I Will Not Surrender to History, and Other Promises [by Marty McConnell]

Something I have been wondering: would I give up my whiteness to be Black? The answer is yes, but Walter Scott would still be dead. Would I give up my whiteness to be Black? The answer is yes, but let’s not mistake it for sacrifice or pretend Walter Scott would not still be dead. I spend time in Black spaces, in Black family, amid Black love, I know Black genius and have known Black bodies and know just about nothing of what it is to be Black but I would be it, would surrender my whiteness to be it and Walter Scott would still be dead.

Something I have been wondering: what would happen if whiteness as we know it disappeared? What if whiteness carried on its broad pale back the unbearable weight of enslavement, of three-fifths, of Jim Crow and Tuskegee and the prison capitalist industry and the long and unqualified failure of Brown vs. the Board of Education? What then for my blue-eyed nephews, my pastel godson? Would Walter Scott still be dead? Would my father? My grandfathers? Theirs? In trees? Behind trucks? In fields? As experiments? On ships? In rebellion? Running away?

I can tell you I would not exist. My mother’s mother met my grandfather during the Great Depression; he was driving a boat and she was swimming off the family’s lake house pier. My mother met my father at a dance in the same lily-toned summer community. Remove skin privilege and the stories fall apart, my DNA a rope unraveling.

Make fate stronger than this, make them meet in bread lines or protest rallies and I exist, but who am I? Shift the locus of my birth, shift the solidity of my public schooling, shift the capacity of my parents to pay for college, shift the easy slip into employment, shift my safe white walk through everywhere – turn it all on its head, an inversion, and name me someone else. Because I am white, which is indivisible from privilege.

And what if tomorrow it all were different. If in an instant, skin became no indication of whom to kill or kidnap or fire or disdain or dismiss or enslave or arrest or detain or shrink from, clutching one’s expensive handbag on the subway. Would we find another marker for target, and construct a new national horror story on that? It would need to be visible, like skin. Be inherited, generationally unshakable. Who would be Walter Scott then, be Michael Brown, be Tamir Rice, be John Crawford, Mariam Carey, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Alberta Spruil? Who’d be dead?

So much conjecture, and Walter Scott is still dead for nothing. Dead for nothing but his pure skin. And my father is alive, and my nephews and my godson being raised into good men. And my grandfathers died of old age and cancer and I can’t surrender or abandon or strip off this whiteness any more than I can bring back the dead.

But I can ask this question: what does it require for a human to be seen as human in any skin?

How many Coast Guard photos, how many sweet-faced senior pictures, how many Black boys leaning into their father’s good shoulders, how many hands up, how many face down, how many can’t breathe, how much footage of cops handcuffing newly dead humans do we need? These are bodies, living or once living. These are human, human, human bodies.

Billie Holiday on repeat, you know the song, the poplar tree, white bark, white branches, indivisible from its history, white like bones white like teeth and flags of surrender tied to branches and bayonets Walter Scott, I surrender. I am sorry. Michael Brown, I surrender. I am sorry. Ferguson, I surrender. I am sorry. Dear living dear living dear living, I can’t take the white from my body but here is my white mouth, here are my white hands. I will not surrender to history. I will speak. I will try to put them where there is need.

 

Comments

[Eric]

Ms. McConnell,
This is another great thought-provoking topic for many people. Ignorance is not the ability to not agree with an idea, but the ability to not give an idea a chance. Thank you for another great article.

[a realist]

people die, it happens

[Donat]

nice piece

[Noah]

This is a great take on the recent issues that have come out due to racial issues.

[Alvi]

Great article

[Sydney]

This is such a powerful piece. The injustices in this world are disappointing and we must take action to make change.

[Jaidah Blakney]

The longer, comma divided sentences make this more dramatic.

[Mark Eleveld]

You are poetic in essay as well.

[Syainya]

I liked the lines about fate and our destiny and all that jazz. It was enjoyable and nice to read another perspective of fate.

[observant viewer]

how can a donut comment....

[Gabe Venegas]

This article very much hit me home how we do not choose to be white or black and it means alot that you would not only be willing but would want to change.

[Jacob]

Your poem is very moving.

[Alexander Bryant]

This can be related to several issues that are happening around the US right now, the Baltimore protests for example.

[Lila Pearl]

By far, my FAVORITE piece!!

[Brandon]

Great insight on current issues that have come forth

[Karen]

This is another really well said piece. Ties in very well with the recent happenings in Baltimore.

[Mikayla]

This article brings up a good point in dealing with current injustice. I like the point of view in which you took the article.

[Brandy T]

I have never heard someone take this particular approach on racial issues. This is a very powerful piece.

[Marissa]

Very interesting piece. Definitely describes the racial problems that have taken place recently.

[Taylor]

This is a really powerful piece and it makes an impact on the topic of racial injustice.

[Mariah Guzman]

This piece really spoke out to many events that will be remembered throughout history, but it also gave a message that would make an audience think. No one reading has to necessarily agree, they just have to listen, and understand.

[Makayla]

This was a wake up call for myself. It really makes a person question, what would history be like if all people had the same color skin with nothing to differentiate us?

[Scott]

This is a very well-written take on the recent unrest in America because of racial inequality.

[Panitria]

Once again, you have touched on another amazing topic and has done a phenomenal job.

[Allie]

This piece was written in a way that can speak to anyone no matter what skin color. I like how it doesn't make one race seem bad and the other good, it just states that things happened and we can't change that but we can begin to change things now.