white History: MOVE Bombing of Philadelphia

Source
 

Did you know that the police in the United States actually bombed Americans? And got away with it? It's not something you learn in history class in school, not even in college.

In Philadelphia, there was a house being used for an organization working to dismantle white supremacy. When the group started getting complaints from the neighborhood, and eventually were evicted from their building, there was resistance from the group. Instead of dealing with it in non-violent means, the police eventually opened fire on the building, and dropped an incendiary bomb through the roof. This caused a fire that spread through the entire city block, destroying homes of people not involved with the situation. They chose not to let the fire department attempt to put it out, so the fire just burned the entire block to the ground, leaving countless people homeless. Of the people who were still alive from the group being evicted, they were arrested, tried, and imprisoned, while the police faced no repercussions for their actions.

The date this took place? March 13, 1985. 1985. The 80's. The time a lot of us grew up in. Do you remember seeing it on the news? I sure don't. Did you discuss it with your friends and family at the time? Neither did I. Here's our chance to rectify that. The links below go into great detail about the attack and what led up to it, as well as the aftermath. Let's make sure we don't let this be forgotten to history.

Sources to read:

 Vox article from 2019.

Philadelphia Inquirer article. 

NPR article with firsthand information. 

A New Yorker article. 

A BBC article. 

NPR article discussing a recent development in the story. 

white History Month: James Madison

 

Source 

James Madison

Born: March 16, 1751

Died: June 28, 1836

Known for: Being the 4th POTUS, writing the Bill of Rights, writing some of the articles in the Federalist Papers, losing the War of 1812.

James Madison too, was a slave owner, though apparently a reluctant one. He owned over 100 humans over the course of his life, many of whom he hired out as paid(to him, of course) labor. According to this, he was a rather average slaveowner who treated his enslaved people relatively well, all things considered. He and his wife Dolly apparently really disliked the idea of slavery, but not enough to actually do anything about it. And not enough to free them when he had a chance to. You know what we call a reluctant, remorseful slaveowner? A slaveowner. It doesn't matter how he felt, it matters what he did not do about it.

Here are more sources on the life and times of James Madison:

This is from the James Madison museum.

Here is the Virginia State encyclopedia. 

A University of Virginia link.

History.com article 

white History Month: Oliphant v. Suquamish

The justice system, headed by the Supreme Court, has never worked in favor of Native Americans. 99% of the time, Supreme Court cases are ruled in favor of the non-Native American side. My running theory is that to vote for them would be to ultimately acknowledge the wrongs done upon them by this nation, and to show that we know we did wrong by them. I urge people to look through lists of landmark Supreme Court cases, you'll see, case after case, in favor of white people over non-white people.

One such case, was Oliphant v. Suquamish, from 1978. This landmark case made it to the Supreme Court, where they ruled that tribes cannot prosecute non-Native Americans. If a crime is committed, they have to hope and trust that the American justice system will take care of it for them. Spoiler alert: It does not. What this case essentially did was give white people free reign to commit any crime on tribal land, and never face repercussions. 

The Supreme Court repeatedly upholds white supremacy. This case is just one of many that does so.

Here are several sources to read more about this case:

Wikipedia

The Justice Department article 

A good legal description of the case.

A short essay written from a law school. 

And a post written for a Cherokee website.

white History Month: Thomas Jefferson

 TW: Frank discussion about slavery and rape

Source

Thomas Jefferson

Born: April 13, 1743

Died: July 4, 1826

Known For: Being the 3rd President, sitting out the Revolutionary War, excessive slaveownership, being Sally Hemings's rapist.

Thomas Jefferson owned over 600 humans throughout the course of his life. The man who is credited with writing the majority of the Declaration of Independence, also owned humans, and made one his habitual sex slave. I guess the line "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal," was written by one of the other guys...

The best known person Thomas Jefferson owned, was Sally Hemings. She was Thomas's wife's half sister and was owned from birth by the Jeffersons. Thomas began raping Sally when she was somewhere between 14 and 16 years of age, and she became pregnant for the first time at age 16. She would ultimately bear him 6 children through her life. She was never freed.

