The RACISM in America hasn't exactly been covered up. Some people take pleasure in speaking ill of the black race even to this day. What we think of as "enlightened times" is just more wool pulled over the eyes of Americans who wilfully want to keep the whitewash of their history going. Thanks for this story Qasim.
America loves to call racism “ancient history” right up until you realize Viola Fletcher’s life overlaps almost directly with the country’s founding wounds. Tulsa wasn’t a riot. It was white terrorism with air support, media laundering, government indifference, and then a century-long shrug in a flag pin. The real American exceptionalism is committing atrocities, losing the receipts on purpose, and then acting offended when descendants ask why justice never showed up.
“Ms. Viola Fletcher was born only 1 year after Harriett Tubman died, who herself was four years old when Thomas Jefferson died. That is how stark today’s connection is to the founding of this country. This isn't ancient history. This is contemporary reality. And that is why it is all the more critical we act quickly to ensure justice for Tulsa and the dozens of other anti-Black massacres that have gone unpunished throughout American history.“
It’s shocking how many of us commenting here never learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre, “the genocide of Native Americans, Japanese internment, civil & gay rights related violence” and so many other crimes against “the Other”. When we rise from the ashes of these dark times, such atrocities need to be taught in schools and honored broadly in the Press (such as Qasim’s superb recounting) and by our newly Reconstituted United States of America. Compared to all the various countries and cultures of the world, we are a very young nation, a nation comprised of multitudes of world cultures. Given another chance for democracy let us more purposefully rise above past intolerance and differences to strive and meet the noble founding principle of “liberty and justice for all.”
I first learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre by watching the TV show Watchmen. I thought it was fiction it was so gruesome. Turns out it was real… They deserve reparations. Full stop.
I first learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre by watching the TV show Watchmen. I thought it was fiction it was so gruesome. Turns out it was real… They deserve reparations. Full stop.
I first learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre by watching the TV show Watchmen. I thought it was fiction it was so gruesome. Turns out it was real… They deserve reparations. Full stop.
I first learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre by watching the TV show Watchmen. I thought it was fiction it was so gruesome. Turns out it was real… They deserve reparations. Full stop.
I am in total agreement with every point you have made in this article. We will never be the nation we desire to be until any trace of this racism is defeated, Please my fellow whites know this in your hearts as well as your minds. I beg of you.
A powerful upper class in this country have been determined since our founding to keep the lower classes down. Especially black and brown people, and then poor white people, what they think of as white trash. There is an excellent book, White Trash, that explores that history The poor white people, in turn, have kept the black and brown people down. Also see A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn. Brown and black people, women, factory workers, native Americans, coal miners. What's amazing is how far we'd come as a country, with getting a grip on that. Our better angels were making progress. Till it all burst out again with Trump.
I learned from my wife that in East St Louis, IL there was the largest race massacre the country had ever seen in July of 1917. at smaller but similar violent massacre of Black residents of that city in July, 1917, mostly due to a migration of Black families from the South to East St Louis where the men were hired to work along side of white men in the city’s industrial plants.
I am 68 years old,69 years old in one month and never did I hear about this in school! I only heard about this I guess on the hundred year” anniversary” if you could even call it that, of this horrible page in our history! I am a white woman, and this breaks my heart, it hurts me to my core,that people could hurt each other like this basically out of jealousy! My mom and dad were both white and I was raised that if I wanted to be racist, I would not be their daughter anymore! They hated racism!! They hated that people were judged by the color of their skin and to quote MLK, not the content of their character! I was so very blessed to have such good and smart parents! And my heart still breaks for those people that had to live through such injustice and still have no justice for what was done to their family and friends! I was hoping that someday this ugliness would end, but it will only end when people are held to account for being ugly for no reason than to people that are different than them!
The Tulsa Race Massacre happened 62 miles from where my great-grandparents, grandparents, mother and her siblings were from. My cousin attended the same 1-12 school as my mother and her sister. I had never heard of the massacre until the Biden Administration. My cousin said it was not taught in schools. My mother never once spoke of it. Nor did her father’s side of the family who were in law enforcement from 1900-1980’s in the same county. And I have every reason to believe those relatives in 1921 would have been involved. Oklahoma is so damned racist. Since learning about this horrific terrorist attack on their own residents, I have studied and watched documentaries on the massacre. But it would not surprise me if 75% of the state population knew nothing. The ignorance and hatred is astounding.
…And Hakeem Jeffries, an American black man, in Congress in a leadership position says that we shouldn’t hold the black/brown racists, misogynists, Islamaphobes, Antisemitics, bigots Corrupt grifters of the regime accountable! Unfortunately, he will betray us over and over again.
