I have to explain the reference to “horse needles”. During the 1950s and 1960s, there were not many doctors who would treat Black patients. Some towns were lucky and had access to a Black doctor. H’ville had a Black doctor who owned his own hospital. I and all my siblings were born in that hospital. Dr. B was a true General Practitioner. He was one’s doctor from birth to death.
When we moved to C’ville, there was a Black doctor who practiced there. He actually made house calls. But back to Dr. B. His hospital had a facade of gray stone and there was a water feature that was part of the steps that led to the entrance. I mostly remember green slime, but I think I also remember goldfish in the murky water. There was a large waiting room with chairs around the perimeter of the room. The waiting room was always full and I guess it would be because we would be there on a Saturday. Anyway, he would give us shots with this long hypodermic needle that looked more suited for horses than for a child or an adult. I didn’t care if he was aiming for one’s rear or thigh. I remember seeing that needle and shaking my head no. I was ready to run. My mother couldn’t persuade me to sit still and I don’t think I got a shot that day. But, I remember me and my siblings talking about Dr. B’s syringes and we always referred to them as horse needles.
Dr. B’s brother owned a pharmacy. I only went inside a few times. I think he served food. I vaguely remember sitting on a stool at a counter while a prescription was being filled.
Then, there was the time, my sister and I were staying at my grandparents. We usually stayed for a week, but this visit stretched into two weeks with no explanation. We didn’t find out until they came to pick us up that my brother had an accident and they were dealing with that. My grandparents knew what was going on, but didn’t see the need to tell me or my sister. I think this was before my grandparents had a telephone, but the family that lived across the field did and my parents would have called them and they would have passed the message to my grandparents.
Have you ever been punished for something that was a pure accident. No intent; just causation. I was punished once for an accident and they knew it was an accident, but it didn’t matter. How does one prepare not to have an accident? Accidents…true accidents, are not foreseeable. I never felt the same about either of my parents after that. Trust betrayed is trust destroyed. I wonder if parents have ever understood that.
I wish I could say they were doing to us what was done to them. But from what I know of their upbringing, I just don’t know. On my father’s side, his mother died when he was twelve or thirteen and his father seemed to have benignly neglected him. From what my uncle told me, my grandfather kept my father from attending school because he didn’t agree with the teacher; my grandfather orated on the town square on various subjects; and my grandfather liked the ladies. From my uncle’s conversations, I never got the sense that my grandfather paid much attention to my father, the youngest, who was named after him.
From what my aunt told me about my mother and herself, if their father told them not to do something and they really wanted to do it…they did it. Further, they had freedom to do because they had a cousin who was in the closet and their father would allow them to do pretty much what they wanted as long as that cousin was with them. So, I question their style of parenting as a continuation. Maybe, a backlash?
My mother and her older sister graduated from college. Another aunt attended college, but she dropped out…she liked to party…and later became a beautician. Another aunt worked as a secretary and my other aunt was a housewife. My mother’s brother was spoiled by his grandmother and, even though he worked as a farm hand and other odd jobs, he made very poor decisions because he knew his grandmother and, up to a point, his mother would protect him.
My father was the first on his side, that we know of, to graduate from college. One sister was a beautician, another was an elementary school teacher before a degree was required, and another was a housewife. He had another sister who was impaired and he and another brother took care of her. One of his brothers owned a diner…I remember hot sausage sandwiches, but I think he served other food. I think he was a cook in the army (WWII). Another brother, the one who told me family stories, worked in a sawmill and generally hustled. All the brothers served in WWII and they all came home.
Talk about trauma. The most gut wrenching trauma is a current on-going trauma. I hear the Borg saying Resistance is Futile and the Dalek saying Exterminate Exterminate. When you read this, I wonder if the references will mean anything. When I was young, folk said icebox and I had no idea what they were talking about, except they would go to and open what I knew to be a refrigerator. I don’t know if the referenced television shows will prove to be iconic survivors like the Godzilla movies of long ago.
By every metric, after all the horror, abuse, and hate we endured, I endured, we, as a people are worse off than we were in the sixties, maybe even the fifties. The futility of effort… We had no idea what we were truly fighting. This country is based in and operates on greed. We were needed to man the manufacturing boom after WWII, so we were granted some crumbs. The corporations were already planning to move production to cheaper labor markets. Americans were too expensive. We were the last hired and the first to feel the effects of the move to cheaper labor markets. We thought the good times would last. We had the Civil Rights Act, the extension of Social Security… For a short period of time, our neighborhoods were filled with workers, many were considered middle-class. But we did not realize that, as always, we were being monetized for the benefit of others. And, we were being targeted for the prison industrial complex…the next monetization goal for us.
Some would say, we have billionaires now. They don’t understand history. There have always been Blacks with money. The Powers-that-be always allowed a few to have, so they could denigrate and diminish the rest of us. See, it’s you, not us…there’s something wrong with you or you would have what they have.
The Talented Tenth was invented…to salve and serve white supremacy as there would be Black voices reiterating the denigrating tropes. The Talented Tenth has always been more interested in white adjacency and acceptance than in elevating (their terminology) the masses. Maybe, it’s human nature…we do not believe that we are fulfilled or all we can be unless we have our foot on another’s head. Everyone wants to be Tarzan, beating his breast to celebrate the kill. I’m not advocating being the kill, but I think and maybe you will, too, that there is something else. Something that says I believe that being civilized is something more than an aspiration.
We actually believe the myth of the Alpha male. More like, in reality, the Alpha fool. I read somewhere, don’t know if it’s true or not or if my memory is correct, or if my take on what I read has any basis in fact (good story, don’t you think?), but while the Alpha male is posturing, being groomed, beating his chest, sexing non-estrus females, and defending his fiefdom, the Beta males and other subordinate males are actually siring the next generation. Just goes to show, that Alpha males may be charismatic, may be more muscular, may be physically larger, may be fed first, but they are not intelligent. And, it is the Alpha female, in conjunction with the other females, orchestrating the charade. The Alpha female realizes that the Alpha male is expendable and, while the Alpha male defends…the troop flees. And, the Alpha female picks the next dupe who will be allowed to savor his status…until his sacrifice is required for the good of the troop. I think it is elegance in the animal kingdom. Everyone gets what they need and want…from stroking of oversized ego to the desired genes being passed to the next generation.
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