Here is a twitter thread about Sally Hemings. Make sure to follow Johnathan if you're on twitter, and further your antiracism education.

It's important for us to not get caught up in the romanticism people try to put on Thomas and Sally. Even if they were somehow "in love" with each other, as a person owned by Thomas, Sally had no option to say no to him. She could never truly consent to anything he wanted from her. It's not complicated. It's not a delicate thing. It was one human owning and repeatedly sexually assaulting another human being. It's uncomfortable, sure, but it's our history. He and many, many white men, our ancestors, did this to Black women over the centuries. This is part of our history and literally part of our nation's DNA.

Another important person in American history who is largely overlooked, was Sally's brother James. James Hemings is responsible for some of our favorite foods, the most important of course, being macaroni and cheese! Thomas sent him to train as a chef in France, and when most history books talk about the food Thomas brought back, the recipes he was known for, I can guarantee he never stepped foot in a kitchen do do any cooking. Ever. It was James who brought these back and introduced Americans to French cuisine. 

Here are more sources about Thomas Jefferson:

Here is the official White House bio on him that never mentions his status as a slave owner.

The Monticello website actually does mention it and even acknowledges that Jefferson fathered Sally's children. 

Unlike the Wikipedia entry on him that goes into great detail of "controversies" trying to excuse it all away.

And here are sources about James and Sally Hemings:

James has his own website. We owe so much to him in this country! 

Here is Monticello's page about James.

And here is Monticello's page about Sally. 

And here's an article about finding Sally's living quarters at Monticello.

white History: The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

On September 15, 1963, the KKK in Birmingham, Alabama, carried out a terrorist attack on a Black church. Birmingham was the hub of the Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. The KKK had a large presence in that city and used it to terrorize activists. Birmingham had so many bombings that it was nicknamed "Bombingham."

The terror attack killed four young girls and injured many others. People protested, and two people were killed as Governor Wallace and the National Guard got involved.

The worst of it is, the FBI knew who was responsible within a couple years of the attack, yet opted not to do anything about it and the four KKK members who were responsible, weren't prosecuted for it until years down the line when politics had changed and they were slowly, over the course of three decades, brought to justice, or they died before they could be bought to justice. 

As if being so terrified of having to share power with others that you would kill children to preserve it isn't bad enough, the systems set up to protect all people in this country once again looked out only for white supremacy. On every level, we see white supremacy being protected and promoted.

Bobby Frank Cherry

Herman Frank Cash

Robert Edward Chambliss

Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr.

Sometimes when a bad thing happens, we talk about forgetting the names of the perpetrator because they don't deserve to be remembered. While they don't, their motives do deserve to be remembered. If white people forget our history, then we never have to feel responsible for it or that we benefit from it. We should remember their names. People who know them should know what they did.

And these are the four children who were murdered by the terrorists. They are often shown together in photos, but I thought they deserved to be seen as individual humans, and not just part of a group. Who knows what their lives would be like now if they hadn't been murdered. Friends, family, careers, all ended before they had a chance to begin.

Cynthia Wesley-11

Carol Robertson-14

Denise McNair-14

Addie Mae Collins-14

 

Here are resources you can check out to learn more about this terror attack:

Source 1 

Source 2

Source 3 

Source 4

Source 5 

white History Month: George Washington

February is Black history month, and one of the biggest complaints white people have is "why is there no white history month?" Most of them don't see that history in this country is by default, white history, but I decided to indulge them, anyway. So, this March is white history month. Strap yourselves in for a month of fun factoids about white history! I think the complainers will really enjoy it!

 

Kicking it off with a man white Americans really love...

 

George Washington

Born April 30, 1789

Died  March 4, 1797

Claim to Fame: Hero of the Revolutionary War. First president. Notorious denture wearer. Slavery enthusiast.

Over the course of Washington's life, he would be the owner/co-owner of over 577 humans who worked his land and tended his home. They were unpaid, and unable to leave. He was notoriously vicious with them, separating married couples or parents from children when he felt slighted or wronged by them. The dentures he is famous for are now known to have been made with teeth from his enslaved people. We can only hope they had already fallen out of their mouths, or they were dead when they were taken, but somehow I suspect not...

