By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Life Lessons
I like history straight up: good, bad, ugly … It is not mine to airbrush or condone but learn as best I can from what happened. Let’s discuss it.
I love and support the Saugatuck-Douglas History Center (formerly Historical Society). One of its longtime stalwarts Jack Sheridan composes a “Trippin’ Thru Time” feature we run weekly on Page A5. We asked the Center three years ago to sponsor and take custody of its content but were declined. Jack does it unpaid because he loves it.
Last week’s TTT showed a 1929 Douglas Chamber of Commerce-sponsored minstrel show complete with photo of performers, many in blackface, before a giant American flag. Per the old Commercial Record story, performances packed the village hall.
SDHC director Eric Gollannek responds in his letter nearby that reprinting this feature “was not an appropriate use of a hurtful and harmful image from our community’s past.” Hurt and harm? Who would mean to do that?
“Appropriate” as an adjective means suitable or proper in the circumstances. Who decides that? As a verb, “appropriate” means to take something for one’s own use, often against the owner’s will (“advertisers appropriated his images”) or devote assets (like the House Appropriations Committee) to a special purpose.
“Responsible history,” Eric’s letter goes on, “requires acknowledging all aspects of our shared past and presenting that history with respect and empathy.”
He ends sharing a Ferris State University Museum of Racist Memorabilia website for persons to learn more about the background of Jim Crow and minstrelsy. I recall writing about that site in the CR too.
What do we do about images and materials in SDHC archives Eric concedes are “offensive and difficult”? Share them framed with explanations and/or apologies to lend modern context? I hope historians 93 years from now show us that much empathy.
My degree from Purdue University was in History, perfect for a journalist. “What is this?” begs for “Where did it come from? Where’s it going?” It is like being in three time zones.
Earlier this summer I caught — and deserved — flak for taking a picture of a man with a macaw on his shoulder at Saugatuck’s July 4 parade. He wore a black t-shirt inscribed “My Rights Don’t End … Where Your Feelings Begin,” the two phrases framing a red, white and blue U.S. map fissured with black silhouettes. They turned out to be automatic rifles.
An hour after I took that photo, an AR-15-armed shooter killed six people at a July 4 parade in Highland Park, Ill., a Chicago suburb 165 miles away. In a different time zone.
I don’t think much of guns, so when after the picture reached print and someone pointed out what those fissures were, I was horrified.
Then again, there it was Independence Day on public parade in Saugatuck. Hiding in plain sight. In the Douglas Hall 93 years ago, white people had a hi-ho time wearing blackface. Many things go unpictured; if so does that mean they didn’t happen? Truth has consequence. All my pictures “mean” is they’re pictures.
I report on a lot of news I do not endorse nor celebrate: crime, wars, deaths, fires, crashes, dubious statements by power figures … Keep turning pages and you’ll see lots I love about Saugatuck-Douglas too. Life’s a full thing.
I appreciate Eric’s reference to the Ferris State site as a context for last week’s “Trip Thru Time.” Critical thinking welcome. I would like to say in 93 years we’ve moved on — the cop who killed George Floyd was convicted; someone caught Derek Chauvin putting his knee on his neck while Floyd gasped “I can’t breathe” for 9:29 on video, you see.
Why does racism linger? Do gun rights remain explosive? Why did Jamestown Township 15 miles east defund its library Aug. 2 after a residents’ campaign to deny it an operating millage renewal because it refused to take LGBTQ material off its shelves? How confident are we we’ve learned enough from the past to decide the appropriate way to present it now?
I’m with Eric; it’s good to try. “Acknowledging all aspects” means denying nothing. “Respect and empathy” beg for tolerance and forgiving.
Might those crowds ho-hoing over blackface 93 years ago have been our ancestors? Fired guns meaning to feed families or defend our land’s freedom? Also worthy of empathy: people demeaned by such caricatures or lying dead on parade route streets. To say “the hurt wasn’t” meant” is eclipsed by “I’m sorry.
What about pictures of concentration camp victims or Ku Klux Klan lynchings? Should no one have shot them? Some deny those things happened to this day.
Cory Stoppel’s columns rail against cancel culture. Should we cancel it? Who supplies contextual culture: CNN? Fox News? Should we censor Jamestown Library censors? Is there anything left or right that makes sense at all?
I vote “aye.” I like history straight up. Black, Women’s, Native American, Art, Music, Science … everything has a history; separations are artificial. Give it all the study and love you can.