The Supreme Level of Condescension and Hate Toward Black Tulsa

Let us get one thing straight. The US government has no intensions of paying any Black folks anything in the form of reparations as long as they are a nation of bigots. Of course, systemic racism continues through the Oklahoma Supreme Court in the form of indifference as they refuse to take any responsibility for what happened in their state in 1921. And of course, many whites claim no one alive today was there so no one should be held accountable for the Tulsa mob attacking the Black Tulsa community of Greenwood.

The logic behind the “no one alive today was there” argument is an easy cop out. Like a father refusing to take responsibility for walking out on his family 100 years ago, which lead to decades of generational poverty for the wife and his kids. Like a tribe of indigenous peoples being driven from their lands 200 years ago and forced into reservations out of sight and mind of the new, white landowners.

Like a people enslaved for 400 hundred years after working for free all their generational lives to make white men wealthy who could care less about the future of anyone but themselves. The courts use this argument in their decision against reparations for the last remaining Tulsa victims, saying, “Tulsa officials argued that the plaintiffs sought damages for injuries committed outside the two-year statute of limitations.” 

Two-year statute of limitations? Really. It is 100 percent bet that someone came forth within those two years to complain about what happened, but was probably lynched, intimidated, and threatened not to say a damn word. Now they claim it is past that limit so there is nothing they can do. They were not going to do anything in the first place.

They expect people to believe they would have handled the situation if it were within the two years? This is blatant disrespect and irresponsible and the expected response from a people who robbed two nations of their culture, land, and human dignity. What else can be expected from such a people? Does anyone think for a minute that they will go into their pockets to help some Black folks they do not even consider worthy to life in the first place? They police are still abusing and killing Black people for no reason.

No, their recompense to humanity has come in the form of a broken government, crooked politicians, corporations who rob one another and the people they serve, and a system ripe with hate, indifference, and hypocrisy. Not to mention rampant homosexuality, lying preachers and gun nuts who travel the countryside looking for guess who, another Black person to kill.

You say there is no one alive today that has anything to do with this racist hate crime? That's a lie. If the two Black ladies are still living and can come to the mercy of the court to right their wrongs, there is some white people still alive who profited from the looting of goods they took from the possessions of those Black people. It is a lie that no one alive today had anything to do with this tragedy. Somebody knows something.

But of course, they will hide under the hood of systemic racism and white supremacy as long as they can and until they and their children die out. Their argument is weak and irresponsible because they never intended to give reparations to anyone they have robbed from. They are simply thieves and conmen lusting for whatever they can take from vulnerable people. If anyone has noticed, they only pay reparations to people who come from countries that have bombs, like Japan, China, and Israel. They have no respect for people who cannot defend themselves against their hate and brutality.

As the story goes, “The Supreme Court of Oklahoma dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday by the last known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, rejecting requests for reparations in response to one of the worst incidents of racist violence against Black people in U.S. history.

The lawsuit claimed the city, the county, the Oklahoma National Guard and other officials caused a “public nuisance” in 1921, when they did not defend the Black community from a White mob that descended on the prosperous Greenwood neighborhood, known as Black Wall Street.

Tulsa officials argued that the plaintiffs sought damages for injuries committed outside the two-year statute of limitations.

The tension mounted between the black and white communities over an incident that allegedly occurred in an elevator at Drexel building in downtown Tulsa involving Sarah Page, a 17-year-old white elevator operator, and Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old black man. There are several versions of what supposedly transpired, but the most common being that Dick Rowland accidentally stepped on Page's foot in the elevator, throwing her off balance. 

When Rowland reached out to keep her from falling, she screamed. Many Tulsans came to believe through media reports that Rowland attacked Page although no sufficient evidence surfaced to substantiate the claim. The incident was further escalated by a local newspaper headline that encouraged the public to "Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator."
The massacre began on the evening of May 31, 1921, when a White mob descended on Greenwood, shooting Black people indiscriminately and burning more than 1,200 homes, a Black-owned hospital, and hundreds of Black-owned businesses, churches and schools. Some survivors reported seeing airplanes dropping turpentine bombs on houses.

The lawsuit filed by survivors argued that the city police department and the county sheriff’s office deputized and armed White Tulsans “to murder, loot, and burn the nearly 40 city blocks of the Greenwood District.”

The State National Guard participated “with this angry white mob in killing and looting and destroying the property of Black residents of Greenwood,” the lawsuit argued. “The city, sheriff, chamber, and county targeted Black community leaders and victims of the massacre for prosecution as instigators of the massacre — despite knowing who were truly responsible.”

On June 1, 1921, martial law was declared. Troops rounded up Black survivors at gunpoint and marched them to “internment camps” throughout the city. Survivors also recounted seeing Black bodies dumped into the Arkansas River and into mass graves. No White person was ever arrested or charged in the massacre.

In 2018, Tulsa reopened an investigation into whether there are mass graves from the massacre. In 2020, the scientists discovered a mass grave in the city-owned Oaklawn Cemetery. Scientists continue to examine remains that were exhumed, according to city officials, and test for DNA matches with any descendants.

In its Wednesday decision upholding that ruling, the state Supreme Court wrote that requests by survivors to redress “harms flowing from the massacre” do not fall within the scope of the state’s “public nuisance” law.

“The continuing blight alleged within the Greenwood community born out of the Massacre implicates generational-societal inequities that can only be resolved by policymakers — not the courts,” the court wrote.”

The excuses are pathetic. The hierarchy of torture was vicious, from the National Guard to the local police department all the way to the Oklahoma Supreme Court of today, this crime against humanity is documented in the history books along with the graves of the Black people they brutally murdered; and those living off the money they stole from Black Wall Street.

God hates racism.