My article "Tulsa 1921: The Trauma Continues" about my family history research and the Greenwood, OK, massacre of a neighborhood known as "Black Wall Street" was just published on Mukoli: The Peace Magazine, produced by the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development at Kennesaw State University.
When I posted the link to the article on social media, I accompanied it with an old Polaroid of me and Mom, stating that it seemed appropriate. It is a lovely photograph that is in many ways a lie. (Read the article to understand that.) And I urged all of us to be brave enough to tell the truth.
There was a lot of good feedback from people, and one friend cited a New York Times article about the way the Tulsa Massacre started; the Times piece was far more simplistic, cut and dried, than my understanding. (Again, read the article to understand this more.) And my knee-jerk defense of what I'd written—as well as my defensive feelings—brought up a whole other story. Hence, this blog.
My friend was "puzzled by [my] description [at the end of the article]: "rumors about what was probably an innocent disagreement between two people spread like a virus"—a white elevator girl and a black janitor had an altercation which ignited a terrorist attack.
I replied:
If you read Krehbiel, which I only recommend if you want to dive into all reports ever recorded, he presents absolutely everything. The book is more like a research report of every archival source. He reports theories and then says, but they were wrong, and reports other reports. So I condensed everything, attempting to do it accurately when so many things were hearsay. Some reports say the two knew each other, may have even had a relationship; some say they argued and she yelled when he grabbed her arm; some say he tripped and grabbed her arm and she yelled. The point is, the explanations of what really happened were as viral as the internet today is, to the point where it's a game of Telephone and the truth no longer matters in the hurricane of rage that takes over.
But still I couldn't let this go. After much contemplation, I realized what was niggling at me was my friend's blanket acceptance of simple explanations she'd read, when the whole truth includes many truths. And I replied once more:
In 1959, my mother wrote a novel called The Trouble with the Truth. I love that title, but what she'd written at the end of the novel was so confused that I believe she did not understand her own title. Hence, I doctored the ending. Essentially changed it. (This was a bold thing to do and I had an enormous amount of guilt, upset, and turmoil, which I eventually got over, but telling that would require a whole other story.) . . .
The truth in many ways was up for grabs, but she tried to reduce it to a linear, clear, thing that everybody would understand. She tried to say that all the nuance she'd exposed was wrong. In my doctoring, I refused to do that.
I added that the trouble with the truth is that it depends who is telling it, what they're seeing, what they believe. Many truths can be possible at the same time. The trouble with the truth of the NY Times article is that it chose one explanation out of many possibilities, with no reference to other possibilities existing (and to Krehbiel's credit, although his book is a sprawling research report about research reports, he refused to do that). The trouble with the truth in mobs is that they wipe out possibilities and feel justified in horrendous thoughtless actions based on a truth that fits what they already believe. And this creates historical trauma that just keeps replaying unless somebody absolutely says STOP and insists on nuances and discomfort. Okay, end of tirade. I hope I can let this go now.
But I can't let it go. I'm still uncomfortable that my friend may not believe my complex truth.
And that is a trouble with my truth. I cannot let go of my and our communal antipathy for simultaneous paradoxes, for nuanced discomfort, for the possibility of many different truths. And I cannot let go of my antipathy for my antipathy.
And I think what I most cannot let go of is my desire for company in this.
Nothing, absolutely nothing is simple. My friend, who happens to be a professional researcher, can believe I'm a lousy researcher, and there is no loss to me. Everybody believes they're right and others are wrong. And as long as we continue this way, there is no hope of peace.