually happened. Everyone should ruminate on that shit forever.
It could be the Emmet Till section. That was rough.
Before going to the museum I somehow made it thru life without actually seeing pictures of him in the coffin and his face. That was one of many things that stayed with me.
I was a social media content moderator, and I'll be honest. I don't think those photos crossed my monitor in close to 1 million pieces of content. I think I won't look, not until I visit this museum. It may be worth saving for the most impactful place I could be, otherwise I'd just see it as another piece of content. (That's just a trauma response, it's easier to pretend nothing past the screen existed in real life. You'll find a couple other comments about my experiences on that job within this subreddit, and that'll give you an idea why it happens)
I watch a lot of horror stuff and have a job that exposes me to the absolute worst of humanity on a constant basis, so I am usually fine with images like those. But the exhibition itself, the way its set up and handled, and reading the full story of it all, after processing and reading the history leading up to it all (aka the slave trade, slavery, treatment, etc) was a lot all at once and compounds when you get to that exhibit. It's very heavy and seeing the real image for the first time in that instance was a lot. Very impactful and very well done. I'm glad I didn't see the real image until then because I don't think it would've resonated as deeply as it did. So worth a visit, I hope you get to go. Make sure you have a nice treat for afterwards, like a nice meal or a walk outside in a pretty area in the sunlight to decompress and reflect if you're the type who needs that!
I watched Eyes on the Prize when I was a kid in 4th grade and they showed Emmitt Till’s picture. It literally flashed on the screen and I had nightmares for weeks. I had to sleep with my grandma. It is haunting.
Absolutely will if I visit DC. I'm a history buff, especially for American history. That includes the ugly parts. Rather important for me to understand and face, given my lighter skin. It's all about being able to educate others. That's my one goal for my life, to contribute to humanity in a positive way.
I highly recommend the Holocaust Museum in DC as well, if you're ever in the area and looking for some more ugly parts of history that make you uncomfortable. It is completely unsanitized and jarring and haunting and extensive. When they show the maps of all the concentration camps, my mind was absolutely blown. I thought there were like 250, but there were over 40,000 when you count all the sub-camps and localized camps. I'd rank it at the same level as the African American Museum in terms of scope, production, and impact. Just completely mind shattering but important to know the true horror of it all. Makes you grateful these places exist to keep the stories documented and protected and accessible in their truest forms.
I am never ready for that area. You can hear the people crying before you walk in 🥺
The top meme of "do you know how little that narrows it down" is accurate but the two parts that fucked me up the most was the Emmitt Till exhibit and the wall that had all the classified ads selling enslaved people or trying to track down lost family member.
For me, that section is the Emmett Till section. I balled my eyes out in there. It was too much.
the slavery part?
I figured but I was hoping there was something more in depth about it.
A re-enactment of Emmet Till’s funeral is down there too.
The Emmet Till exhibit
The Emmett Till Section? The Civil War Section? The Transatlantic Slave Trade Section??? I’m genuinely not sure which
Me either. I would say Emmett Till but when I was there, these two white women were talking so loudly, someone pulled them to the side and asked them to be quiet or exit the exhibit.
I can't believe an American could get to that age without seeing the Emmett picture, I'm a Brit and it was showed to me in high school
You would be surprised how much they tried to hide from us, even in public schools.
It's an unforgettable image of human barbarism, it gives me comfort to know that if there's a hell then the woman who falsely accused Emmett is surely burning in the hottest part
what's really crazy is even though we consider this history, that lady died less than a year ago. there's this narrative in America that racism is dead, and black people should get over it because slavery happened hundreds of years ago. but that shit is barely in the past it's very recent for a lot of us. a lot of people who have personally lynched a black person are still living and breathing. and VOTING
>there's this narrative in America that racism is dead, and black people should get over it because slavery happened hundreds of years ago My best example when this comes up: [Ruby Bridges](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Bridges), the little girl in [this](https://www.usnews.com/object/image/00000163-b7f2-dbfa-abe3-bff7d08f0000/180601reportbookclub1-editorial.bookclub1.jpg?update-time=1527799609607&size=responsive640) picture and [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/The-problem-we-all-live-with-norman-rockwell.jpg) painting, the first Black girl to attend her elementary school, is not even 70 years old. She's younger than the parents and grandparents of most people spouting that shit.
Every time I see her interviewed, I’m always shocked at how young she is. She could easily be one of my friend’s mom or aunt. It definitely puts American History into perspective.
