Fire can cleanse, so new beneficial flora can flourish. But, some people attract fire…to their detriment. I had a family member…wherever they lived…every house…burned to the ground. No one died, but all possessions lost. If there was a lesson to learn from all those fires, I doubt they learned it.
What we’re dealing with today are compulsive pathological liars. There is no way for the truth to even be considered by them. Their minds are closed. In the Bible, there is a response–If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. Matthew 10:14 It’s a lesson we should heed.
Florida has decided to teach that Blacks learned a skill in Slavery that they used to their benefit once Slavery was abolished. Hmm… The statement in and of itself is problematic and the Black professionals who assisted in its drafting and who defend it…I hope you’ve been paid well to disrespect your Ancestors. However, I don’t know their background. If they are of the Diaspora…shame on you. If you are of African immigrant ancestry, your mind is colonized and you are lost to the people who would claim you. If you are of Black ancestry (Black–descendant of United States chattel slavery), is a pat on the head worth it? But, then, maybe they suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. I would look them up, but neither of them exhibit the tendencies on which I want to expend energy.
Let’s say that a Slave had a skill and we know many did. Some already had a skill when forced into Slavery. From what I understand, some slave owners were very intentional about the Slaves they bought. Certain tribes were known to have certain skills and the slave owners bought accordingly. These skilled Slaves…their masters hired them out and made money from their skill. So, Slavery’s over, it’s 1866, and former Slave is freed and has a marketable skill. What happened to skilled Slave after Slavery when they went into business in this capitalistic America? Oh, wow, the whites saw them as interlopers/competitors who would take business from them and… And, let’s not leave out envy and jealousy. (Envy and jealousy have been prime motivators of white rage when Blacks are more economically advantaged. I was aware of this but the book, The Nation Must Awake by Mary E. Jones Parrish who was an eye witness to the 1921 Tulsa Massacre, set forth in detail the barbarism that resulted from such jealousy/envy.) Those skilled ex-Slaves, if they were lucky, were run out of the area. If they were unlucky, they were brutally murdered…hanging, etc. You get the picture. So, as I think his name was Paul Harvey said…tell the rest of the story.
The majority of Slaves did not have a marketable skill and were forced into peonage through sharecropping. And, those that did have a marketable skill were often prevented from using the skill to support themselves. There are always outliers, but let’s take a sober look at the jobs available to the majority of the freed Slaves.
In the South, it was against the law to teach a Slave to read, write, figure. After Slavery, many ex-Slaves flocked to the few schools that were set up by churches and other organizations to learn to read. Unfortunately, many of them only wanted to read the BIble. Most, then, and today do not know that King James had the Bible translated to support England’s imperialism, which was financed in part by the profits from the Slave trade. Then, to add insult to the injury of that translation, many Slaves only had access to the Slave Bible which was further redacted to affirm and re-enforce Slavery and the acceptable servile manner of the enslaved.
The “Promised land” “Jordan River” so lauded in the Black churches–tropes to anesthetize the former Slaves to accept their miserable condition on Earth. In the Promised Land and on the other side of Jordan, there was a place of rest. See what you have to look forward to if you work hard (to the death) and don’t complain? I have to think it was a survival strategy that we internalized to our detriment. But, religion…is it not the opiate of the masses? And the more uneducated one is, the more religion seduces.
Do whites have any idea the anger they cause when they belittle, disparage, dismiss, discount, derogate, diminish our lived experience in these United States? They want to conflate indentured servitude; white tribe on white tribe slavery; sex slavery; white nation state against white nation state war captives with Slavery. None of those were the least like the chattel Slavery invented by the English, French, Spanish, etc. (who collectively became “white”) persons who settled in the United States of America. (I would say more so an English creation, but the others were complicit.) Slavery based on the immutable color of a person’s skin, so the ones enslaved would be easy to differentiate from everyone else. Generational slavery based on one thing and one thing only–the color of one’s skin. There would be no melding into the general population to just live one’s life.
And the it happened to me response. No, it didn’t. You didn’t get the tone of voice, the aggressive I have the right to ask you and, if you don’t answer, I’ll call the police. I’ll teach you what happens when you don’t answer me. Who do you think you are…not answering me? This is what whites just can’t seem to grasp. What happened to you happened to you. What happened to me happened to me. And, because I am Black, the experience is always different.
Until I read the following article, I had not heard of the Doctrine of Discovery.
The Catholic Church has a lot to answer for. The Church gave its adherents God’s blessing to steal, kill, rape, enslave, indoctrinate, and pillage. The article states: From the sixteenth century, France and England asserted a right to explore and colonize any non-Christian territory not under the actual possession of a Christian sovereign. The stated justifications for this included the spread of Christianity, the duty to bring civilization to barbarian peoples, the natural right to explore and trade freely with other peoples, and the right to settle and cultivate uninhabited or uncultivated land. This is the doctrine of discovery. Note, the usurpers conveniently ignored the uninhabited/uncultivated caveat and basically deleted this from the doctrine. This doctrine was incorporated into the law of the United States pursuant to Johnson v. McIntosh, 21 U.S. (7 Wheat.) 543 (1823), a Supreme court case and, before that, Thomas Jefferson stated that the doctrine applied to the United States. The article states that the doctrine has been repudiated by the Catholic church in recent years, however, its legacy of horror is still being felt today.
How can Christianity be a comforting refuge for those its adherents have so horribly used and abused? To me, such allegiance is illogical.
A long time ago, I read an article and what I have learned from it is that there is no logical argument that will convince a person whose approach to all interaction is zero-sum. The only thing that sways such a person is tit for tat. That person has to face consequences that are so dire that zero sum no longer feeds their greed. Toxic individualism is zero sum in action. There can be no civilization where there is no cooperation.
I was scrolling through You Tube and happened upon one of those history lessons. It was presented as true fact about a Warrior Queen who lived somewhere on the continent of Africa. I don’t remember her name and it wasn’t until later that I thought about what I had heard. The more I thought about it, the more the true fact sounded like propaganda spread by her enemies.
Victory she led; The vanquished she wed; For one night, a bed they shared; In the morn, off with his head. (My take on the true fact.) Why would a warrior queen do such a thing? Such a reputation would only cause the opposing forces to fight more viciously. Maybe, I’m giving her too much credit because we humans can be incredibly stupid when we believe our own hype.
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One response to “Liar! Liar!–Pants on Fire!!!”
Thanks for providing the Johnson cite, and I will certainly look it up.