The Tulsa Race Massacre Went Way Beyond “Black Wall Street” [truthout.org]

Beginning as a young boy watching the original release of the 1977 TV miniseries 'Roots', I can recall how bewildered I'd always get just by the concept of Black people being brutalized and told they were not welcome — while they, as a people, had been violently forced here from their African home as slaves! And, as a people, there has been no "reparations" or real refuge here for them, since. In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, the narrator notes that, like the South, the Civil War era northern states also hated Black people but happened to hate slavery more.

Some people need to believe that such atrocious occurrences happened ‘long ago’/‘in the past’ and that, or therefore, humanity could/would not allow them to happen again, in our much more modern times. I, however, doubt that is the way large-scale societies — let alone border-segregated, independent nations — necessarily behave collectively.

After 34 years of news consumption, I’ve noticed that a disturbingly large number of categorized people, however precious their souls, can be considered thus treated as though disposable, even to an otherwise democratic nation. When the young children of those people take notice of this, tragically, they’re vulnerable to begin perceiving themselves as beings without value. When I say this, I primarily have in mind Black and indigenous-nation Americans and Canadians. But, tragically, such horrendous occurrences still happen on Earth, often enough going unrealized to the rest of the world.

While the inhuman devaluation of these people is basically based on race, it still somewhat reminds me of an external devaluation, albeit a subconscious one, of the daily civilian lives lost in protractedly devastating war zones and heavily armed sieges. They can eventually receive meagre column inches on the back page in the First World’s daily news. (To the newspaper owners/editors, of course, it’s just the news business and nothing personal.)

This is an absolutely eye-opening, extensively researched article that sheds so much light on the many historical complex factors about race inequality, colonialism, white supremacy, etc and I believe one of the primary reasons racial justice, inclusion, inequality continues to this very day in North America. Thank you for enlightening me on a much deeper level!