The Wikipedia Battle
This is a documentation of the revisions made by people to the language this multiracial and deliberative team has chosen for the Wikipedia entry on the 1970 Augusta Riot, and why some have been changed back.
“Correct racist commentary”: Talking about racism is not being racist—it is rightly characterizing the content. Racism is central to this event. Seeking to tell the raw truth about the event, in the hope of bringing justice and healing to the community, is be to actively engaged in anti-racist work. The inequalities between Whites and Blacks, the whiteness of the power structure, the readiness of Whites to use violence, the impunity of Whites when they did: these are all intrinsic features of the story. To note race and racism is to expose the dynamics at work, not to offer “racist commentary” about those dynamics.
“Looting”: This is a loaded term that immediately conveys criminality. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the catastrophic flooding of New Orleans, the AP and UPI ran photographs, one of a White man and woman, the other of a Black man. The White man and woman had, the caption claimed, “found” some groceries in a flooded store—but the Black man had “looted” to acquire the same groceries. Projecting criminality onto Blacks but innocence onto Whites is part-and-parcel of the language of racism. When White men calling themselves Sons of Liberty boarded ships of the East India Company and destroyed the company’s valuable tea by tossing it into Boston Harbor, were they looting?
“White” and “white supremacy”: To omit the racial identity of key agents in the drama, to try to hide racialized power by calling it “race relations” instead of “white supremacy” is, as noted above, to simply fail to do justice to the dynamics of the event. If the authorities who charged Charles Oatman with killing his niece had been Black, or had Oatman been White, we can readily imagine that there would be sympathy for the Oatman family’s trauma in the accidental shooting death, sympathy for Charles in his mental disability. Instead he was summarily incarcerated and became, as the Chronicle put it, simply a “black inmate.” And, to note that no White official has been held accountable—in sharp contrast to the convictions of almost 100 African Americans—is to note for the reader the massive racial disparities in the political and judicial system. Mayor, county commissioner, sheriff, chief of police, school superintendent, district attorney, state and superior court judge: White men held all of these offices in May 1970. And they used the machinery of such offices to maintain their power, criminalizing Black people while judging themselves innocent of any wrongdoing. Such a use of public office for the benefit of only one racial group is called white supremacy.
Omitting “popular” and “brutally”: Dr. Ike Washington, Charles Oatman’s principal, told a journalist in summer 1970 that he was “popular” and “well-liked.” Noting that helps depict him as the actual human being that he was; omitting it works to dehumanize him. Why omit “brutally” unless it is to attempt to soften what was done to Charles Oatman?
Omitting “shotgun-wielding” and inserting “The rioters…burned an American flag”: It is a well-documented fact—indeed, there are photographs of it—that White police officers stood with shotguns displayed as they faced off against Black demonstrators. This was despite a promise conveyed that morning that only Black officers would be on the scene and that they would have no guns showing. To omit “shotgun-wielding” is to try to erase the violence (actual and threatened) of the police department—violence that was at the core of long-accumulated Black grievances. At the same time, to simply call people “rioters” implies that these were just violent people looking to get violent (as, indeed, the dominant narrative has long asserted). In reality a small group of student militants pulled down the Georgia flag from its pole in front of the Municipal Building and set it on fire. The 1956 change to this Confederate “Stars and Bars” was a political symbol of defiance of Brown v Board of Education; the 1970 burning of it was a political symbol of defiance of the white supremacy it stood for. Were they simply “rioters” when they did this, and not political actors? Were English colonists who pulled down statues of their king “rioters” when they did that in 1775, or were they political actors?
Removing “police brutality” while adding “innocent” to White motorists who were attacked: Police brutality against African Americans was a well-documented fact in Augusta, in Georgia, and in the United States. Why remove it, unless there is an attempt to hide the violence of the White power structure? At the same time, adding “innocent” to White motorists tries to steer the reader’s sympathy to them, as if they were somehow not participants in the systemic racism of their society and not beneficiaries of their whiteness. Whether personally active in the drama of May 11-12 or involved in it unsuspectingly like these motorists, White people didn’t have to worry that they could be arrested for no reason, that their police captain and governor would give shoot-to-kill orders directed at them, that they could be shot down unarmed and that those who shot them could do so with impunity.
Changing “African Americans” to “looters and firebombers,” removing “at people who simply lived in the neighborhood”: The same rhetorical strategy was used in 1970—by the Augusta Police Department. In official reports the department claimed that officers shot at people who were “looting.” (Or, alternately, the department claimed that police shot in response to being fired at by “snipers.” Not a single police officer was treated for a gunshot wound; either the aim of “snipers” was pitiful, or the alleged “snipers” were a fiction.) We know from multiple sources, including the FBI’s massive investigation, that only a minority of African Americans wounded or killed by police were actively engaged in ransacking or firebombing. The others, as we note, lived in the neighborhood or were simply bystanders. But even for those actively involved in ransacking or firebombing (“burglary” and “arson” in the criminal record): these are not capital crimes. Police have official power to arrest people engaged in these, but police are not supposed to be judge, jury, and executioner. Even more problematic than this, though, is the impulse behind the rhetorical strategy. It’s an attempt to say that what police did is okay; they were just shooting violent people committing crimes. We would emphasize again basic facts that no one disputes: all six men were unarmed. All were shot in the back. Three were shot multiple times. One police officer, the officer who shot 19-year-old John Stokes, went to trial in these killings. He was acquitted, and it was ruled “justifiable homicide.”
In summary: any diagnosis that is softened so as not to trouble the patient does a severe disservice; telling the raw truth is essential if there is to be genuine healing. Minimizing the centrality of racism to the story of May 11-12, 1970, erasing the whiteness of the power structure and the violence it rested on, obscuring the political intent of Black citizens, dehumanizing African Americans and projecting criminality onto them—these techniques, long-established in the dominant memory we are seeking to set straight, need to be challenged and unmasked if we ever want to move forward to justice.