I live in a state named after this man, and nobody thinks about it. He's on our dollar bill, and we don't think about it. But maybe we should think about it. He helped shape our nation at it's impetus, but he also owned nearly 600 people over the course of his life. At a time when they were creating the rules of a brand new nation, none of those rules and laws was about ending slavery, even though "laws" are the excuse people like him gave for not freeing his slaves. It's hard to reconcile, and I'm not sure it should be reconciled...

Here is a list of links with more information on George Washington:

Wikipedia

Just remember, anytime he's referred to as a "gentleman farmer," it really means, "User of other people to engage in unwilling gardening." 

Mt. Vernon's website does not hold back on detailing Washington as a slave owner. 

The people who really mattered in Washington's life. At least some of their names can be remembered.

This is an account of Washington's main personal enslaved servant. 

ElfQuest and My Life

I moved when I was 8 to a new neighborhood and a new best friend. Visiting her house, I always wondered at the amazing comic books they had there. They were bright and vibrant, and seemed so alive! But elves were silly and comics were for boys, so I never did more than glance at them.

A few years later, I was introduced to Archie comics that my friends and I devoured. I could see now, that comics weren't just for boys. I still thought elves were silly, though.

When I was 15, the artwork of my friend's comics finally drew me to them enough to borrow the first volume. Fire and Flight would burn itself into my mind and soul. It spoke to something in me I didn't know existed. I borrowed the rest of the volumes they had, and that was it. I was hooked on ElfQuest.

It was a time that I was able to buy most of the volumes in hardback color format at bookstores, and eventually in paperback as the newer stories were released. I scrounged and saved my allowance and babysitting money and bought any and all comics I could find at bookstores, because I didn't have access to a comic book store and Amazon didn't exist yet. RIP Walden Books, B. Dalton, and Borders bookstores...I bought the anthology short story books, and the novelized versions of the comics. 

I made a Skywise mask and the World of Two Moons held in Winnowill's hand(sadly lost over the years) in my high school ceramics class. I scanned pictures of the elves to cut out and decorate my locker at school, and after the school year ended, my bedroom walls. 

 

I tried making and using a bow and arrow in the backyard, and that one time my dad and cousins went rifle shooting out in the woods, I did my best to ignore them and tried the bow and arrow again, unsuccessfully.

I found a necklace with a crystal and a figure of a pixie that looks just like Petalwing. I still have it.

ElfQuest was my life.

When I graduated high school and "grew up," my EQ collection moved with me to my first apartment, and has come with me everywhere else I've gone since then. I have actually contemplated who I would leave them to in a will, should I meet an untimely end. They are that much a part of me.

I collected the comics as long as I could before they stopped being published. Luckily, most of them are now available for free online through their website. I did collect the four Final Quest volumes as they were published a few years ago, but I never read them. They sat in my collection, gathering dust. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to the people who had been a part of my life for so long. One day. Some day, I would read them.

In the MCU, they used the tagline, "Part of the story, is the end." That stuck with me. When the pandemic hit last year, I decided to do a grand, sweeping reread of the comics and the novels. I decided that when I got to them, I would read the Final Quest story.

I have spent a year and a half reading these at night before bed, escaping the former guy and the pandemic. And true to my word, I read the Final Quest, finally. I finished it this morning, and I cried. I know the quest is over, and some people's stories have ended, but I know the world Wendy and Richard Pini created is in good hands. Like Disneyland, the World of Two Moons will never truly be finished. They and their team will hopefully continue to create new stories for as long as they are able to and wish to, and a world of fanfiction awaits me to read and maybe even write. EQ has influenced my writing over the years, perhaps it's time I gave back to it. And there is the audio movie coming out. Hearing my beloved characters with voices after such a long time is going to be a dream come true.

I will never not love ElfQuest. I will never "outgrow" it. I grow with it, and it with me. I owe a lot of who I am to Wendy and Richard Pini. I thank them for sharing their story with the world. Through their elves, I learned to love hobbits, and superheroes, and a school for witches and wizards, none of which I would care about at all, it if wasn't for the world of two moons.

I thank them for helping me learn to love elves, at long last. 

(My Cutter mask, one of my newest purchases during the pandemic.)