Book Review: Sundown Towns

Book: Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism

Author: James W. Loewen

An interesting dimension of racism, and American racism in particular, is that when whites are confronted with it, their reaction is often to blame the victims of its injustice for creating racism in the first place. To them, blacks create the racism merely by protesting or highlighting that racism. I have found this to be particularly true with reactions to the Black Lives Matter movement and the counterprotests against the recent ugly resurgence of blatant white supremacy. In fact, I recently heard one conservative activist, Sandy Rios, claim that celebrities raising money for hurricane victims are “stoking the fires of racism.” Perhaps it is racism provoking the fires of racism?  Racists have become emboldened by a president whose racism is well-documented and whose dog-whistles provide ample cover for him to retreat from accusations of support for white supremacy.

While I was reading this book, Trump launched into one of his rambling monologues, this time in front of the Boy Scouts of America, and talked at length and with great admiration about William Levitt, the founder of Levittown (including the infamous “he had a very interesting life. I won’t go any more than that . . . Should I tell you?” lines). It was interesting for me to read about Levittown’s segregation while at the same time hearing Trump express admiration for the man who forbade the resale of properties to blacks and Jews. Trump’s family also famously refused to sell to blacks, something which the man has never expressed regret or shame for. In short, Trump is one manifestation of the de facto segregation that Loewen documents in this book.

While I did learn a great deal from this book, the most interesting thing that I learned was that Sundown Towns were far more common in the north than in the south. That shook up and rearranged a lot of what I thought I knew about this topic. I was fascinated by this book, and its importance cannot be minimized. The links between the nadir, lynching, segregated housing policies, and racism should not be denied.  The continued impact these events have had on black/white relations should not be ignored.

The narrative that is told by many whites to justify or ignore casual racism is one that tells a story of lazy entitled blacks who lack the drive or knowledge to get themselves out of poverty. This is why they are often heard commenting about how long ago slavery was, implying or stating the need for blacks to “get over it.” Reading a book like this could do a great deal to upend that narrative and allow an open-minded reader to see that black Americans are doing amazingly well despite the barriers they have faced and continue to face.

Clearly, and Loewen admits this, more research needs to be dedicated to this area of history. It is a challenging thing to research, given that most towns tend to bury such history and written documentation is scarcer than is ideal. However, honestly and bravely exploring this history could do a lot to move forward in healing the wounds that American racism continues to inflict on that country.

 

On Woodpiles and Ethnic Slurs

So, one thing that people often do when they are introducing themselves to an audience is they engage in a little bit of self-deprecation. This endears them to the audience and is a sort of pre-emptive strike against potential naysayers. It’s sort of a, hey, I am aware that I might have a gigantic skinny-ass head and I know that I am balding and that maybe my face is slightly less than symmetrical, but I’m okay with that. In fact, I am going to point it out to you in such a way that it is humorous and, as a bonus, makes me look humble and relatable.

But I’m not going to do that shit, because I’m a ruggedly handsome Greek god with luxurious hair.

That’s not true. I’m not actually Greek.

I suppose I have the benefit of not really being seen by anyone read this, unless they click on my tiny little avatar and deduce from it that I am a balding man with a skinny head. But, hey, I know what I look like and I still have a beautiful girlfriend.

But there was a time, there was a time that my head was not dominated so much by my scalp. As my friend would say, I used to have a forehead rather than a fivehead. I had thick dark brown hair. I was voted “best hair” in my entire school in grade twelve. That’s a true fact.

I had thick brown curly hair that grew in lovely ringlets. I was proud of my hair and often made fun of my father for his lack of hair. Karma, thine name is premature baldness.

When I used to cut grass as a summer job, my boss and I would stop twice a week at an old gas station near Hamilton’s mountain brow that had a crusty old man as its proprietor. One time, this crotchety old fart took one look at me and asked, “what happened to you, was it an African-American gentleman in a woodpile?”

Now, believe it or not, this white senior citizen who grew up in the 1930s in rural Ontario did not actually use the term “African-American gentleman.” He used another term entirely. It’s a actually fairly controversial word, this one.

I had two reactions to this. First, my young impressionable ears were filled with shock at having the n-word used so freely. Second, I was completely at a loss as to what this particular idiom meant. And so I asked him, “sir, what is the meaning of this particular idiom?”

Actually, I just looked at him blankly like he was a crazy person speaking crazy-gibberish-talk. Like, maybe I had misheard him and he had said, “what happened to you, was it a bigger good mile?” Which, of course, makes about just as much sense as the other thing. Idioms are weird like that. I mean, without some linguistic or cultural context it is difficult to understand what an idiom like “hit the sack” or “bury the hatchet” might mean.

Try to empty your mind for a moment. You’ve just come here. You’ve just learned the basics of the language and then someone tells you that they’re going to hit the sack. What do they mean? Does it mean they’re going to work out? Eat some bread? Beat up their elderly neighbour? Each of those explanations individually make more sense than “go to sleep.”

So, here I am, with this relic of the 1930s who is just looking at me smugly like he just asked some deep philosophical question. “What happened to you, an n-word in a woodpile?”

Having it repeated a second time definitely did not help me out. I stayed confused, blinking a bit than usual as I am wont to do when I am at a loss for words.

He didn’t repeat it a third time, he just explained what he meant. According to this old man, this vestige of unapologetic Canadian racism, itinerant blacks used to travel around the countryside chopping wood for people for money. So, basically, he was calling into question whether my father was indeed my father and, in fact, whether my father was a black man who had impregnated my mother in the woodpile at the back of my grandparent’s rural home.

He further explained that where he grew up, when a girl got pregnant it was very common to blame the black man in the woodpile. And then he laughed.

And then I was like, “but it was usually just her cousin, right?” And then I laughed.

But he didn’t laugh. He actually looked kind of offended.

*Incidentally, the Wikipedia entry on the “n-word in a woodpile” idiom is rather interesting in its listed theories on the origin of the phrase. Whatever its origin, it’s a racist-ass world we live in.