So there it goes: I must be Black for them to remain white and superior.
So today I begin as I previously concluded when I said last week that, "I am sick and tired of being Black".
And for sure, I pray for the coming of that day when John Marquis will forget and forego the pleasures of being white in this sin-sickened and crime-ridden place.
This word that is mine comes from the heart of the whirlwind; this word that is mine speaks about how it now arises that those who would vilify, torture and torment the likes of me –namely Black people – are so callous, so crude and so white and so ignorant that they would torment the dead.
They are wrong for this.
All I know today and all that I know for sure is that like Judas – they who are seeking to anger the Black people – know precisely why they do what they are doing – it’s for the money.
So I say to the Judas-Man with the pen; brother man, take the money and do quickly whatever it is that you have to do..
But Brother-Judas please be reminded that what goes around comes around. Please Brother-Judas, be also reminded that while God may be the author of ugliness; He too does not like it.
Brother Judas, your day will come.
But before that fine day comes, be reminded that, this blessed Thursday marks the day when I take as my point of both departure and arrival an extended meditation on people I would like to describe as "…they…"
These people are the types who routinely derive great benefit from being white. No matter where you meet them, ‘they’ have the idea that they should ‘naturally’ run things.
So no matter how dumb they are; how messed up they are; they are always the people who get to have the last word; they are also the people who get to have the best of all that is to be gotten.
But as ‘they’ sometimes preach; people other than them will get some of the best that there is to get once they die and go to heaven.
What a very sweet deal; coming as it does from them.
It must really be something for them as they contemplate what they have [collectively] done to all those people who have been busied with the task of ‘being black’.
And here not to mention, the myriad of my brothers and sisters – kente cloth, turbans and all – who are so very busy being black.
Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy!
Lord God Almighty, we wept when we remembered Zion!
A week ago, I wrote from the heart, I dare say, about how tired I was of ‘being black’. And I wrote about how tired some other human persons should be with being white.
Today I am quite saddened to report that no white person I have spoken with in my entire life has ever told me that they are tired of being white.
Indeed, some of the finer ones of these people routinely go out of their way to tell me that when they talk to me, see me or hear me, they take no reference of the fact that I am a living, breathing Black man.
Then they tell me that they were with me so long as I tell them that I am tired of being black; but when I start linking being-white and being-black with being-ignorant; they tell me to speak for myself and people who are Black like me.
They routinely remonstrate that being and white and being ignorant does not sound or look right; but that being white and being rich surely does.
Truth is that ‘being black’ is also a way of remembering.
And as I am now realizing, ‘being black’ is also a way of recognizing that being black is also about ‘remembering the pain’ left by the lash.
And for those human persons who can read the movies, see the words and taste the books that shout about crimes against humanity; and how it now comes to be that ‘they’ would deny our fathers and mothers all – even their resting place in the bosom of the earth.
While I am angry enough concerning what ‘they’ are doing with the name of Sir Lynden; I am angrier still at some of what they did to some of my forbears in the long ago years.
As Toni Morrison writes, "There was a description of a woman who had to wear a bell contraption so when she moved they always knew where she was. There were masks slaves wore when they cut cane. They had holes in them, but it was so hot inside that when they took them off, the skin would come off.
[Presumably, these things were to keep them from eating the sugar cane.]
"What is interesting is that these things were not restraining tools, like in the torture chamber. They were things you wore while you were doing the work. Amazing. It seemed to me that the humiliation was the key to what the experience was like."
And the humiliation continues.
As we also know in the very middle of the humiliation, we have situations and scenarios where tens of millions of black beings were fated to die in the project that saw tens of millions of others transported to strange lands across the seas.
By the rivers of Babylon, we wept when we remembered Zion.
Today I remember some of what they did to some of us.
Here I am helped by Morrison who indicates that her novel, "Beloved" is dedicated to the 60 million who died as a result of slavery.
As Morrison indicates, "Some historians told me 200 million died."
She continues, "The smallest number I got from anybody was 60 million. There were travel accounts of people who were in the Congo -- that's a wide river -- saying, ''We could not get the boat through the river, it was choked with bodies. That's like a logjam. A lot of people died. Half of them died in those ships…"
"Slave trade was like cocaine is now -- even though it was against the law, that didn't stop anybody. Imagine getting $1,000 for a human being. That's a lot of money. There are fortunes in this country that were made that way…"
We wept when we remembered Zion.
Today the weeping continues. So while I suspect that the day will come when being black or being white will be a thing of the past.
Sadly, that day seems to have retreated to a distant horizon; one far from this place where being white still equates with being the talk of the town.
This is why I am today still grappling with this matter of being Black and being white. You may well ask me why I am in this state of perplexity; and why I seem so very sorrowful.
What I know today is that like Toni Morrison, "…I feel personally sorrowful about black-white relations…"
I also agree with the sister when she says that, "…black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war, to prevent other kinds of real conflagrations.
"If there were no black people here in this country, it would have been Balkanized. The immigrants would have torn each other's throats out, as they have done everywhere else. But in becoming an American, from Europe, what one has in common with that other immigrant is contempt for me -- it's nothing else but color."
Yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.
