Gaskin: We Must Learn From the Past, and Discuss the Future

Monday, February 02, 2015

Jennifer Gaskin, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

“We must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community.” – Haile Selassie

A woman named, Jane “Alexina” Morrison was sold at slave market in New Orleans during January 1857. She was sold to a slave trader named James White. White was a long time slave trader, who was in the process of fulfilling the dream to become a planter. A planter was the highest socioeconomic status available in southern society at the time. White had pulled himself up from nothing through the trade of slaves and buying land. Morrison’s body was one of his first investments as a planter. Shortly after her sale, Morrison ran away. It was nine months later that White saw her again, they were in a courthouse, where Morrison had filed suit against him. Alexina Morrison was a 15 year old girl with blond hair and blue eyes, the suit was filed because Morrison claimed she was white and thus could not be legally held as a slave.

Over the next five years, there would three different trials, back and forth between local courts and the Louisiana Supreme Court. She claimed to be born of white parents but had been kidnapped and forced in to slavery. Morrison’s lawyers drew the jurors’ attention to her appearance and behavior in support her claim that she was white. Many of the witnesses testifying in support of her claim confirming that she “looked white”, “[she] conducted herself as a white woman”, and one witness declared “[had] none of the features of an African.” One the other side, the defense put forth that Alexina Morrison was not white by claiming her to have the sexuality of a black woman. Morrison’s biggest supporter was the jailer that she encountered when first running away. She had moved in to his house and her status in that house was unclear. James White’s lawyers tried to insinuate suspicions of adultery and loose morals, with the implication that this was black female behavior, not white. Alexina won her case in the courts every time with the final trial ending 10-2 vote in her favor.

The sad reality is that we still see Morrison’s legacy today. Often, people will say “you sound white,” “you act white” or “what are you?” to a ‘black’ person if they present with lighter skin and less than thick curly hair. Many individuals continue to struggle with being not black enough for the black community or too black to be white in the white community.

How important is this to our race discussion? Worcester is one of the most diverse communities in the Commonwealth, listed multiple times on the list of 50 Most Diverse Public Schools in Massachusetts. Worcester has an obligation to the next generation of our community to embrace and teach diversity within our schools and homes.

Last week, we talked about white privilege; this is the context through which we must have these discussions. If we do not talk about race and diversity in ways that account for ideologies like white privilege, considering the often-invisible workings of just being white, racial disparities will remain stagnant or worsen. Our conversations must include a serious and open discussion of race and racism, otherwise our ignorance will continue. It is time to shed the ignorance, own our racial past and present, and begin to engage the equal opportunity that so many of us in this country claim to believe in.