Blackness Is A Curse

The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear.” – James Baldwin

In November of 2021 10-year-old Isabella Faith Tichenor, a Black middle schooler enrolled in the Davis school district, in Salt Lake City, Utah, took her own life after repeated racial harassment by her classmates. Davis schools, have a history of documented discriminatory practice. The most recent being called out in a Justice Department report in October of the same year. Yet nothing was done. No effort was made to address the concerns of her family and other black families in the district.

Because too many white people still believe that blackness is a curse.

I remember being told this in grade school by a white teacher. He didn’t necessarily support it, but he offered that there was a theory that blackness was “The Mark of Cain”. All of this ignores what we knew even then from the fossil record about human origins, but let’s just stay with the theological/literary aspects of the discussion for the moment.

I don’t recall mentioning it to my parents, or if I did, what they said.

Frankly, I don’t remember much of a fuss. I’d internalized so much anti-black orthodoxy by that age, it was just another data point.

But I was also a kid that did the reading. Genesis 4:14-15 reads:
“But the Lord said to him, “Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.”

I suggested later to this same teacher that blackness wasn’t a curse, but a warning against harm to Cain and his descendants. If this was true, what were we to make of slavery? To his credit, he allowed that America might be in trouble.

There have been some well-meaning white people who, through the years, have attempted to dispel my characterization of the “cursedness” of my skin tone. This is a mistake, because they are operating from the premise that I want to be like them or that I’m “just as good as them” or that my skin color is “equal” to theirs.

As if whiteness is the gold standard.

They are making the same mistake as my aforementioned schoolteacher. Whatever “curse” mentioned in the story of Cain had nothing to do with his appearance, rather it was on those that would do him harm. So it is with the curse of American Blackness. It has nothing to do with me or anyone who looks like me. Rather it is the sense of false superiority that white people hold over me and, most importantly, the way the embrace of white supremacy dehumanizes them to the point that white children could torment a Black child into committing suicide with the apparent tacit approval of all of the adults in their lives.

The curse of blackness does infinitely more harm to white people than it does to Black people.

Link to 2021 article:
Family mourns loss of 10-year-old Utah girl who died following reported bullying https://kutv.com/amp/news/local/family-mourns-loss-of-1

American “Gulags” Are Nothing New

The “fascism” that many are finally seeing first hand has been apparent to a lot of us for quite some time. My grandmother used to offer water to “road gang” convicts repairing the road in front of our family farm. I remember “helping” her deliver water (I carried the dipper) to those men (though she often cautioned me to “not get too close”). I remember the smell of the tar they laid on the road and the sweat pouring off them and the gratitude in their eyes.

For a long time, like a lot of people, I assumed that they “deserved” the punishment they were getting when oftentimes their only “offense” was “not having a job”.

We’ve had “gulags” for a minute, y’all.

“Convict leasing was a system of forced penal labor that was practiced historically in the Southern United States before it was formally abolished during the 20th century. Under this system, private individuals and corporations could lease labor from the state in the form of prisoners, nearly all of whom were Black. Prisoners today produce products that have been bought by companies like McDonald’s, Walmart and Cargill.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States#:~:text=States%20leased%20out%20convicts%20to,labor%20with%20very%20little%20oversight.

Public

Nah, I’m Good

While I hear that generally he’s as popular as ever with the faithful, I’m relieved to hear that many of the people who voted for the current Chief Executive are “coming around” now that they are actually experiencing actual harm from his policies.

However, I find little motivation to “join with” or “welcome” them. Not out of spite or any desire for “revenge” (as I heard one progressive writer blithely put it).

Who am I to judge? I’ve got my own shortcomings to answer for.

Rather, I was never “in community” with these folks, especially the truly MAGA faithful, to begin with. Personally, I often find myself on the outside looking in no matter what space I find myself in. Beside the fact that I’m currently “living Black” in an overwhelmingly white, conservative community, I generally don’t trust the logic of crowds, I ask too many questions, and frankly, I live in my own head a lot. So I’m always a bit detached. Awkward really.

I have to be on guard against the temptation toward snobbery because of it. Awkwardness can often lead to elitism if left unattended.

Regardless, I feel no kinship with, or any desire for same, with any current or former supporters of the current Chief Executive. I certainly am willing to work in tandem with the like minded against a common threat and to support vulnerable communities (no matter the political bent).