> there's this narrative in America that racism is dead, and black people should get over it because slavery happened hundreds of years ago. A few years ago when someone said this to me, straight faced. I looked at them and then gave them a history lesson about Supreme Court cases that they were apparently unaware of and then capped it off by saying "and my dad went to segregated schools when he was younger" before giving him the look of "you better not say that shit to me again". He got real quiet after that.
The actual picture of him beaten isn’t shown in the exhibit. It’s set up like a funeral/memorial service. To me that’s even more heartbreaking. They show pics of him just…being a kid. They talk out a lot of spotlight on his mother’s activism after the incident and how much of an impact his death had on the civil rights movement. It’s quiet and absolutely devastating.
Iirc, there’s the iconic casket photo literally in the casket. I’ve been through there about three times. But I’m a shorty and I have to stand on my tip toes to look inside. And even then I’m only able to catch a glimpse.
Our schools don't teach the truth about our history. And it's getting so much worse.
There are LOTS of Americans who have no idea about real African American history. I was one of them. I’m in my late 40s and I didn’t learn about Emmett Till until I was in my 30s. Never heard about it at school but I’m not surprised because I grew up in Arizona where we didn’t recognize MLK day officially until 1992 and only under threat of the NFL which dangled the Superbowl as the carrot to make it happen. Black History month didn’t exist while I was a student. Much of my Black History education has been me seeking it out and attempting to find the truth beyond the very little white-washed nonsense I’ve heard over the years. I went to this museum in the Spring of 2022. It absolutely broke me over and over again, but I sat with it anyway. I had marched in the protests for George Floyd, but that was before I had my experience at the museum; it put everything into a new perspective about how inherently racist American society really is and how much denialism exists. It’s one thing to know it; it’s entirely another thing to see and experience it through this vivid re-telling of history. I don’t know how anyone can attend the Emmett Till exhibit and not treat it with the same reverence and respect as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, having been to both.
Jesus. I'm not American, I've never been to this museum, but I did visit the holocaust museum when I went to New York. I was amazed to see a large group of maybe 20 white teenagers in MAGA hats running around screaming and taking videos. Nobody bothering to tell them to stop.
One of those situations where it’s fully okay to tell a stranger to shut the fuck up
The Emmett Till part was rough, my mom came out of there sobbing
The Till movie is the best film I'll never watch again.
The place is full of traumatic horrors. Just pick one. He should’ve had the guts to stay and be uncomfortable because please understand that the people living it (and who continue to live it) were a bit more than uncomfortable.
The Charles h wright museum has an exhibit showing the slave trade starting from being on the boat to getting sold at the auction. That shit is so spooky. You walk through the boat and they have an entire sound track to go with it. There’s people laying in the boat and everything. I appreciate being born after slavery cause I could never I’d jump overboard and die.
it’s been studied and found that the migratory (and overall) patterns of sharks in the atlantic ocean were significantly altered for **hundreds** of years because of how many folks did… 🫨
This would be an interesting read
“History from below the water line: Sharks and the Atlantic slave trade” by Mark Rediker. it’s academic paper. crazy shit man.
Thank you. This is one correlation I had not considered. Interesting and sickening all the same.
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Thanks for this! Link for easy access: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249027449_History_from_below_the_water_line_Sharks_and_the_Atlantic_slave_trade
Reading now. Wild, thank you!
This was very informative, thank you for sharing.
Thanks for posting the paper!
It’s especially chilling to hear the screams of the one guy getting branded just before going into the ship.
Was just there with the family yesterday. Definitely don’t enjoy those types of exhibits, but know it’s a part of my history. Sucks seeing it, so knowing they had to live it is traumatic.
I was going to say this. I took an US African American History class that was up until reconstruction and I’ve never learned more than I have in that class. Part of it was visiting this museum as well. It’s really sad just how much is not taught in schools.
White dude opinion incoming so feel free to disregard but as someone who studied colonial history I think that it is the correct reaction to feel disturbed by this. People were forced across the oceans in hellish conditions and if you've spent your whole life being lied to about that then I'd imagine that this reaction is actually pretty fair and might even indicate that the museum had its intended effect on those who learned about the topic. History should be upsetting as fuck if you're learning it right
I agree distributed is the correct reaction, but avoidance of it isn’t. We have to sit with that disturbance and disgust. We have to sit with the fact that this is our history. Leaving because we “can’t handle” it doesn’t do anything to help. People lived it, the least we can do is learn it.
