Ald. Brian Benford
Benford: 'To begin needed healing and forgiving, we must come together regardless of backgrounds, in unity, respect and love.'
It’s tragically ironic that we’re all 99.99 percent identical genetically, yet the 0.01 percent difference in our DNA that makes us unique from each other also creates distance and hostility. I did a DNA test some years ago and learned some surprising things about myself: Despite growing up with the narrative that I was Black and Indigenous, the test revealed that I am 49 percent European and 51 percent African.
More specifically I have ancestors from: Nigeria (26 percent), Scotland (23 percent), Cameroon, Congo & Western Bantu Peoples (13 percent), Wales (13 percent), Ivory Coast & Ghana (6 percent), Benin & Togo (5 percent), Sweden and Denmark (3 percent), Ireland (3 percent), Senegal (2 percent), Mali (2 percent), Baltics (2 percent), Indigenous Americas — North (1 percent), and Finland (1 percent). My birth certificate in 1959 said that I was a Negro. In the United States, one drop of Black blood can be a death sentence, subjecting us to institutional trauma, racism, oppressions, poverty, inequity, and racial disparities across every facet of life.
When I opened the email with my DNA results, I was sitting at my desk at work. As a Black man, and long-time social justice activist, I wept upon learning that my oppressors were quite literally a part of me. In my grief, I tried to reason that race was just a construct, created to help humans make sense of our worlds. A way to organize one another to offer the illusion of certainty.
As grieving usually goes, I next became angry — wondering about the white slave owners who raped my great-great-great-grandmothers and erased them from history. Before they raped my grandmothers, did they tell their white wives that they were going to check on the horses? Did these white women know what was happening yet were powerless to speak out? Perhaps that is why my grandmothers created and passed down a false racial identity, rather than acknowledge these insidious abuses. It took years for me to find solace in my identity, but I have reached a point where I can now celebrate the intersectionality of the aspects of my life that make me unique.
But I continue to question whether we have a moral obligation to pay for the sins of our fathers. I have asked this of white people, and see their discomfort in truly reflecting on this question. I have witnessed most white people become paralyzed by guilt or threatened by the process of examining their own privileges because of past sins of their “fathers.”
“What privilege,” some ask in response. Others say, “I grew up poor, I had to pick myself up by my bootstraps, earn everything that was given to me.” These comments ignore that race matters.
During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests we saw a broad acknowledgement that race does matter. But now when I see the washed-out and fraying Black Lives Matter signs in yards around Madison, I wonder if that fervor and conviction from just a few years ago has faded along with the signs.
And so the question of coming to terms with our ancestors’ sins still matters. I have had to come to terms with what my “fathers” did. The rapes of my women ancestors and selling of their offspring still leaves me hating the men who did this. Yet as I look at my beautiful five children, and as I look into the mirror, I have made peace with these unknown men of Scottish, Welsh, or other European descent. I believe it is important for all white people to entertain this question and examine if they benefited from not being Black, or a person of color. I don’t wish anyone to feel guilty, but rather to understand the histories and truths that have created pain and suffering and injustice.
Like many cities across this nation, Madison is a “tale of two cities.” We were named the second-best place for singles, the “most livable” for those of us with privilege. But for our historically marginalized BIPOC neighbors, any aspect of life that you might take for granted, SUCKS for them. BIPOC people did not create systemic racism, or the institutional systems that have historically destroyed our lives. We should not be expected to fix the devastation others created.
That’s why I am asking our community to support the city of Madison’s Equal Opportunities Commission plan to create a truth and reconciliation process. The first step is the formation of a workgroup made up of community volunteers who would determine the design of the process and its implementation. I would foresee facilitated community forums where Black residents had opportunities to voice their grievances around past injustices within the city of Madison as well as forums with expert presenters on reconciliation and healing. Ultimately a report would be drafted for submission to the EOC and Madison city council detailing potential policy recommendations that the city could implement to address past wrongs.
Here in Madison, I will believe that most white people care about our horrendous racial disparities and racial justice when I see the same kind of protests around those issues that we saw around ACT 10, when hundreds of thousands of white people marched around the Capitol demanding labor rights. Until then, I cringe when I hear any white person, especially politicians, suggest that they really care about social justice.
Do you want to make Madison a model city where all can thrive? To begin needed healing and forgiving, we must come together regardless of backgrounds, in unity, respect and love. For more information contact me at brianbenford00@gmail.com or Cordinda Rainey-Moore at eoc@cityofmadison.com.
Ald. Brian Benford served two terms as the alder for District 12 in the early 2000s and was elected to represent District 6 in 2021. A social worker with the UW-Madison Odyssey Project, he is not running for reelection but will continue to support the truth and reconciliation process and other social and racial justice initiatives.
