America's Strange Fruit
More than 4,000 Black people have been lynched in the United States of America, and those states have largely stood united in terrorizing and demonizing Blacks since its inception. These lynchings have been an acceptable part of American society. This foundational mentality has sought to justify, rationalize, and legitimize this behavior throughout the course of time.
Some have shielded their faces and turned away in shame and disgust, still, others have celebrated these lynchings as the central draw for family outings and picnics directly following a church service where these events might be announced, reiterating their advertisements in a local newspaper. Some were done under the cover of darkness by a smaller group of cross-burning, hooded individuals, and others in broad daylight before thousands of attendees.
Family photos were taken with the corpse dangling from a tree, while souvenir body parts were sold to happy enthusiastic customers. Church, baseball, and lynchings of Blacks became a very Americanized pastime.
It sounds like something from a very disturbing horror movie, but this is very recent in our beloved country. In fact, so recent that, many of those attendees (whom may have been children in some of the photos) are still walking the earth today. Others are just a generation away. Although many might like to believe that this demonic mentality has left us, the disturbing reality is, it has only changed forms.
Today, we see it in the snuffing out of lives on cell phone cameras with such victims as Freddie Grey and Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, and George Floyd. This growing list is also rationalized by the same mentality that justified the long extensive list of victims hung from trees like Christmas ornaments. It's merely the savage continuation of America's acceptable brand of strange fruit. This method only gives the appearance that we have progressed toward civility. America has only recently made lynching a federal hate crime by passing the Emmet Till Lynching Act.
It's the die-hard mentality that still ripples through America at one level or another. It is what has ushered in and allowed the continuation of racism/ white supremacy to exist among a segment of our population. The spirit of lynching is manifest in various forms. Its sub-objective is to "keep POC in their place" by maintaining an atmosphere of fear and intimidation via the police, (see Karens and Kens); self-appointed guardians, (see Ahmad Aubrey and Trayvon Martin); and an imbalance in the judicial system. This is also manifest by methods such as, railroading innocent POC with tactics of plea bargains, and issuing them longer sentences, in contrast to their "white" counterparts.
It's the continuation of a lopsided educational system, which champions and revises the history of America and those classified as "white," while blatantly ignoring, dismissing, or watering down the vast accomplishments of POC in our educational system. It's the practice of erasing from our history, the evils of our "Founding Fathers," while celebrating them as super-patriots alongside the traitorous Confederate soldiers of the Civil war. The Daughters of the Confederacy proliferated our national landscape with their mass-produced images, paying homage to white supremacy, which continues to be defended and promoted.
It's the continued flying of the defeated Confederate flag in the south and the north, which often took its place in the presence of a burning cross, or a hate crime, and was recently paraded around the Capitol Building last year on January 6.
It's the push back against legitimacy in education with allegations of promoting CRT and a socialist agenda while embracing and defending a Russian dictator. It's the cult movement of Trumpism of "taking our country back," taking it back where? To a time when POC had even fewer rights than they do today?
Yes, I think that has been made very clear during the previous administration, from the moment America's wannabe dictator descended the escalator in Trump Plaza to announce his run for the presidency. "Mexico is not sending us their best. They are rapists, murders…"
Rally chants of "Build that wall!" sent a message to all of those considered outsiders, non-white, would-be Americans, that they would not be welcomed.
It is the push back against the installment of the first Black female, overly qualified, Supreme Court Justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson and being told that she was setting her sites too high when she expressed an interest in attending Harvard. This is unfortunately a sentiment all too commonly shared by teachers when their students of color share their ambitions for greatness, dimming the lights in their hope-filled eyes.
These are all forms of the residue that continues to flow from America's Strange Fruit. The tree that bears this fruit must be cut down and destroyed once and for all in order for a healthy nation to emerge.