But let’s leave it at that. Perhaps an unnecessary distinction but it’s one I require. And there is precedent: https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/the-first-rainbow-coalition/

The Revolution Will Not Only Not Be Televised… It Will Never End

Black citizens know that American democracy is not a destination. Rather, it is a constant struggle. Point of fact, America has never been a democratic state. At our inception, women and non-landowning men could not vote and though slavery is never mentioned in the Constitution, it was provisioned for in the Three Fifth’s Compromise and the Second Amendment to name a couple of examples.

To paraphrase Sherrilyn Ifill, America only approached democracy in 1965 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act that finally provided government protection for the voting rights of Black citizens, less than 4 years after I was born. Unfortunately, the Roberts Court has all but unravelled it.

Wednesday night, my daughter and I watched a Livestream from the University of Michigan that featured Ta-Nehisi Coates and Dr. Angela Davis where Dr. Davis surprised everyone in attendance in stating that she was actually “optimistic” about America’s prospects. Sure we’re in grave danger. But historically speaking we are moving in the right direction. She likened it to the “3 steps forward, 2 back” analogy. We’re obviously in a “2 back” phase, but to her mind we are making progress, else the party in power would not be taking such extreme measures.

She also reminded everyone that we need to see ourselves from a historical perspective. That we are a part of history rather than living separate from it. I wrote down a quote without attribution and I cannot remember whether Coates or Dr. Davis actually said it but it struck me like a bolt of lightning:

“You are here because people who could not see you fought for you.”

I’m fond of saying that “I know where I am.” I cannot afford the delusions of traditional American propaganda or patriotism. But I also have to remember that the survival of my people is not an accident. That those who went before me had even less reason to believe that America would make a place for them, yet they fought for me.

I can do no less for those who I cannot see.

It’s Not “Fragility”, It’s Just Cruelty

On February 21st, 1862 Nathaniel Gordon became the only American slave trader to executed by the government for engaging in chattel slavery. He was unrepentant to the end. Declaring that he’d done nothing wrong which is what it is given where he was, and frankly, where we still are.

But this part right here, though:

“… saying he would rather die alone than suffer the humiliation of being publicly executed. He said he’d “suffered the agony of a dozen deaths.””

Look, I’m on record with my opposition to capital punishment, for any crime, without reservation. But he’s tied up in knots over his “humiliation”? Never once considering his personal responsibility for the misery he’d profited from?

It makes me think of the white parents who dither over the “embarrassment” their children might face over learning the history of chattel slavery, never once thinking of the legacy that Black children have to live with.

Some have labeled this “fragility.” Let’s call a thing a thing.

It’s just cruelty.

When you value your emotional comfort over the humanity of your fellow human beings, you have a serious problem.

“Early the morning before the execution, Gordon unsuccessfully attempted suicide with strychnine poison.[23] Three doctors worked four hours to keep him alive by pumping his stomach, catheterizing him, and force-feeding him brandy and whiskey. After regaining consciousness, he cried out “I’ve cheated you! I’ve cheated you!” Gordon then begged the doctors assist his suicide, saying he would rather die alone than suffer the humiliation of being publicly executed. He said he’d “suffered the agony of a dozen deaths.”[23][24][25] He was sufficiently revived to be fit enough for execution.”

Full entry here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Gordon

Compared To What…

When I was in college 100 years ago I learned that while there were objective measures of art, for instance, line, color usage, brush strokes, harmonic progression, etc, art is best judged on how effective it is rather than if “I like it” or even “get it.”

That effective art resonates. That it speaks to the layers of the human condition.

Furthermore, we bring our own perspectives to art and that our perspectives change over time. For example, when I was growing up, my dad wore the groove out of “Compared To What” by Les McCann & Ed Harris. It did not move me back then. Probably scared me a little. But now, with 6 decades behind me, it’s my “Hallelujah Chorus.”

What Lamar left us with Sunday night was art. There were layers upon layers.

WELCOME!

While I get that the results of the last election lay bare the fascist, racist, oppressive tendencies and preferences of American society for a lot of people, (takes deep breath) this has been apparent to a LOT of us for a very long time. For generations to be precise.

So what many people see as “the end of American Democracy” is just “Tuesday” for us. Which is not to say that we are not collectively in dire straits, but “we been tryna tell y’all” for a minute now and have been largely ignored, or worse, we’ve been expected to “rescue America.”

