“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Spanish Philosopher George Santayana’s famous words are one of those aphorisms that seem to be embedded in American culture. But apparently, a lot of folks who have routinely recited it have never taken the time to think about the inherent warning in the message.
Because it appears, now more than ever, Americans are bent on repeating some of the nation’s sad history.
For example, the 1918 flu was also known as the Spanish flu — the origin wrongly attributed to Spain because the country had remained neutral during World War I. With information suppressed during the war and fear about the deadly virus heightened, the Spanish people were subject to the same kind of ethnic finger-pointing that former President Donald Trump used in 2020 when he labeled COVID-19 the “Kung Flu” and blamed China and other Asian people for the pandemic.
Other similarities include the death count from the 1918 flu rising sharply in all communities, but resources to combat the infection being limited where African Americans lived. One hundred years later when COVID-19 became a global pandemic, even though the rate of infection in primarily Black and brown communities was much greater, those residents were often the last to have access to health care resources.
It’s really been hard for me to witness, especially during Black History Month, the repeating of some of the nation’s ugliest and most painful racial history — the days when Jim Crow segregation laws and customs prevented Black people from voting. There may be no more Billy club-wielding sheriffs blocking potential voters of color from registering to vote. But the 34 new laws passed by 19 states last year restricting access to voting, specifically crafted to keep them from the polls, is a copycat strategy. Yet this targeted campaign denying the fundamental voting right to citizens has yet to spark a widespread public outcry. Is it because the threat hits hardest in marginalized communities? The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. often reminded his audiences that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
It is so easy to forget history’s lessons, especially when so many today don’t want to talk about history at all — and want to make sure nobody else talks about it, either.
Suddenly understanding how we got from there to here socially and politically is too uncomfortable, too messy, too nuanced to learn. Newly minted legislation in 14 states — including Idaho, Iowa and Tennessee — makes it illegal for teachers to discuss even the broad outlines of certain facts and events. In South Carolina, a bill making its way through the Legislature says teachers can’t talk about topics that create “discomfort, guilt, or anguish” linked to political belief. How then to discuss the circumstances that led to George Floyd’s death? Or how this country whose constitution declares “all men are created equal” was built by people who were enslaved?
Black History Month with its celebration of great accomplishments by African Americans, and its frank recognition of what they had to overcome, stands in stark opposition to this legalized silencing. The Rev. King preached the words of poet/journalist William Cullen Bryant: “Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again.” There are legions of determined and defiant at the ready who will not be deterred from truth-telling. That, after all, is Black History.