By Tobias Houpe
May 9, 2022 June 9, 2022 Racism, Three-Fifths Inc., Three-Fifths Magazine, threefifths.online, Tobias Houpe, Voice of Clarity
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Tobias Houpe
Rev. Tobias K. Houpe was licensed to preach the Gospel of Christ in 2011, ordained in 2017, and is one of the assistant ministers at Faith Ministries Church in Columbus, Ohio under the leadership of Rev. Dr. C. Dexter Wise, III. Rev. Houpe is a native of Columbus, OH. He received Christ into his life and was baptized as a youth at Shiloh Baptist Church by Rev. Dr. James Wesley Parrish. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from, The Ohio State University (OSU) in 1983. In addition, Rev. Houpe studied extensively in the department of Black Studies and held memberships in several Black Student organizations, and represented the College of Fine Arts in the Student Government during his senior year. As a college student at OSU, Rev. Houpe began a Bible Study for fellow college students and pioneered a ministry at the Training Institution of Central Ohio (T.I.C.O.), a maximum-security juvenile prison. He has also mentored and led several street gang members to Christ. Upon graduating from OSU, Rev. Houpe joined the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) and functioned as Campus Director for Clark Atlanta University at the Atlanta University Center (AUC), and expanded his ministry to include Tuskegee University. Rev. Houpe remained with CCC for 10 years and completed his international ministry studies in Bakersfield, CA via Crusade's Agape International Training (AIT) in 1993. After leaving the ministry of CCC, Rev. Houpe started his own 501c3 international ministry, called the African American Christian Connection (AACC). Rev. Houpe has served as a missionary for over 35 years. His continued dedication and adventurous spirit as a missionary have been inspired by a quote from missionary CT Studd, "Some want to live within the sound of church and chapel bells, but I want to run a mission a yard from the gates of hell." In 1989, as a staff member of CCC, Rev. Houpe made his first international missions trip to South Africa when the nation was under Apartheid and in a state of emergency. He relocated to Cape Town, South Africa in 1994 during the nation's first all-race election. Upon his return to the United States and in the latter part of 1994, Rev. Houpe used his writing skills to help facilitate his work in the ministry. He became an investigative journalist and columnist for the Call & Post and Columbus Post newspapers and has been the guest on several radio broadcasts, and a local TV talk show. Rev. Houpe has subsequently made several return visits to the new South Africa. He also partnered with a Christian Native American missions team in 1995 and took part in 14 summer mission projects in Arizona and New Mexico on Navajo Reservations and was honored to have one of the children named after him. As a missionary, Rev. Houpe has had an extensive international travel schedule. Some of the countries that he has visited include Turkey, India, Italy, England, the Dominican Republic, and several nations throughout the continent of Africa. In 2003, Rev. Houpe was requested by then Ohio Senator Ray Miller to work as his Legislative Assistant, where he served at the State House for a short time, prior to returning to journalism. Rev. Houpe served as a Youth Pastor in Lancaster, OH from 2008 - 2010 at Maple Street United Methodist Church, a church that reportedly had been founded by members of the KKK. He is the current leader of Faith Ministries International Ministry, Special Assistant to the President (Rev. Dr. C. Dexter Wise, III) of the International Fellowship of Faith Ministries (IFFM), which has chapters in 50 nations around the world and growing. Rev. Houpe was recently appointed as the Director of Missions for Tel International which is a missions agency located in Dallas, TX. He is also working on writing 3 books, one of which is an autobiography focusing on his experiences as an African American Missionary. Also, a book and lecture series on the topic of racism, entitled "Hoodwinked," addressing the origins of American racism/white supremacy and its' current day ripple effects, and racism/white supremacy in the hijacking of Christianity and its' role in slavery, Jim Crow, and colonialism. In 2007, Rev. Houpe took on a life partner and married Kingston, Jamaican native, Althea Bernardette Leslie, who also joined him on many of his mission projects on the Navajo Reservations prior to their marriage. Sister Houpe is also known as Rev. Houpe's, "better three-fourths." Rev. and Mrs. Houpe currently reside in Pataskala, Ohio. View all posts by Tobias Houpe