By Vincent L. Hall
It was one of the proudest moments of my life. But, of course, all the proud moments in my life have been watching either of my three daughters navigate life and separate it from bullshit. The one thing that I never wanted to do was to raise clueless women!
And to parents, parenthetically. If the only thing you teach your daughter is how to wear a lace front, high heels, and eyelashes longer than her index finger, you are failing and they will too.
Black women have far too much to do for themselves for their race and for this nation to spend inordinate amounts of time on vanity and style. Instead, virtue andn substance must be our primary goals in “raising a village.”
Hailee was accepted into Vanderbilt. They prevailed over the field of colleges and universities that have filled my mailbox for three years. So we boarded a plane and went to Nashville. We accepted the invitation and went to take a peek at the campus and student life.
We were awestruck at the majesty of the college and hospital there. Cornelius Vanderbilt and the Rockefeller Family dominated my reading time during my sixth-grade year. Now I was standing on the “Commodore’s” eternal endowment!
Finally, as we sat around what looked like a bunch of affluent White prospective students, our personal tour guide arrived. As soon as we exited the door, my daughter blurted out something that surprised me. Can you take me to the Black student union building? Even this young brother gawked.
What kind of freshman would want to go there first? And then I remembered what my parenting mentor, Lynetta always says. She grew up in your house Vincent!
Hailee is an officer in the Dallas Chapter NAACP Youth Council and holds a regional position on the State Board. Hailee is pro- Black, without being anti-white, brown, Hindu, or Jew.
But on our way to Nashville this summer, we will stop off on the campus of Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan. Our final pre-college field trip will be to the “Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia.”
This active strain of the neo-racist movement is a by-product of “Jim and Jane Crow discrimination.” Black teens and young adults need to know Black history! Jewish children go to school regularly to learn about their history. So why do we hide the atrocities we have endured on these shores? What about our achievements?
You cannot, with any fervor or faith, declare “never again” if you never knew what happened in the first place. We quote the Bible passage, “The truth will set you free.”
As former enslaved, incapacitated, and invisible humans we still yearn to be free. Consciously and subconsciously.
Ok. I would say that I’ll get off my soapbox, but if you don’t know the history behind speeches and soapboxes, your perception of my words is skewed at best. You feel me?
“The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia is the nation’s largest publicly accessible collection of artifacts of intolerance. The Museum contextualizes the dreadful impact of Jim Crow laws and customs.”
In addition, the Museum seeks to promote a more just society.
The Museum sits on the cam- pus of Ferris State University in Big Rapids, MI. Admission is free for all visitors. Their motto is “Teaching Tolerance with Objects of Intolerance.”
So yes, all our kids can go and probably need to. Here is a sample of the many articles that the museum features.
“There are, for example, anti-Obama objects that call into question his humanness. In May 2008, Mike Norman, owner of Mulligan’s Food and Spirits bar in Marietta, Georgia, gained a measure of national notoriety by selling t-shirts that featured Curious George, a cartoon monkey, peeling a banana, with “Obama in ’08” underneath.
Mr. Norman argued that, although he knew Blacks were sometimes compared to monkeys before and during the Jim Crow period, the t-shirts should not be viewed as racist because the Illinois senator and the cartoon monkey “look so much alike.”
As long as there are racists that use old racial tropes and stereotypes as a means of devaluing our lives and livelihoods, our children need to grasp the enormity of racial and ethnic discrimination that is replete in every era of American history.
Like all my daughters, Hailee has been the source of my proudest moments. However, neither of them can afford to underestimate America’s worst moments and the peoples who caught the brunt of its brutality.
Vincent L. Hall is an author, activist, and an award-winning columnist.
