Page 156 - Demo

244Other times, it%u2019s when a black family in my neighborhood tries to buy a piece of property on the DeLisle Bayou and the white people who own property in the area do everything they can to block the purchase. Or when my mother%u2019s neighbor begins clearing his land to build his house, and the white people who live on the other side of the woods demand that he leave a strip of forest separating our black neighborhood from their white one.and all these white men were made rich by cotton, by slavery. Their fields were notorious for their brutality and their productivity. When this cornerstone of the state%u2019s foundation was hobbled by the Civil War and the 13th Amendment,1 those in power reacted immediately, violently, burning with the same sense of entitlement that had led them to settle this wild place. Black pain, Native pain, women%u2019s pain: if this was necessary in order to reap their lot, to build their wealth, to earn their leisure, so be it.White Mississippi%u2019s steadfast belief in this idea was not only readily apparent but also burned into the national consciousness. There are many images of tortured and lynched people taken during that era in the South: white crowds milling under mangled bodies, men, women and children alight, smiling. In the %u201960s, civil rights demonstrators across the South faced dogs, water hoses and guns. These images remain with us. Mississippi is the memory America invokes whenever it wants to convince itself that racial violence and subjugation are mostly lodged in the past, that they have no space in our present moment, save in this backwoods, backward place.This can be that place. The aggression is sometimes slight and interpersonal, as simple as me walking through a department store with my children, an obvious shopper, when an older white woman with perfectly coiffed hair and small hands walks up to ask me if a shirt or a pair of shoes is on sale. When my youngest sister stops at a gas station, a white man takes offense at the volume of her rap music and tells her to %u201cturn that shit down.%u201d When she visits her friend%u2019s apartment, the neighbor casually tosses the word nigger at her, as easily as an underhand softball toss.55 Redefining America1 Ratified in 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery. %u2014Eds.AP Photo/Steve HelberAn image of George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in 2020, was projected on the base of the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. The statue was a focal point of protests over Floyd%u2019s death, and it was removed from the site on September 8, 2021. A local museum plans to melt down the metal and repurpose it into a new piece of public art. How does this image relate to Ward%u2019s argument about America today? How does it comment on the racial rifts that stem from past and present injustices?Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.