The posted picture doesn’t depict what I intended. I see a path beginning in light, continuing into dusk/darkness. Does the path meander through light again? Don’t know…the picture only shows the beginning. What I thought I was taking a picture of was an exposed root that humped from the earth like a serpent’s back. And the parasitic, maybe more so opportunistic, flora that had grown in a crack in its bark. All to say…nature finds a way to thrive when we haven’t destroyed her innate capacity to do so.
In this post, I will be asking questions. Answers…not so much.
Let’s start with Jack and the Beanstalk, an old, old tale. In that tale, the Giant says fi, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman...or something like that. Now, you are an Englishman and you see the Giant before the Giant smells you. What do you do? You know the Giant likes to kill and eat Englishmen. Do you run/walk toward your doom? Do you freeze in terror? Or do you run like the wind away from the Giant? Because your survival instincts, a part of you, courtesy of Mother Nature, kicks in….you run from the Giant. I’m a fan of Dr. Who in this. There is no shame in running. Run to figure out how to survive the Giant in your path…run to even the odds or to bend the odds in your favor. That’s just to say…white people have told us who they are, what they will do, and we have seen them act on who they are and do grievous injury to us…where is our survival instinct? Sometimes, I think it’s alive and writhing and, other times, it appears dormant.
Is it because…I was watching a detective show…I like detective shows and one of the characters says something to the effect what do you expect in a country whose foundational tenets are greed and male sexual gratification. Not exactly what the character said, but it’s close to what I heard. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness… Why not say that greed and sex is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Because that is what this country glorifies–greed and sex. This country glorifies the bad, the evil. Don’t actors like to portray the anti-hero because they have more to draw from? Aren’t the ones who have money, by hook or crook, the ones who control this country? Dupes…the more dupes…the more you are rewarded. Unless and until…you’re stupid enough to dupe someone in your own class/caste, then, that person can use the law to make you pay for their humiliation.
How can a jury of whites be a jury of peers for a Black person? Whites, with their preconceived notions of Black guilt? I think about that young boy who was electrocuted for a crime he didn’t commit. A jury of white racists and that was supposed to be a jury of peers? I think I read that he was the youngest person ever electrocuted and the State provided an apology and a pardon to his family some time after his death. That travesty of justice is still being played out all over this country.
Can a people with a preconceived notion of the “Other” ever be impartial and adhere to facts and not to the emotion of their preconceived ignorance? It hasn’t happened in this country, so I don’t know.
We don’t believe that Marie Antoinette said Let them eat cake. Didn’t matter…that was her vibe. I don’t care if you’re suffering; I don’t care that you’re hungry; I don’t care that you are sick; I don’t care that you work twenty hours a day… I don’t care. I have plenty of food, fancy clothes, jewels, shoes, pets, furniture, maids, your money, etc. My every need and want is catered to. I don’t care… Sound familiar?
How sustainable is a society where greed is a foundational tenet? The aristocrats of France realized too late that there were more of the “Other” than of them. One has to be careful of the bone thrown to the “Other”, especially if the bone is only available to a few of the “Other”. The powers of Rome decided that they could not give any bone to the barbarians, so the barbarians sacked Rome. Was that hubris more than greed? Is hubris a form of greed?
Mix greed and male sexual gratification with toxic individualism and you have defined the amoral underpinnings of this country or its controlling faction. I think it permeates the fabric of this country as anyone who is in power is infected or reinfected and quickly becomes wedded to the outpouring of money and gratification of desires that is offered in return for their influence. Kind of reminds me of the males who controlled Rome. Money, sex, assassinations, coups, hetero and homo trysts, gluttony (greed), with the church happily participating in the evil and turning a blind eye when it was politic. I don’t think the church was selling indulgences then, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were selling something like indulgences. Do your evil, pay your money…St. Peter awaits. We don’t learn from history, do we?
I’ve noticed that no empire after it has been conquered has regained its status. Look at Egypt. Today, it is less than a mediocrity filled with racist denialists’ descendants of the conquerors who desperately try to claim what is not theirs and never will be. They are pathetic and Egypt, as known by Herodotus, the ancient Greeks who studied there, and the ancient world, is no more. Being conquered destroyed Egypt’s creativity and drive to become greater. Conquerors can possess the land, the artifacts, the buildings, but conquerors can never possess the minds of the creators. And, the creators had fled. However, when the Egyptians’ Nubian cousins gained control of Egypt, Egypt flourished for a short time (in the scheme of time), then it was conquered again and again and all its greatness was blown away as in a sand storm. The Egyptians’ creativity went south or elsewhere, diluted and eventually lost, and the land they left became a barren wasteland dotted with monuments of their past glory.
Did you know there was a time when universities/colleges did not look at one’s qualifications…only at one’s color, when deciding who would be admitted? This was not only at private universities/colleges, but also at state funded universities/colleges. So, think about that…one’s taxes funded institutions to which one did not have access. Note: Universities/colleges weren’t the only publicly funded institutions to which we did not have access. Now, the white supremacists have rid themselves of the primary means the universities/colleges could use to remediate those decades of racist non-admittance of qualified Blacks. Not that affirmative action did that much for us, but, at least, the universities/colleges had to admit that we were applying, that we qualified, and was required to create lame excuses as to why we weren’t admitted. Universities/colleges have always known that a high test score on a standardized test is no indicator of how well a person will do in college. Scores on standardized tests measure how well a person has been schooled in taking standardized tests. And, believe me, parents spend thousands of dollars on tutors, coaches, courses to teach their children how to take standardized tests.
I just read about a Harvard student who scored high (Asian), but decided he didn’t want to take a test, so he, by computer, anonymously, notified the University of a bomb threat. He used a school computer, so he was caught. So, granted there is a huge difference between common sense and intelligence, however I don’t see evidence of either in that student’s actions. (He probably pled a mental breakdown. That is the go to defense of those this society refuses to hold accountable for their despicable, inhumane acts.)
Why is violence glorified? I had to turn off a show based on a series I read fifteen, twenty years ago. It’s as though the script read show as much blood, gore, senseless violence, terror, death as the screen can contain. That’s in most shows now. How much fake red blood can be strewn across the screenscape. So, I do what I do. I turn it off. Why do we get such pleasure from such extreme negativity? Maybe, our visual diet affects what we do in this physical reality. Maybe these shows with their floods of gratuitous violence desensitizes us to the actual bloodletting going on in this country. Is that their purpose? How is this entertaining?
The more barbaric, the higher the rating? And the rating is all that matters. Because ratings equals money. Back to–GREED.
Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved
