I grew up Black near the Klan’s ‘Mount Rushmore.’ In gaslit America, we all live there now
LA TimesThis essay is adapted from Andre Henry’s new memoir, “All the White Friends I Couldn’t Keep: Hope — and Hard Pills to Swallow — About Fighting for Black Lives.” I was raised in the shadow of Confederate Mount Rushmore in a small Georgia town called Stone Mountain. As night fell, she spread a blanket on the damp grass at the mountain’s base, passed around half-frozen Capri Suns and prepared us to watch the famous “Laser Show Spectacular.” I was 9. She leaned in close and said, “There’s a part where they make the soldiers move!” After a few cartoons set to country songs I was too young and Black to recognize, the lights dimmed. The white people I grew up around desperately wanted to cover up that history, just as white Americans today want to cover up this nation’s racist roots by banning whatever they decide to call “critical race theory.” They’d prefer to continue telling the big lie: “Racism is not a problem here.” Nations built through racist violence — genocide, land theft, slavery — tell this lie about race to quell resistance and prevent political awakenings like the global uprising for Black lives we witnessed in 2020.
History of this topic
As A Young Black Girl, I Loved My Grandfather. Then I Found Out He'd Been A KKK Member.
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