We live in a time of white grievance against Black progress. And, in this country, we always have.
In 1866, before the Military Reconstruction Acts, my third-great grandfather, Charley Russell (the “Slave Trader in My Family Tree”)1 was elected as county judge in Karnes County, Texas.2 But soon after, federal military rule meant that Charley lost his position to the “carpetbaggers.” In response, Charley wrote a poem, called “The Scallawag”3:
As soon as on our shores they land,
With empty purse and clad in rags,
They take the NEGRO by the hand, to elevate – the SCALLAWAGS!
These negro-loving Scallawags,
These self-improving Scallawags,
These jeering, peering, Ku Klux-fearing, eyeglass-wearing Scallawags.
Charley’s poem has other verses, but you get the gist.
Charley proudly flaunted his contempt for Black folks and their white supporters. But, as Malcolm X described almost 100 years later, throughout American history racially-aggrieved white folks have often disguised those grievances as empathy or support:
That white person that you see calling himself a “liberal” is the most dangerous thing in the entire Western hemisphere. He’s the most deceitful. He’s like a fox, and a fox is always more dangerous in the forest than the wolf. You can see the wolf coming. You know what he’s up to. But the fox will fool you.4
Charley was a wolf. For more than 150 years, white leadership, whether “liberal” or “conservative,” have often been foxes.
