I have never been under the illusion that America is the “shining city on the hill.” Too much of its history suggests otherwise. Plus, it isn’t very helpful to talk about such matters at that level of abstraction. Those kinds of claims often work as sedatives with the aim of dulling the eye and the senses. I prefer a more sober encounter. And I suppose that has something to do with who I am and where I am from.
Mississippi has shaped, even when I’ve failed to recognize it, so much of who I am and how I experience this country. Beauty and horror characterize the state. Saints and monsters populate its history. But those descriptions keep you on the surface of things. Mississippi is an American tragedy.
Something deeper is going on here. Something more than melodrama. Something that takes us to the heart of the darkness in this place, where choices have corrupted the soul and we sing the blues about it all.
Whenever I teach James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, I am struck by this passage:
The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed that collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americans have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians and all other neighbors or inferiors, that American men are the world’s most direct and virile, that American women are pure. Negroes know far more about white Americans than that…
This reads to me like common sense. How could I believe anything like this about Mississippi? Even when I played with my white friends, enjoyed a good laugh, trusted one of them with my secrets, the reality of race kept us apart. It would take a willful act of blindness to accept such an idealized view of the state or the country when the history of both screamed, LIES!
And, to my mind, it would be a sin against the Holy Ghost to deny the blood spilt because of it all.
I feel this in my gut these days. The Attorney General of Mississippi, Lynn Fitch, issued a brief statement four months after Kohen Wiley, a one-year-old boy in Senatobia, Mississippi, was shot and killed by Hunter Foster, a police officer. Kohen’s mother and her friend were accused of stealing diapers and baby clothes from the local Walmart. Officers followed them to their car, demanded that she stop her vehicle, and as she attempted to drive away, Foster, who stood in front of the car, shot and killed Kohen.
Over diapers and baby clothes.
The Attorney General said that the use of force was justified. Doesn’t matter that Kohen’s mom was accused of a misdemeanor. Doesn’t matter that the video footage shows that the officers put themselves in danger. Fitch said the police were justified in killing that baby.
Officer Foster has resigned, but one can easily imagine that he will end up, with his happy trigger, on some other police force in some other small town. Police have been given a license in this country to act with impunity, and that license takes on particular meaning when it comes to Black people whose lives aren’t valued as much as others—especially in Mississippi.
I survived Mississippi. Nolan and Kohen didn’t. But, if we are honest, Mississippi shouldn’t be made to bear the burden of the nation’s sins. It only reveals them in sepia tones.
Being from this place, I can put aside the abstractions and see the country for what it is: a nation that can witness a 16-year-old child kill 5-, 8-, and 11-year-old children and move on to talk about political horse races. A country overrun by greed, selfishness, and hatred (rotting from the inside out), governed by calloused hearted men and women, and praying that an election will save its soul.
A place that can accept a cop killing a one-year-old Black child over some damn diapers and baby clothes.
Yeah, being from Mississippi, I know far too much about this country to believe the myths to which it clings.
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A great and heartfelt painful truth about White America. I cry and mourn for all of the mothers and families that have gone through this tragedy and abuse of power. My dad is from Mississippi too and rarely speaks about when he resided there as a child. I see why. Thank you for sharing this.
America: "A place that can accept a cop killing a one-year-old Black child over some damn diapers and baby clothes." It's who we are. It's who we've always been. Cruel. Violent. Hypocrites. It's who we'll be no matter who gets elected. Unless we can face it and root it out, somehow atone....