Banned Histories of Race in America

Trump put his own face on a coin. A real coin. An actual dollar of American currency for sale at the US mint. You can buy twenty-five of them for $61. Or, if you want a deal, you can buy a hundred for $154.50. If that doesn’t quite add up to you, well, you’re probably doing communist math or something. Don’t worry about it because they already sold out.

Actor Aaron Pierre and his character Green Lantern John Stewart The new HBO series Lanterns is being attacked by racists. The series is based on characters from DC Comics’ Green Lantern and it dares to portray a Black American character from the comic. That is to say, the series doesn’t just feature a Black character living in the United States. It actually dares to show a small amount of context of what it means to be Black in America. Just a very small amount, though.

As Mainers, it can feel like our state is separate from the rest of the country. Decisions made in Washington, DC can float in the background. For my Racisms column in the August edition of The Bollard, I discuss why that feeling is a luxury we can no longer afford. Here’s the column in its entirety and, as ever, please let me know what you think. Protesters demonstrate against ICE in Portland, Maine, on Jan. 23.

This past Monday morning at 11:00, there was a hearing in Biddeford on ICE’s killing of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. Around noon, I was still trying to figure out if I had the capacity to watch any of it when I heard a car door slam outside my apartment. That’s usually a pretty quiet time in my neighborhood, so I glanced out the window and saw something just weird enough to keep watching.

Hey hey! Last week I was given the incredible opportunity of a Hewnoaks artist residency in partnership with Indigo Arts Alliance and it was really a dream come true. Banned Histories of Race in America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Last Saturday, a first-in-the-nation law went into effect in Minnesota. This law bans “nudification”, a technology that facilitates the non-consensual creation of sexually explicit images of real people. Nudification apps are primarily used to target women and children and in a slightly reasonable world, banning such things would be obvious, immediate and easy. But we live in the same world as Elon Musk. Banned Histories of Race in America is a reader-supported publication.

In my “Racisms” column for the July edition of The Bollard I lay out the four kinds of racism in which Trump and his sycophants are currently drowning us. It’s not just those inside his administration, either. Bigots across the country continue to follow in lockstep—even here in Maine. Here’s the column and please let me know what you think! Barack Obama won the presidency two times, and each of those times he lost the white vote.

There has never been a false claim proven more wrong more times in more ways than white supremacy. It’s a real bummer. Of course, the reason we have to keep proving that particular lie wrong is because so many parts of our government, legal system, education, culture, etc. were constructed to protect it. There was this one hopeful moment. Back about fifteen years ago. Most phones had been replaced with smart phones and for the first time ever we all had access to all the available information.

I’m from Biddeford. My family has roots in that area that predate the city’s founding. But I never met Johan Sebastian Durán Guerrero, the 26-year-old father murdered by an ICE agent Monday morning. I believe we are all responsible for one another and it feels like that responsibility grows with proximity.

My great-grandfather was born into slavery and died free. My grandfather was born into sharecropping and died with basic civil rights. My father was born into a time of segregation and lynchings and died with a full set of rights and legal protections. I was born with a full set of rights and legal protections and now the country has returned to a time of segregation and lynchings.