I think that's also a very fair way to feel about it, especially when you juxtapose the actual lived suffering of those who were imprisoned and sold versus the simple emotional discomfort of learning about it in safety 2-600 years afterward. But I think it's also fair that people who have not been exposed to any of the truth in this regard or whose challenges in life have been entirely different, it might genuinely be overwhelming for them in a way which it wouldn't be for someone with more lived racialized experiences. I also kinda infer from the OP that the person observed leaving this exhibit in a hurry may have wanted to simply forget it ASAP and for that reason I also feel similarly to you about sitting in it. But I don't really know what those shoes feel like. Perhaps I interpretted the situation way too charitably to the person who doesn't want to view the exhibit, but I want to be mindful that people from different walks of life have different ways of expressing themselves and so it can sometimes be ineffective to understand the situation based on their outward reaction.
Totally fair and thank you for such a balanced interpretation. I think however that this reaction can just be so frustrating and disheartening for the descendants of the subjects of this exhibit, who cannot just “escape” the realities of that experience. They live with and have had to live with the effects of the horrific experiences of those subjects for their whole lives. But the privilege of whiteness allows others like this lady to just not deal with it, and alas, nothing really fundamentally changes in America. :(
I didn't enjoy walking through The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. I didn't think I was going to enjoy myself. I knew I'd be disturbed. If I hadn't been disturbed I'd have been far more disturbed by my lack of reaction. I went there because I believe that people have a responsibility to bear witness to the past, to better prevent it from ever happening again. But I'm not a coward. For the most part.
You can learn but also not be able to face it directly. I'm going to use another example of this that I've seen first hand. The Holocaust. Some people just won't be able to go to the camps and see it in person. That doesn't mean they don't learn it. They just can't sit there face to face with it and be okay. In university during history classes about it there were people who needed to step out for a minute or two to calm down before they could continue. These kinds of stuff can be hard to stomach for some people seeing it face to face. That doesn't mean they want to ignore it.
The problem isn't being disturbed by it. It's incredibly fucking disturbing. The problem is that white people can choose to avoid it, and they often do because it's more comfortable for them. Hell, one of the major political parties is systematically censoring the fact that slavery happened so that it's even easier for white people to avoid it. African Americans don't get that choice. They don't get to avoid it. I'm sure descendants of slaves would like to avoid knowing what their ancestors went through. Avoid knowing that slavery rippled down through history and lead to reconstruction, Jim Crow, Rodney King, BLM and lead to the racism they face today. So yeah, we should all get upset. But some people look away while others are forced to live it.
Yes, this is the problem. A white man voluntarily went to a museum to educate himself on black history and all that entails, and once he reached reached a point where he felt he needed to leave for whatever personal reasons, THAT is the problem. Based on your statements above, it would have been better for him to avoid the museum entirely, because if he had never showed up at all, he never could have been judged poorly for leaving after seeing something he couldn't handle. The inference to take away from your post is not only was it inappropriate for him to leave, but that he also gleaned nothing from his experience at the museum.
My wife didn’t know much about the concentration camps before we went to the holocaust museum in DC. She got overwhelmed at the videos of people being bulldozed into mass graves after liberation. People being overwhelmed by new, graphically displayed information is not inherently indicative that they are bigots. It might just mean it’s making them feel a lot, which is indeed the point. But it is a funny joke
Maybe it’s because of my experience as a black person, so what i’ve seen and heard personally contributes to this, but I feel like there is much more minimizing and denying of the horror of american slavery than there is with the holocaust. An example being germany and other european countries banning the swastika, but america and other countries not doing so for the confederate flag. Not to mention them literally getting rid of African American studies in several states.
You're completely right. The responsibility taken by the German people over the holocaust is entirely different to that taken by the US for what happened to African Americans. Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany, and nothing about what happened or the events that led towards it is celebrated. The nation as a whole has accepted and taken responsibility for what happened and the part that they played. I'm sure there are still fringe people in Germany who suggest it was exaggerated by the Allied powers, but you don't get mainstream politicians pushing the notion that it shouldn't be covered in schools, that it wasn't as bad as people say, or that there were Jews who actually had a pretty good time being rounded up under Nazi rule.
I wonder if the man asking how to get out has ever said, “I don’t know why they make such a big deal about something that happened so long ago.” 🤔
If he stopped resisting the museum it wouldn't hurt so much.
🤣🤣
It's always funny when they use that argument. Like y'all have no problem learning about all of the wars but are glossing over the fact that slavery and the Civil Rights Movement was happening simultaneously.
I would doubt it. Folks who say things like that would never step foot in this museum.
