Thoughts from
Scott Sayre
Hardy, Virginia
In high school, I was an “Honors Student.” I graduated at the top of my class (something like Top 12 out of 200, not that any of that matters once graduation is over). I excelled in math, science, art, English (apart from a brief “handicraft” incident…private joke).
But my worst subject, always, was history. I hated it. It bored me to tears. I fell asleep trying to read it. WHY do we have to know this?? It’s in the PAST!!! I memorized enough facts to pass the classes. And when I say memorize, I mean I remembered it long enough to take the test…then the information disappeared. Off to college, and I did the same. It was required to take a few history classes, so I used the same tactics and “got by.”
One of the best decisions of my college career was to join a fraternity. Not just any fraternity, but the specific one I chose to join. Why? Because the group of guys were mostly a wonderful, heartfelt, loving, accepting group of young men. The distance I felt from guys and people in high school (being a nerd that was picked on repeatedly), mostly disappeared in college with this group of guys. They liked me for who I was…even though I wasn’t even sure who that was at the time.
Being ignorant of history, I did not realize the full implications of the fraternity that I had joined. Kappa Alpha Order. A fraternity of “southern gentlemen.” Founded in 1865 at Washington College in Lexington, Virginia…now known as Washington and Lee. One of the founders of the fraternity was Robert E. Lee. We routinely donned t-shirts with the confederate flag, and at midnight on “big party” nights, the brothers huddled and sang “Dixie.”
Excuse my language, but What The Fuck Were We Thinking?!?!
I can’t speak for my brothers, but I can tell you what I was thinking. First, as I mentioned, I was ignorant of history. We called the confederate flag, the “Rebel flag.” Stupidly, I thought, “yeah, we’re rebels!!!” Rebels of what??? A bunch of fairly nerdy guys, the worst thing we ever did was getting caught splicing the cable of one brother and sharing it throughout the fraternity house. Yeah, we were Super Rebels (insert eyeroll). Robert E. Lee…who was he? Oh, just some war general who was touted as a “southern gentleman.” Yeah!! We’re all nice guys! We’re gentlemen. Dixie: it’s midnight and we’re all drunk and huddling together because we’re brothers. Fun! Bonding.
A sweet friend and choir buddy, Cheryl, wrote an article in our school newspaper about my fraternity using the confederate flag. I was so confused. Why would my friend do this “to me??” (“To me”…what an idiot!!) KA was a huge part of my college career. It’s where the majority of my friends gathered, and Cheryl hung out with us there from time to time, as well. Her article explained the history of the flag, and how it made her feel as a black woman. I was upset. I thought, “no!! This isn’t what we think at all. We’re just nice guys in a fraternity built upon a “southern gentlemen” philosophy.” And we’re “rebels!!” Again, rebels of what, I don’t know!!!
A lot of realizations in life came to me all at once (or say, over a period of a year). I graduated college in 1995, and in 1997 I “came out” as gay…yet another thing in my life where I was ignorant. I barely knew what being gay was or what it meant. I hadn’t allowed myself to even think along those lines (enter phrases of “it’s just a phase,” “you’ll get married and nobody will know you’ve had these ‘evil’ thoughts.”) As I navigated that year and came to terms with who I was, other realizations came to me as well. Cheryl’s article was always in the back of my mind.
"Today, a quick Google search would tell me all I needed to know about the flag, its history, etc. But even a tiny bit of research in 1997-98, told me quickly what I needed to hear. What I needed to Know!! My plethora of KA t-shirts, any with the “rebel flag”…went into the garbage. Later, ALL of my KA paraphernalia went into the garbage".
How could I have been so stupid? I came from a high school that was incredibly diverse. I don’t know the exact breakdown from that time, but I figure it was somewhere around 1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 Hispanic. I had dozens of friends and acquaintances that were black/Hispanic/bi-racial/Asian. Race never seemed as issue to me. There were just people I liked, and people I didn’t like. People who were nice to me and people who were mean. Some were black, some were white, some were Hispanic, etc. So what? When I arrived at Roanoke College, a predominantly white school, I literally asked out loud, “where are my people?” It felt “weird” to be at an extremely white school.
25 years after graduation, and here I sit, living in Franklin County, VA. Daily, I pass by homes, trucks, cars, boats that proudly fly the confederate flag. It literally turns my stomach every single time. My face scrunches into some nasty look of condemnation. If I believed in destruction of property, I would torch these flags into ashes, never to be seen again.
These days, I’m attending protests in support of Black Lives Matter. I told a “friend” not to ever come back to our house again because she believes she “doesn’t have white privilege.” She confused being born poor to mean that she “didn’t get white privilege.” I explained why she was wrong, and she didn’t get it. Get Out! Feel free to come back, however, if you wake up, get educated, and apologize for your ignorance.
For those that continue to say, “this is my heritage. Heritage, not hate.” Wake Up!! Your heritage SUCKS! Your heritage is racist. I finally answered my own question from high school: Why do we need to learn history? If not, we are doomed to repeat it! In 2020, we have Google. Use it. Learn something. And beware of articles from Breitbart, etc. They lie. Find peer reviewed articles. And if you haven’t figured out that trump is a racist and has fueled the hatred and bigotry of his base…then you haven’t done your research well. Stop listening to fox news. And just because you “have a black friend” or “know a black person”…does Not shield you from being racist. It actually makes your comments Extra racist…and your presence offends me! The trump 2020 signs/flags might as well have the confederate flag right on it. It offends me the same way.
And if you're not speaking out, you're enabling the behavior. That doesn't mean you have to post on FB all day about it. But when the racist comments or behavior happen in front of you...TELL THEM! It's uncomfortable, I know. But not as "uncomfortable" as having a knee on your neck for 9 minutes until you die. Make them uncomfortable. It's the only way people might Wake Up! I will assure you these people will not think they are racist. They are. They just don't realize it...and we can help them understand.
I was a stupid, historically ignorant 20-year-old kid! My heart was never racist, but my behavior was – whether it was intentional or not. Don’t be like that kid. I apologize to anyone and everyone I ever offended by wearing such a hateful sign; by being a part of such an historically racist organization. I also apologize to those I did not offend…because I was “normalizing” the behavior…and you Should have been offended. I did my research 20+ years ago. If you haven’t already done so, do your research NOW!
And thank you to my friend, Cheryl, who was the first spark of light into learning what I should have already known
Comments
Post a Comment