And we have; as Sherrilyn Ifill so eloquently noted on 60 Minutes (Google it), America can only really lay claim to calling itself a democracy since the mid-60’s, largely due to the Civil Rights Movement only to lurch back into the welcoming arms of white supremacy once the dust settled.

Only to find that white supremacy does not even protect all white people.

To say it another way: Welcome To The Hood, Y’all.

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

*sigh*

So… are y’all watching this thing tonight? My daughter thinks we should and I know my wife would want me to watch and frankly, I know I should watch if for no other reason that it’s an historic event. This is the first time that a black woman has represented a major party for the office of the executive in my country (ignoring for a moment that other countries have had female leadership for decades).

But she’s forced to share a stage with a tragic joke of a human being and an existential threat to democracy who really has no place sharing the stage with her in a sane world.

But politics has been reduced to a pageant sport in our current timeline and he’s fed into the fears of a lot of people afraid of “being replaced” and they are so scared of losing their place in our caste system that he actually has a real chance of winning.

Even though I’ll likely watch, I’m tired of covering this same old ground where we (you know, “the blacks” and “the gays” and the “illegals” and such) try to convince a large segment our fellows that we really have no interest in doing to them what has been done to us. Rather, we’d just be satisfied with being left alone in spite of the fact that the party in opposition has convinced them that we’ve somehow “taken” something that is inherently “theirs”

And frankly, I’m just tired of hearing his voice.

Snippet

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” – Ephesian 3:20

There is a section in the 20th verse of the 3rd chapter of Ephesians where the writer references the power of God “that is at work within us”.

I find that verse intimidating because much of the time I don’t feel very “powerful.” In engineering school I learned that power is “the capacity to do work”; the equation being power = work/time. Do a little algebra and we find that work = power/time which implies that a large amount of work can be generated by a powerful motor over a short period of time or by a small motor over a long period of time.

Therein in lies my problem: time.

I used to believe that my issue with this scripture is laziness (and I am lazy) but that’s not the root of it. Rather it’s the worry that I won’t have the time to complete the work I have before me. Which is wholly ridiculous when you think about it. We’re all time limited. We’re all on the clock and it’s going to run out for us all at one point or another.

Earlier this week, a college friend died of a burst aneurysm. He was around my age, late 50’s/early 60’s. Right now, one of my mother’s oldest friends is making her transition after just having turned 101 on the 11th. I’m sure they both would rather be here. I know that they made the best of their time based on the testimonials of friends and family and my own personal experience with them.

There is another scripture that says “Teach us to number our days, that we might incline our hearts to wisdom.” – Psalm 90:12 – which, loosely translated, says (to me, anyway) that rather than fretting over death, we should keep it ever before us as a reminder to stay on task. Or as one of my great-uncles used to say, “I intend to wear out, not rust out.”

Or finally, as Toni Morrison said, “We are already born, we are going to die, so you have to do something interesting, that you respect in between.”

Trad Wives Spat On Ruby Bridges

I rarely watch The State of The Union Address. I didn’t even like pep rallies in high school. But I hear Joe Byron did a good job being “forceful” and “energetic” last night. Which is good, I guess. I’ll vote for him regardless, because the presumptive challenger is unacceptable.

I’m really tired of playing this game: choosing between two old white guys who pee in our glasses swearing it’s chardonnay. But “democracy is on the line” and all that.

Meanwhile, I hear that the GOP rebuttal was given by the junior senator from Alabama, one Katie Britt, in what all the smart people are telling me is the GOP’s strategic shift to the “Traditional Wife (Trad Wife) Movement.”

I have thoughts on the “Traditional Wife” movement.

None of them are good.

Or particularly kind.

Trad Wives spat on Ruby Bridges as she tried to go to school.

In “The Good Old Days”, Trad Wives could only cater to the whims of their husbands because of the labor of non-White women (whose children were not allowed in their schools) taking care of their homes, and often, their children.

At the heart of the Trad Wife movement is misogyny and White Supremacy and a caste system that will eventually exploit the demographic it claims to “protect”. It’s the same warmed over BS from White Citizens Councils and The Drug War(s), namely: “We will protect you from the scary black/brown/Muslim/queer people. Never mind that ‘purity’ is an illusion.”

We could be mining asteroids.

Or curing cancer.

Or learning innovative new ways to feed people.

Yet I fear we’re going to have another “debate” on whether a woman’s place is in the home. A debate that never included women of color or poor white women in the first place.