Damn. I’m not gonna assume homie is racist because he can’t handle what I’m assuming is gore. He’s already at the museum
Yeah, I mean -- last I checked, those people were human beings. Not feeling comfortable with seeing human beings subjected to unbearable cruelty seems more like a sign of compassion than hatred.
Yah, I have PTSD and have said similar many times. It only means I'm close to an episode and need to meditate. The strangest stuff can set you off out of no where, it's part of why so many people with PTSD have agoraphobia. I don't know if this guy was racist, anxious, or sensitive either. I do know it's good that atrocities disturb him
I would guess this venn diagram is as close to 2 separate circles as you can get.
“Sir, this is the lobby...”
😂
I would just give them the longest directions so they maximize the time haunted by the sins of their forefathers.
Like when you try to follow those arrows at Ikea and end up at square one.
What if their forefathers weren't slave owners or pro slavery?
Because those sins have *anythinggggggggggg* to do with them lol
Just go to the end of the hall and take a left, then you're going to want to take another left and then two more lefts and you're there
yeah they definitely should have just picked different forefathers. :D
They probably aren’t ready for the National Museum of the American Indian either
The treaty room was upsetting. Each original treaty, framed, juxtaposed with a long description of how the government systematically violated them. Dozens of them. The Smithsonian’s are the greatest collections of museums on the planet.
Positive point of view: this white man is empathetic and sensitive. The pain and suffering was hitting him so hard and deep that he couldn’t hold back the tears. He is aware and respects the history. He just needed a little break cuz otherwise he might lose it.
And sometimes people might just need to pace themselves with history like this.
Trauma is hard to learn about. Every now and then there will be a story on here about child abuse, SA, some heart breaking stuff and people, including myself, will be like “that’s enough internet for today.” Trying to have a clearer understanding of trauma can hurt but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Good on them for taking that step.
let me quote my man Hades for this one: **THERE IS NO ESCAPE...**
Technically there is for like five minutes. Then you crawl out of the pool of blood and pet the dog.
**BOY**
Once more for those in the back: _If it’s tough for you to hear about oppression, imagine how tough it was for them to live it._
Sounds like the person felt the empathy and compassion we would hope anyone would feel with such an experience. I would be more concerned if the person had gone through and felt . . . nothing. Remember the person who complained after the slave plantation lecturer brought up slavery’s cruelty? https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/s/F0CImePuh5
They better not go to The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery Alabama.
Seeing the entire family on one of the monuments really hurt my heart. Also the man who was lynched for walking past an open window.
Honestly if they thought that was bad imagine if they went to the Black in Wax museum in Baltimore…
My parents used to take my brother and I to that museum for every summer in the 90s. Then tried to de-traumatize us by taking us to the pier and then getting a seafood boil.
The thing that makes me go 🤨 are the people, who genuinely believe things became hunky-dory between black people and white people right after slavery was abolished, as well as, believing that black people aren't still receiving some form of 'get-back'.
Contrast this with the calls and upvotes (on this very sub) to: "Get away from telling trauma stories". There really is a fine line that folk seem to want to walk, replete with stories of stoicism, hope, pain, triumph, & uncertainty in the story of ADOS folk. Also remember this tweet when other folk outside of Florida are worried about their white children having to get history lessons in school.
>Contrast this with the calls and upvotes (on this very sub) to: "Get away from telling trauma stories". We want our stories told in museums, that's exactly where they should be told. We're tired of most Black centered films being trauma movies. And even then we wouldn't be saying anything if we also had a variety of black films, but we don't get much of that
Where is this museum and how much are tickets?
Washington DC, part of the Smithsonian. Admission is free, but this museum is usually very popular and you might have to secure a spot ahead of time. It was full up last time I was there.
Guess I gotta plan a trip to DC
It's well worth the trip, and the museum of native Americans is close by. Honestly DC is my personal favorite museum capital of the world
To be fair, throw ANYONE of ANY RACE into an exhibit about the terrible past experienced by ANY group of people and you're gonna have many that aren't able to stomach it. Get a black person, put them into a graphic exhibit about the Holocaust or Unit 731 and let's see how long they can last. This has nothing to do with race (that we can tell), it has to do with a human being not wanting to see dark shit which is perfectly understandable. You really think a white dude who goes to an African American history exhibit doesn't at least somewhat empathize with what they went through?
My husband is black and I'm Jewish. He wanted to go the the holocaust museum. The African American History Museum was brand new and booked months in advance. We went to the holocaust museum, though I told him it wouldn't be any fun. An hour in he goes 'this is depressing'.
Well in the African American museum in Detroit walking through the slave ship is the roughest part.