Kansas state legislator Joe Seiwert told Denasia Lawrence to “Go back home” following her performance of the national anthem while kneeling at a preseason NBA game.
Here is the letter I wrote to Mr. Seiwert —
Dear Rep. Seiwert -
As a former graduate student at the University of Kansas and homeowner in Topeka,
I have an abiding connection to Kansas.
I am deeply concerned about your recent comments directed at Denasia Lawrence.
"Go back home."
The implication of your statement is that African Americans like Lawrence - who are outraged by current police and judicial actions - do not belong in the United States.
Who brought their great-great-great-great grandparents here?
I'll tell you.
Violence against black people is the central aspect of their history in America.
Watch the film "Amistad". Kidnapped, tortured, stuffed into slave ships,
stripped naked and ripped from families.
Where is home?
Do you know the expression "Sold down the river"?
Do you know where it came from?
When the cotton economy boomed in the early 1800s,
there was a huge demand for slaves in the Deep South.
The slave economies of Virginia and Kentucky were dwindling - not profitable.
So young slaves were sold and shipped off - never to see their families again.
Where is home?
Where is home for African Americans? Is that home Nicodemus, Kansas?
Surely you know the history of Nicodemus.
Why would African Americans head off to the remote prairie?
At the end of Reconstruction and the imposition of Jim Crow in the South,
conditions for African American were brutal.
Slavery returned in all but name - loss of rights, forced labor, the KKK.
As with other immigrant towns, Nicodemus was a mix of speculation, hope,
and failure.
Where is home?
And then African Americans fled the South to the North, Midwest, and West
in the Great Migration.
Please read the Isabel Wilkerson's award-winning "The Warmth of Other Suns".
It describes the challenges faced by three people
who moved to New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
One man escaped being lynched. One woman fled in the middle of the night.
Even outside of the South, there were few motels or restaurants
that would serve African Americans.
So, where is home, Mr. Seiwert? Is it Pretty Prairie? I doubt it.
Pretty Prairie is 99% white.
White people never have to face the accusation you made.
White people assume that they belong. America is their home.
Where is home, Mr.. Seiwert?
Please answer me.
Thank you very much.
J.E.