“Though he (Black people) knows you will not support all his demands, he is well aware that you will be forced to support some in order to maintain your image of yourself as a liberal. He also knows, however, that your material comforts, your security, and your congenial relations with the establishment are much more important to you than your rather volatile idealism, and that when the game gets rough you will be quick to see your own interests menaced by his demands. And you will sell him down the river for the five hundredth time in order to protect yourself. For this reason, as well as to support your own self-esteem, you are very anxious to have a position of leadership and control in the Negro’s fight for rights, in order to be able to apply the brakes when you feel it necessary.”   — Thomas Merton Letters to a White Liberal 1962

There is and effort to bring similar awareness and commitment into the US. Through research, education, and civic engagement, the WITNESS STONES PROJECT, Inc., seeks to restore the history and honor the humanity of the enslaved individuals who helped build our communities.

What Is the Witness Stones Project?

Visit Website here…

Excerpt

I nspired by the Stolpersteine project in Germany (and with their blessing), the Witness Stones Project began in Guilford, Connecticut, in 2017. Our mission is to restore the history and honor the humanity of the enslaved individuals who helped build our communities.

We do this work through teacher workshops, engagement with students and members of our community, and, finally, memorializing enslaved individuals through the installation of Witness Stones.

The Project provides research assistance, teacher development, and curriculum support to help middle and high school students study the history of slavery in their own communities. The students explore the lives of enslaved individuals through primary source documents, including account books, wills and probate inventories, church and town records, indenture contracts, manumission deeds, obituaries, and other surviving archival artifacts. The Project’s teacher training workshops familiarize educators with accessing these primary source materials and facilitating student analysis.

Then there is the question about what can an ally who understands all aspects of the issue actually do to move us forward. This article chronicles the actions taken by Germans to address the horror of the Holocaust. It could be a powerful place to start.

Germany faced its horrible past. Can we do the same?

By Michele L. Norris | JUNE 3, 2021

Read the article here…

Excerpt

T he United States does not yet have the stomach to look over its shoulder and stare directly at the evil on which this great country stands. That is why slavery is not well taught in our schools. That is why the battle flag of the army that tried to divide and conquer our country is still manufactured, sold and displayed with defiant pride.  …

This collective culture of atonement is captured in the eight syllables and 26 letters that comprise the German word Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung. It’s a mouthful that translates loosely to “working off the past.” But its full meaning goes deeper than even that awkward phrase suggests.

Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung refers to Germany’s efforts to interrogate the horrors of the Holocaust and the rise of Nazism. It has been a decades-long exercise, beginning in the 1960s, to examine, analyze and ultimately learn to live with an evil chapter through monuments, teachings, art, architecture, protocols and public policy. ..

In today’s Germany, children learn through their teachers and textbooks that the Nazi reign was a horrible and shameful chapter in the nation’s past.  …

Plaques and markers in many German cities note the locations of synagogues, schools and Jewish neighborhoods that were raided and razed by Hitler and his legions. Roughly 75,000 small brass “stumbling stones,” known as Stolpersteine, are embedded in the streets and plazas of hundreds of towns and cities throughout Germany and elsewhere. Each begins with the phrase “Here lived” and is followed by the facts of someone’s life — their name and birth date. And then that etching is followed by the grim facts of their fate: exile, internment, murder. …

“Anyone who closes his eyes to the past is blind to the present. Whoever refuses to remember the inhumanity is prone to new risk of infection.” —Richard von Weizsäcker, President of West Germany, 1985 marking the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II

One beautiful example of how we all, even the best allies,  are fabulous AND flawed is —

Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

June 2013, the US Supreme Court removed safeguards that had protected voters against racial discrimination in its decision Shelby County v. Holder. The following is how RBG ended her oral summary of her dissent from the majority opinion:

“The great man who led the march from Selma to Montgomery and their call for the passage of the Voting Rights Act foresaw progress even in Alabama. ‘The arc of the moral universe is long,’ he said ‘but it bends toward justice,’ if there is a steadfast commitment to see the task through to completion. That commitment has been disserved by today’s decision.”

“Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes,” Ginsburg responded, joined by her liberal colleagues, “is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

Like most of us, RBG was also sometimes flawed in her actions and understanding.

For example, she hired very, very few black law clerks. One of her legal opinions adopted by the Court, City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York, upheld the property rights of non-indigenous people over the rights of the Oneida Indian Nation based on the so-called “Doctrine of Discovery.” During an interview in 2016, Ginsburg spoke this way about football players’ silent protest of taking a knee:

“I think it’s really dumb of them. Would I arrest them for doing it? No. I think it’s dumb and disrespectful. I would have the same answer if you asked me about flag burning. I think it’s a terrible thing to do, but I wouldn’t lock a person up for doing it. I would point out how ridiculous it seems to me to do such an act. … If they want to be stupid, there’s no law that should be preventive. If they want to be arrogant, there’s no law that prevents them from that.”

And then sometimes there’s the tendency to look for an easy answer:

“Once [gay] people began to say who they were, you found that it was your next-door neighbor or it could be your child, and we found people we admired.” … “[t]hat understanding still doesn’t exist with race; you still have separation of neighborhoods, where the races are not mixed. It’s the familiarity with people who are gay that still doesn’t exist for race and will remain that way for a long time as long as where we live remains divided.”

The fact is each of us is a product of our time. None of us have a perfect understanding, but we can try and hopefully we can grow.

RBG was raised in the 1930-40s but against great odds and with her flaws, she stood up and fought for justice. In 1997, a 5-year-old girl wrote RBG asking “Are you in charge of all the people in the United States? Have you ever made a mistake?

“I am not in charge of all the people in the United States, but I work hard to do my judging job well. And yes, I have made many mistakes, but I try and learn from them.”

When asked how she wanted to be remembered she said:

“Just as someone who did whatever she could, with whatever limited talent she had, to move society along in the direction I would like it to be for my children and grandchildren.”

Let’s follow this example. Let’s learn from our oh-so-many mistakes and do whatever we can, with whatever talent (and strength) we have, to move society toward justice.
Also, for a broader perspective click: The Problem with White Women