Here's a shout-out to Noah, a third grader at Shale Meadows Elementary School near Columbus, Ohio. According to NPR's "Planet Money" host Erika Beras, as Noah's teacher read "The Sneetches" by Dr. Seuss, published in 1961, the student said Sneetches with stars shunning Sneetches without stars sounded "almost like what happened back then, how people were treated ... like, white people disrespected Black people."
Not only should we be impressed that Noah connected a story about prejudiced Sneetches to racist people, but we should also take note of him expressing the thought in the active voice, using a subject, verb and object. He said, "White people disrespected Black people." It's becoming rarer that sentences about our country's racist history are structured with such clarity.
You'll notice how rare it is on this day, especially, when you hear people whose views would have in no way aligned with a living Martin Luther King Jr. pay insipid praise to the martyr. They'll say King had courage, but they won't say why he needed it. They'll say he marched, but they won't say against whom. They'll say we shall overcome, but they won't name the people who are the obstacles. They'll say he was a hero, but they won't dare mention Jim Crow's villains.
I doubt you'll hear anyone speak with Noah's clarity or acknowledge that Black people weren't just passively oppressed but that white people were actively oppressing them.
This is a preview of Jarvis DeBerry's latest article. Read their full column here.
