"Rushed Him to a Nearby Tree . . ."

 

  

 

 

 I have been gone a long time from here, but it is time for me to come back. History can be a tool and knowledge IS power. The pen can be mightier than the sword—look how afraid some folks are of journalists and the media and education.

This young man from my dad’s part of Alabama, with whom I share a last name, was also castrated, but the New York Times editors left that out. And I guess they thought they’d lighten the mood with the wacky story of the pie thief.

But the assault, some will say. In the deep dark, waiting outside for his girlfriend to finish working as a maid for a white family in Eufaula, Ivor Peterson mistook a middle-aged white woman coming out of the house in which his girlfriend worked, and greeted her. The woman was startled, screamed like Amy Cooper in Central Park, the white men of the town chased Ivor down, and the rest is America’s unfortunate, shameful history. In 1911, Ivor Peterson—who may or may not have been my kin—might have screamed for his mama when he was being tortured and murdered. Probably did.

Ivor Peterson’s fate was typical of the time when white womanhood could be weaponized to kill. In 2020 Amy Cooper made a conscious decision to try it, and luckily it failed. I don’t think I need to tell you what it might have looked like if her deceitful 911 call had worked and the wrong type of law enforcement had shown up. It looks like a boot, on a neck, and a man crying for his mama.

 

  have been gone a long time from here, but it is time for me to come back. History can be a tool and knowledge IS power. The pen can be mightier than the sword—look how afraid some folks are of journalists and the media and education.

This young man from my dad’s part of Alabama, with whom I share a last name, was also castrated, but the New York Times editors left that out. And I guess they thought they’d lighten the mood with the wacky story of the pie thief.

But the assault, some will say. In the deep dark, waiting outside for his girlfriend to finish working as a maid for a white family in Eufaula, Ivor Peterson mistook a middle-aged white woman coming out of the house in which his girlfriend worked, and greeted her. The woman was startled, screamed like Amy Cooper in Central Park, the white men of the town chased Ivor down, and the rest is America’s unfortunate, shameful history. In 1911, Ivor Peterson—who may or may not have been my kin—might have screamed for his mama when he was being tortured and murdered. Probably did.

Ivor Peterson’s fate was typical of the time when white womanhood could be weaponized to kill. In 2020 Amy Cooper made a conscious decision to try it, and luckily it failed. I don’t think I need to tell you what it might have looked like if her deceitful 911 call had worked and the wrong type of law enforcement had shown up. It looks like a boot, on a neck, and a man crying for his mama.