#beantiracist

In Brooklyn, an 89 year old woman was set on fire by two 13 year old boys, simply for being Asian in a pandemic that many people have blamed on China. This woman spoke only Cantonese.

These boys slapped her in the face and set her clothes on fire, leaving a scorch mark on the back of her shirt, according to ABC7NY. The woman had never met these two boys before - she did nothing to harm them, merely a pedestrian walking the streets of New York who became a victim of a hate crime simply because she was Asian. She was too scared to come to police about the incident, because she spoke little English and was terrified about upsetting her family.

The Anti-Chinese and Anti-Asian sentiments have been going on for too long. Why are we belittling and hurting Asians just for being Asian? Why are we blaming pandemic on an entire ethnicity? That is racist, and that is wrong.

So that’s why, today,  I’m wearing a sweatshirt from China Mac Online, an Asian Pride store. It reads “They Can’t Burn Us All”, relating to this specific incident. 

And this is right - they cannot burn us all. I, as a proud Asian American, will not back down from fighting racial injustice. One of my life’s missions is to make change, and I want to make change now.

I can admit that I had never heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre until people were getting upset about Trump holding his rally in Tulsa on the anniversary of the devastating event.  I don’t believe it was ever covered in my American History classes in both public and private schools.

If it was, it was glossed over very quickly, so quickly that the name didn’t even ring a bell.

In fact, in 2012 (91 years after the Massacre took place), a bill failed to pass the Oklahoma Senate that would have required that the Tulsa Race Massacre be taught in all Oklahoma high schools. The opposition claimed that their lack of support came from the fact that it had been included in curricula and history text books beginning in 2000. (insert head slap emoji here) The Tulsa Race Massacre: History leading up to the event

Well there was quite a bit going on that contributed to the 18 hours of racially-fueled destruction.

WWI - The Great War had just ended a mere 2.5 years prior in late 1918.  Still a very segregated military structure, Black Americans valiantly joined the ranks to serve their country as they had done for generations.

Overseas travel became more accessible and the middle-class Americans started visiting to the cities they had seen to during the war and the grave sites of loved ones, exposing themselves to new fashions, lifestyles and possibilities.

The expansion of American presence in Europe during WWI also lead to the US leading what we now know as a “World Economy” - the US led this front, becoming one of the top countries in industry, trade and economy. White women and African Americans were now filling jobs that previously had been reserved for white men as well.

African American Affluence

During WWI there began a huge influx of African Americans moving from the South to the North. Known as the “Great Migration” many African Americans began moving to work in factories that  needed workers due to the war.  Moving North meant less oppression and higher wages.  

The growing cultural and social “not a care in the world” that came with economic affluence and the desire by many Americans to put the horrors of the war behind them, led to the roaring 20s — and Black people were very much included in this.

Black Americans were finding spaces to create neighborhoods with successful business and cultural centers. One of the best known examples of this is the Harlem of the late 1910s and 1920s, a period in Harlem famously known as the Harlem Renaissance when Black intellectuals, professionals and artists flocked to the neighborhood and created some of the most influential American ideas of all time.  

Growing Racism This quote from Time Magazine says it all: “With the armistice, African Americans fully expected that their service and sacrifice would be recognized. They had labored and shed blood for democracy abroad and now expected full democracy at home.”

But what they received at home was an ever-growing racism. My guess is that is was largely fueled by the fact that African Americans were gaining a foothold in society on a cultural and economic level. By 1921, the Ku Klux Klan had been re-formed.

What Happened? - The facts:

The Tulsa Race Massacre was a horrendous series of events that spanned 18 hours, from May 31st to June 1st of 1921.

It seems it all started with a Karen - well she was the spark, as tensions had between the Black and White communities had been on the rise.

Tulsa, OK was home to 100,000 people at the time, 10% of whom were African American. Most of the Black residents lived in the segregated neighborhood of Greenwood, which at its center had a booming and bustling business district known as Black Wall Street.

On May 30th, 1921 a teenage boy named Dick Rowland walked into the Drexel Building on S. Main St in Tulsa.  He went into an elevator run by a young white woman named Sarah Page.  Sometime after he entered, Page sent out a scream that sent rumors flying around the white community almost immediately. Rowland fled the building and the police arrested him the next morning.

By that day, May 31st, newspapers in the white community had already published allegations that the Black teenager had sexually assaulted the young white woman. And that evening, sh*t started to get real.

A large group of white people decended on the court house, demanding that Rowland be released into their custody. Determined to keep the teenager safe, the Sheriff refused their request and sent his men to barricade the entire floor where Rowland was being housed.

Soon 25 armed Black men (many veterans of WWI) met them at the courthouse as well, offering to help protect the young man. They were also denied by the Sheriff.

Around 10pm, with rumors circulating in Greenwood about a possible lynching, 75 armed Black men arrived at the same courthouse. They found themselves outnumbered 20 to 1 —- 1,500 white men were waiting there as well. After some shots were exchanged at the courthouse, the group of Black protectors retreated to Greenwood, where all hell was about to break lose.

The white rioters focused their initial attentions on Black Wall Street.

Hysteria grew in the white community as false claims of a planned and grand-scale rebellion of Black Tulsans, that would include support from neighboring towns and communities. Some of the white rioters were even deputized and given weapons by the government.

35 city blocks were terrorized by thousands of white rioters who defended on the Greenwood district and committed violent acts on Black citizens and destroyed their property.

Officially, 36 people died (26 Black and 10 white) though the count is thought to actually be upwards of 300.

A later report by the Red Cross estimated that 1,256 houses were torched at that 215 were looted but remained un-burned.

So many Black-owned businesses were destroyed. According to history.com “Two newspapers, a school, a library, a hospital, churches, hotels, stores and many other Black-owned businesses were among the buildings destroyed or damaged by fire.”

Firemen who responded to fires were reported to have been forced to leave by white rioters.

Martial law was ordered by the governor later that morning and while the National Guardsmen helped put out the fires, they imprisoned Black Tulsans as well. There were 6,000 imprisoned at local fairgrounds by June 2nd - that was 60% of Tulsa’s African American population at the time.

Hours after the riots ended, the charges against Rowland were dropped. It was determined that he had most likely bumped into Page or stepped on her foot.  Literally. That happened. 8,000 people were left instantly homeless due to a racially driven assumption. And a Karen who clearly didn't correct them. Cover-Up

According to history.com, the Massacre was deliberately covered up for decades..

“The Tulsa Tribune removed the front-page story of May 31 that sparked the chaos from its bound volumes, and scholars later discovered that police and state militia archives about the riot were missing as well. As a result, until recently the Tulsa Race Massacre was rarely mentioned in history books, taught in schools or even talked about.

Scholars began to delve deeper into the story of the riot in the 1970s, after its 50th anniversary had passed. In 1996, on the riot’s 75th anniversary, a service was held at the Mount Zion Baptist Church, which rioters had burned to the ground, and a memorial was placed in front of Greenwood Cultural Center.”

With all of this denial, fueled i’m sure by immense shame and deep racism, it makes sense that in 2012 the OK State Senate wasn’t yet ready to make the Massacre a required topic of study in Oklahoma High Schools.

How devastating. How irresponsible. How heart-breaking.