by Attica Scott
"Conversation is critical, but not without self-reflection, both individually and communally. While myths help us make sense of the incomprehensible, they can also confine us, confuse us and leave us prey to historical laziness.
Moreover, truth is not always easily discernible—and even when it is, the prism, depending on which side of the river you reside on, may create a wholly different illusion."
—Alex Kotlowitz, 1998
I just finished watching one of the most powerful documentaries produced in the past several years. Why was it so powerful? Because the video, Long Night's Journey Into Day, explores post-apartheid South Africa as the country attempts to heal its racial segregation through truth and racial reconciliation.
The 90-minute documentary studies South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), set up by the post-apartheid, democratic government to consider amnesty for 10,000 perpetrators of crimes committed under apartheid's reign. What's interesting about this video is that it focuses on both white and black perpetrators of crimes, their victims, and the loved ones of the victims.
It is painful to watch former white police officers say to the wives and children of innocent black men they murdered that they were doing it because they were protecting the system of apartheid. It is painful to watch black activists say to the parents and siblings of innocent white women they murdered that they were doing it because of the system of apartheid and that all white people were part of that system.
But the video also renewed my spirit as I watched, in some cases, the families of both the perpetrators of crimes and the victims of crimes embrace one another in a forgiving manner.
Herein lies the rub for our community. We have yet to have any real conversations about the pain of racism to people of color and to white folks. So how do we begin to have those conversations? Well, the Highlander Research and Education Center has convened a collection of numerous and varied community groups and organizations that are bringing this video and its filmmakers to our community in April.
The event, "A Community Conversation on Race, Reconciliation and Justice in East Tennessee," will be held on Saturday, April 20 at the UT University Center. What a better place to hold such an event than on the campus of the new president who has been questioned about his true commitment to equity and diversity?
Of course, we'll have to see whether or not anyone from the university administration will attend the screening and discussions. But, I digress...
I'm sure that you are asking: "What happened to the nearly 10,000 requests for amnesty that came before the TRC?" Interestingly, in exchange for absolute truth about their activities and human rights abuses, perpetrators could earn amnesty for the crimes they committed before apartheid collapsed in 1994.
Wouldn't it be something if our nation held similar hearings for those who committed lynchings, and church burnings, and beatings, and other unmentionable acts of violence against innocent people of color in our nation? I'm speaking about more than just the death-bed confessions of hatemongers.
I'm speaking of folks who can come forward without fear of being made to pay for their crimes by any local, state, or federal judicial body. These aggressors have the power to help alleviate some of the agony of those family members who never again heard from loved ones who went down South to help register blacks to vote. They have the power to tell my family who it was who lynched my great-great uncle and left his body hanging from a poplar tree for his family to find.
Yes, I think that it would help our community and our country to heal the holes in our souls if we had the opportunity to speak and to hear the truth. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, according to the filmmakers, "is raising some of the most profound moral and ethical questions facing the world today—questions about justice, truth, forgiveness, redemption, and the ability of brutalized and brutalizing individuals to subsequently coexist in harmony. As it emerges from its tragedy, South Africa is showing the rest of the world that even the most bitter of conflicts can be addressed through honesty and communication."
No, it will not solve hundreds of years of racial oppression, or even decades of government-sanctioned racial segregation, but honest, open conversations will lead us toward a stronger, more just society.
March 14, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 11
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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