A few weeks ago, we had a protest in our small, rural town about the administration’s immigration policies. We gathered on the side of the road supporting our neighbors and participating in our right to freedom of speech. Before I went to the protest, I talked to a few people about going; however, they didn’t want to go because they were afraid of what might happen, especially after seeing all of the vitriol on the local social media groups leading up to the event. I, as well, felt tinges of fear. The fear that someone might drive up on the sidewalk and run us over. The fear that someone might start shooting. The fear of violence.

I thought back to the summer of 2020 where, again, we had a protest in our small, rural town. This time, it was against police brutality and the lynchings and murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others. Again, some people didn’t go, citing fear as the reason. My daughter and I went; her carrying a sign emblazoned with the opening words to Lillian Smith’s Killers of the Dream altered some for the moment: “Even its children know that the nation is in trouble.” As we stood there, gathered among others while clergy prayed, city officials spoke, and students spoke, I looked across the street. I nudged my daughter, calling her attention to a group of people under an awning, standing next to a pickup truck, looking at the crowd. Guns hung from their waists, openly displayed. I had a tinge of fear. I thought, as I often do, “What if someone starts shooting? How will I protect myself? My daughter? Others?”

Fear keeps us from acting. It keeps us from bringing about change because instead of facing the powerful who oppress we turn tail and run, cowering in our burrows, keeping our heads down. It’s a survival mechanism, yes. What if Mahatma Gandhi did that? What if Martin Luther King, Jr. did that? What if _____ did that? They were afraid, yes, but they also knew what a lack of action would do. It would perpetuate the oppression, the violence, the system that suppresses. Many would see the problems. Many would know the problems. But, none would act, so nothing would change and the next generation and the next generation and the next generation would all face the same problems, recognizing their existence but feeling helpless to bring about any change that would dismantle them.

In “Growing into Freedom,” which was published in Common Ground in 1943, Lillian Smith details her own upbringing in a white supremacist society that told her to love God and her neighbor but that also taught her that she was better than a Black person and to put Blacks in their place. She lambasts those who call for gradualism and those who say that racial segregation can never become undone because of its deep-rooted growth into the soil. Smith details the fear that individuals confront when it comes to action and their role in transforming the world and standing up for what is right.

At the end of “Growing into Freedom,” Smith talks about the “self-violence” that one must inflict in order to transform the world, the “self-violence” that calls upon an individual to remove part of themself in order to truly become free. However, so many individuals view the cost of this “self-violence” as too high. It’s too much for them to bear. Smith points out that while the price to ourselves may be high, our failure to pay the price has and will continue to have dire consequences. She writes, “But the price is too high. It must not be exacted of another generation. Somehow we must find a way to make it possible for a southern child to grow up now in freedom, to grow a personality strong and honest and creative and loving — and without fear.” We must not kick the can down the road because when we kick the can forward instead of picking it, we bring its weight to bear on the future generations, stunting them in the same manner that we have been stunted.

Ernest Gaines addresses this procrastination and fear at various moments in his work, most notably through the character of Frank Laurent in his short story “Bloodline.” The story focuses on a confrontation between Frank, the plantation owner, and his nephew Copper. Frank’s brother Walter raped Copper’s mother, thus conceiving him. Copper has returned to the plantation seeking his “birthright” as an heir to the Laurent land and wealth to help start a revolution. Throughout the story, Frank constantly kicks the can down the road, telling Copper, Felix, ‘Malia, and others that he can’t change anything. At one point, he asks, “Change the rules? Do you know how old these rules are? They’re older than me, than you, than this entire place.” Frank points out that the “rules” have always been here, and he, along with the others, inherited them. For this reason, he claims he will not and cannot change them.

Frank claims that he did not ask for the “rules” or to be born into his position. No one gets to choose how they enter the world. No one gets to choose their social status, their ethnicity, their ability, their intellect, anything. We enter the world and must live within it. When Copper reminds Frank that the “rules” have been here for centuries, Frank tells him, “I did not write these rules and laws you’ve been talking about; I came here and found them just as you did. And neither one of us is going to change them, not singly.” Frank acknowledges that he entered into the world in a privileged position, as the son of a plantation owner, but even though he realizes this, he refuses to use his position to change the “rules and laws” that subjugate Copper and the African Americans in the community.

Instead of transforming the world, Frank decides to turn around from the reflection in the mirror, to turn his back on what he knows is right. He tells Felix earlier, “I didn’t write the rules. I came and found them, and I shall die and leave them. They will be changed, of course; they will be chnaged, and soon. I hope. But I will not be the one to change them.” Frank surrenders himself to the status quo. He kicks everything down the road, for the next generation, refusing to act. He denies his children and relatives and others the opprotunity to live in freedom. Instead, he shackles them to the same systems that he “came and found,” the systems that he knows creates problems for so many both physically and psychologically.

We must not be like Frank. We must heed Lillian Smith’s words and act, now, not only for ourselves and those around us in the current moment but for those who will come after us. When we only think about ourselves, our own position, our own place on the hierarchy, we parade in front of the mirror preening at ourselves, refusing to see the dirt. Yet, when we see the dirt, instead of cleaning it, some of us become like frank and say, “It’s always been here. C’est la vie.” When we do this, we refuse to enact “self-violence” upon ourselves, an act that will transform the world for the better. We refuse because, as Smith, Freire, Gaines, and Baldwin all point out, we are afraid. We fear what that cleaning will do to us and our position. We become selfish, denying others and ourselves freedom to be who we truly should be.

What are your thoughts? As always, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Bluesky @silaslapham.