Reckoning

While “reckoning” can refer to the avenging or punishing of past mistakes or misdeeds, its primary meaning simply refers to the process or action of calculating or estimating something, a process of making sense of something. In the feverish agitation of the last few years in the US, one of the emergent concerns expressed by some was a desire to not focus on, explore, or acknowledge two very specific actions of our forebears in creating the US: genocide and slavery. Essentially, the intent is to not “make sense” of these human savagery aspects of our history, to actively prevent a reckoning.

This was not a quiet wish but carried a huge wave of noisy energy pushing against any reference to either factual reality. Such references were viewed as affronts, even accusations, an attempt to defile the splendid history of the US. This was (and to some degree continues to be) a frenzied effort to “erase” all references to both genocide and slavery. For many who embrace this effort, it is part of a larger investment in “white supremacy” and “white nationalism”, though both are often denied. Somewhat more veiled is an embedded assumption that this is the concern and work of men, and it is their charge to further this viewpoint.

This communal behavior by a subset of US citizens, which I do not think is a majority, often feels frantic and frightened rather than purposeful and rational. Indeed, it seems to me that the fear of avenging or punishing for past mistakes or misdeeds was actually experienced by some people. They often expressed the belief that others were trying to make them feel guilty, or worse, to “replace” them. This was and continues to be their reaction to the objectively accurate presentation of historical facts documenting both the genocide and the slavery.

If you have at some point absorbed the fact that genocide and slavery were two of the foundations of the development of the US, discussions of this, facts about this, books and movies about this…these do not disable you. They may evoke deep feelings of grief or shame, an uncertainty about how one can take actions to mitigate the effects of these historical facts, however the facts themselves are just that, facts. As is perhaps obvious, there are often response differences between those who self-identify as “white” and those who do not.

Alternately, it you have never really thought about these realities, or when they are presented, you find them overwhelming, then any presentation of the facts can be disabling. The emotions this evokes can be intense, overpowering and directed outward, expressions of frustration or rage and fury at the person presenting the facts.

Perhaps, under these conditions, the less common definition of “reckoning” feels like it is lurking, demanding retribution. Thus, these facts may evoke a fear of avenging or punishing for the past mistakes or misdeeds of one’s ancestors. One may suspect a plot by others to replace the “white” people who implemented these practices. There is an anticipated threat of “payback”. While there appears to be little consciousness of “guilt”, the responses often seem to express fear of “guilt”.

All of this leaves me pondering the challenge of “reckoning”. I actually think it is one of the essential skills of human existence, making sense of that existence. It starts with reckoning with the parents you have and the family you find yourself in, expanding to the place where you grow up, the opportunities you have, and do not have, the choices your make and their consequences, the things that bring you joy, sorrow, laughter and shame. We spend a good portion of human existence simply reckoning if we want to live a mentally healthy life.

If you get good at making sense of things, of reckoning, your life is shaped by this capacity. Reckoning is a skill, where the “rightness” or “wrongness” is often less compelling than the “whatness” and its consequences. It is often simply a matter of economy. In reckoning with one’s life story, labeling things good and bad is limiting, a waste of energy and life force. Seeing things as simply “what is” opens up the possibility of exploration and depth. Put another way, wishing things were different does not change them and is often a waste of a good life.

The US was created and grounded in choices that included slavery and genocide. While I wish it were not, this is simply true. Reckoning requires one to see and accept this fact, and then look at the consequences. It has seemed to me most of my adult life that the US has never had an honest national reckoning with these true facts. The recent frenzied effort to declare it untrue or to be denied clarifies how much it is still an issue for this country and its citizens. We have a window of opportunity to revisit these facts and engage in communal reckoning, not merely of the facts themselves but also of the enduring damaging consequences.

When I try to study the current struggle to deny these facts, it seems to me that the key factor we are grappling with is not so much the historical reality but the institutionalized practices we sustain to continue the damage of both the genocide and the slavery. Reckoning with the past quickly unveils residuals evidenced in current practices in our relationships with both Native Americans and African Americans. It was interesting to simply write those two descriptors, themselves a documentation of consequences. As even a cursory study of consequences reveals, the better angels of our nature do not appear to be in charge of these.

I have been drafting this posting for a few weeks, thinking, writing, thinking, refining. During that brief time, an executive order was issued by our current administration to remove all images or allusions to slavery from all national parks. We have seen many interventions; this one just seems embarrassingly desperate and petty. Some forms of fear look like cyclones.

I do not have some magic solution to our deep, immobilizing inability to own our communal past and its damaging and destructive residuals that still shape our national lived experiences. We watch pernicious practices emerge in the current deranged refusal to engage in reckoning. We watch increasingly silly claims that our cherished historic biases are not determining policy and practice. This nonsense has had its say long enough to make denial look not only ignorant but increasingly a bit insane.

I have lived at least five years in eight different states in the US. This has been useful for observing the various ways that reckoning is avoided. We use multiple avoidance tactics, many that look linked to the history that created the effort to deny history. Indeed, these tactics are part of my personal history, how I experienced these varied cultures. Navigating the race riots of the 1960s in Chicago, surrounded by Civil War reenactments throughout Virginia and partnering to establish Oneida tribal health care in northern Wisconsin are good examples.

The recent suggestion that we should find a way in the Smithsonian to describe slavery in more positive terms takes this avoidance to a new level. My hunch is that most US citizens, even if they don’t want to embrace reckoning, probably don’t want to self-describe as intelligent and also defend the story of slavery in the US as not all that bad.

I believe that as this public display of insanity becomes increasingly recognized as insanity, the window of opportunity presents itself for at least some small creeping steps toward reckoning. As a matter of simple intellectual integrity, most of us are not going to want to sustain the bizarre efforts to “whitewash” (a perfect term) our history, but hope to find our way back to factual history.

The trip back will include a series of decisions: how much intellectual integrity can we muster? We will be tripping over the truth as we go, and this offers us a moment of honest reckoning as we try to stabilize our understanding of communal truth. It may be very uncomfortable, but we now know that avoiding it is too.

I have no way of knowing how or if this will occur, either publicly and systematically or privately, in sudden awareness and honesty. I will celebrate it any way it shows up. I like to envision that some small reckoning steps could be in our collective future. I intend to invest in that eventuality and hope thousands will join me.

“No empire can outrun the repercussions of its aggression; the seeds of hostility always yield a harvest of reckoning.”

- Pierre Lagrenat -