In honor of Black History Month I’m re-posting the following blog I posted a few months ago inspired by the accounts of James Meredith breaking the color barrier at Ole Miss.
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This week ESPN released its most recent “30 for 30” documentary called The Ghosts of Ole Miss. It covers the intersection of James Meredith breaking the color barrier at Ole Miss, the subsequent rioting, and the only undefeated football team in the school’s history. I haven’t seen it yet, but I recently heard an interview with the writer and one of the key producers of the film, Wright Thompson.
When Thompson was asked about whether history has given Meredith his due in terms of his role in this significant step forward Thompson replied,
“It must be hard….His accomplishment was also the thing that minimized what it must have been like. He changed the world so much that people today have a hard time imagining that this world could have ever existed….A lot of that has been forgotten in the rush and good feeling of progress.”
What he is saying is that Meredith’s story, which includes a lot of Mississippi’s story as well, has been forgotten to an extent. All that is seen from our vantage point today is how far we’ve come, while the stories of those who paid a price for that progress are increasingly lost or tainted by positive and self-congratulatory revisionist history. The stories have been lost to many – because people either don’t know or don’t want to know about how painful these episodes were for so many. Even now as I looked for reviews – there were several from the South that bemoaned that such an incident was “drudged up” again.
The phrase “the rush and good feeling of progress” resonates with me, speaking perhaps to the greatest barrier I see to leading ongoing change as it relates to multi-ethnic empowerment and diversity. This to me may be a bigger barrier today than blatant and lingering racist assumptions and attitudes.
Here’s how I see this going. A huge part of advocacy, justice, or empowerment efforts on behalf of ethnic minority groups or any marginalized groups is getting the stories into the light. Some are storytellers in the 1st person storytellers. They are telling THEIR story as an ethnic minority leader to anyone that will listen. Some of us, who are white and who are working in an advocacy capacity are trying to tell the stories of those we are serving. But part of any effort to engage issues of justice is to tell the stories and get other experiences of reality on the table.
But in “the rush and good feeling of progress,” and there’s been some great progress over the years, I’ve observed the phenomenon that while some are doing the hard work of trying to tell the stories, shining a light on what continues to be unjust or what continues to need great work and effort for the sake of needed change, there are plenty of others who tend to follow along right behind telling everyone not to feel bad and that everything is going just great! Meanwhile the stories that need to be told, the questions that need to be asked – are minimized or sometimes lost altogether. The progress of the past becomes ironically a barrier to progress in the here and now as well as for the future – because we celebrate heroes without intentionally entering into and remembering their stories.
Now I’m not saying it’s intentional. Well it is in a way, but it’s not malicious. I think one of the primary drives towards “the rush and good feeling of progress” is anxiety and fear. To have to sit in the uncomfortable reality that maybe a little (or a lot) of what we are doing might actually be a part of the problem is unmanageable for many. If we deny ourselves the option of sitting in that possibility, we’re only a stone’s throw away from becoming the uncritical cheerleader of progress in the service of the ultimate goal of just maintaining morale as the ultimate value.
That’s what the rush and good feeling of progress does. It takes legitimate hurt and injustice and redirects the focus onto what those in power feel like they are doing well. But when the focus is always on “Look at how far we’ve come!” instead of “How far do we still have to go?”, the interests of those in power are always served. I’m struck by how often, in the course of change efforts, that the feelings and experiences of those on the side of power continue to draw more sympathy and concern than the feelings, experiences, and stories of those who are marginalized.
The rush and good feeling of progress leads us to think more about managing morale than about continuing to right wrongs and serve those on the margins. It minimizes the stories of the marginalized, while we in power find ways to keep patting ourselves on the backs for how far we’ve come. And perhaps there is sometimes more than just anxiety over facing questions in which you don’t know where the answers might lead. Maybe “the rush and good feeling of progress” betrays an unwillingness to consider any alternative perspective of reality in which we are not the heroes, the Messiahs, or the solutions. Maybe most of us don’t want to explore the ways in which our self-assessments might not be accurate. In this way “the rush and good feeling of progress” can be a function of the pride of the powerful rather than a true celebration of healthy and just change.
Don’t get me wrong. We should be encouraged when progress is made and has been made. It should be celebrated and be a source of hope. We should celebrate every victory and milestone – but not uncritically. We must be intentional to remember the stories that still live on – and what it means for our story as well.
The writer of this documentary quotes William Faulkner’s saying, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” He was driven to make this project because he believes the stories still need to be told because of their significance both fifty years ago and today. These stories have been lost to some degree because of the affects of time, change, and progress, but they need to be told anew because they are a part of the present in ways that maybe people might be unaware of or have grown numb to over time.
Progress is awesome. It can also become an idol. We begin to measure ourselves by what’s already been achieved and not by what is left to be done. Progress can be a convenient excuse from facing the honest realities around us and whether we’re truly serving and doing all we can to make space for other peoples stories. Progress can be a great silencer of those stories. Progress can be a great silencer of the questions that still need to be asked.
Perhaps the best indicator of true progress is that those these stories and questions are not silenced in the service of progress and morale, but rather are listened to and respected as the essential building blocks of any real future progress – a new and better world for all.
And for all of us, do we recognize that there are people paying a price today for what we will be tempted to take credit for tomorrow?
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Originally Posted November 1st, 2011