The RACISM in America hasn't exactly been covered up. Some people take pleasure in speaking ill of the black race even to this day. What we think of as "enlightened times" is just more wool pulled over the eyes of Americans who wilfully want to keep the whitewash of their history going. Thanks for this story Qasim.
America loves to call racism “ancient history” right up until you realize Viola Fletcher’s life overlaps almost directly with the country’s founding wounds. Tulsa wasn’t a riot. It was white terrorism with air support, media laundering, government indifference, and then a century-long shrug in a flag pin. The real American exceptionalism is committing atrocities, losing the receipts on purpose, and then acting offended when descendants ask why justice never showed up.
This stupidity is killing everyone
“Ms. Viola Fletcher was born only 1 year after Harriett Tubman died, who herself was four years old when Thomas Jefferson died. That is how stark today’s connection is to the founding of this country. This isn't ancient history. This is contemporary reality. And that is why it is all the more critical we act quickly to ensure justice for Tulsa and the dozens of other anti-Black massacres that have gone unpunished throughout American history.“
Excellent reporting. Thank you.
It’s shocking how many of us commenting here never learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre, “the genocide of Native Americans, Japanese internment, civil & gay rights related violence” and so many other crimes against “the Other”. When we rise from the ashes of these dark times, such atrocities need to be taught in schools and honored broadly in the Press (such as Qasim’s superb recounting) and by our newly Reconstituted United States of America. Compared to all the various countries and cultures of the world, we are a very young nation, a nation comprised of multitudes of world cultures. Given another chance for democracy let us more purposefully rise above past intolerance and differences to strive and meet the noble founding principle of “liberty and justice for all.”
I first learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre by watching the TV show Watchmen. I thought it was fiction it was so gruesome. Turns out it was real… They deserve reparations. Full stop.
I first learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre by watching the TV show Watchmen. I thought it was fiction it was so gruesome. Turns out it was real… They deserve reparations. Full stop.
I first learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre by watching the TV show Watchmen. I thought it was fiction it was so gruesome. Turns out it was real… They deserve reparations. Full stop.
I first learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre by watching the TV show Watchmen. I thought it was fiction it was so gruesome. Turns out it was real… They deserve reparations. Full stop.
I am in total agreement with every point you have made in this article. We will never be the nation we desire to be until any trace of this racism is defeated, Please my fellow whites know this in your hearts as well as your minds. I beg of you.
A powerful upper class in this country have been determined since our founding to keep the lower classes down. Especially black and brown people, and then poor white people, what they think of as white trash. There is an excellent book, White Trash, that explores that history The poor white people, in turn, have kept the black and brown people down. Also see A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn. Brown and black people, women, factory workers, native Americans, coal miners. What's amazing is how far we'd come as a country, with getting a grip on that. Our better angels were making progress. Till it all burst out again with Trump.
I learned from my wife that in East St Louis, IL there was the largest race massacre the country had ever seen in July of 1917. at smaller but similar violent massacre of Black residents of that city in July, 1917, mostly due to a migration of Black families from the South to East St Louis where the men were hired to work along side of white men in the city’s industrial plants.
It's awful that this happened
I am 68 years old,69 years old in one month and never did I hear about this in school! I only heard about this I guess on the hundred year” anniversary” if you could even call it that, of this horrible page in our history! I am a white woman, and this breaks my heart, it hurts me to my core,that people could hurt each other like this basically out of jealousy! My mom and dad were both white and I was raised that if I wanted to be racist, I would not be their daughter anymore! They hated racism!! They hated that people were judged by the color of their skin and to quote MLK, not the content of their character! I was so very blessed to have such good and smart parents! And my heart still breaks for those people that had to live through such injustice and still have no justice for what was done to their family and friends! I was hoping that someday this ugliness would end, but it will only end when people are held to account for being ugly for no reason than to people that are different than them!
The Tulsa Race Massacre happened 62 miles from where my great-grandparents, grandparents, mother and her siblings were from. My cousin attended the same 1-12 school as my mother and her sister. I had never heard of the massacre until the Biden Administration. My cousin said it was not taught in schools. My mother never once spoke of it. Nor did her father’s side of the family who were in law enforcement from 1900-1980’s in the same county. And I have every reason to believe those relatives in 1921 would have been involved. Oklahoma is so damned racist. Since learning about this horrific terrorist attack on their own residents, I have studied and watched documentaries on the massacre. But it would not surprise me if 75% of the state population knew nothing. The ignorance and hatred is astounding.
…And Hakeem Jeffries, an American black man, in Congress in a leadership position says that we shouldn’t hold the black/brown racists, misogynists, Islamaphobes, Antisemitics, bigots Corrupt grifters of the regime accountable! Unfortunately, he will betray us over and over again.