We don’t think too much about our shadow. I know I don’t. However, a month or so ago I was trying to take a picture and my shadow got in the way. Last month, I was outside at sunset and took this picture. My shadow is mostly subsumed in a larger shadow, but there is my head’s shadow some distance away. I wonder if the stories of giants has anything to do with our elongated shadows that walk with us along a darkening road. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie was premised on the search for a lost shadow that led the titular character to meet the people and experience events that, in turn, led to an awakening that was crucial to his acceptance of his maturation into the fullness of his humanity. Or maybe he merely understood that aging has its benefits.
Shadows can be scary. I remember the dark country roads, illumined only by the car’s headlights that exaggerated the looming monsters that appeared in their narrow focus. Sometimes, I would search for the monsters and think up names for the shadows that morphed by as the car sped along. Probably why I was prone to nightmares.
I really don’t understand why the picture of the President with Strom Thurman that is currently circulating on social media is so disturbing. It should be of no consequence. The President was born and lived his formative years and most of his political tenure in a time when racism was an integral part of the social fabric of the United States. (It still is and it’s just as virulent, but there is the sheerest veil that separates the present expression of racism from its past expression. That veil has to do with our political power.) The President was socialized and educated during a time when racism was the norm. I’ve come to understand that white people do not think that their beliefs and actions are wrong because they are benefiting from those beliefs and actions and society supports them. Strom Thurmond was very powerful. White people who seek power kowtow to the powerful in hopes that the powerful will pass some of their power to them. That’s what I see in that picture.
Now, of course, like most people seeking power, the President is a pragmatist and he is not willing to die on the hill of some of his prior acts and beliefs because they are no longer the source of his current power. Doesn’t mean that he isn’t a racist, it just means power is more important. And, in order to retain power, he has to position himself in opposition to the past president who was and is willing to die on the hill of racism, sexism, otherism, and any other ism that riles his uneducated, ignorant, racist, ism-chafed base.
So, this picture’s only purpose is to excite a knee-jerk reaction from an ill-educated audience who may not understand the dynamics of a two-party system. It would be a best case scenario if we had a political party that prioritized our interests…but we don’t. So, our best interests are served by mitigating the damage of this two-party system, until we either create a party that will advocate for us or increase our power in one of the parties to the point that our economic and societal demands are met. But anything to increase the number of views is fair game is what I’m seeing across social media. Sad.
It’s been somewhat nightmarish streaming some television shows that were shown during the Aughts. I never had cable and I didn’t watch network TV when I was working. Now, I look for interesting shows to watch on the streaming service and most of the shows are from the Aughts and before. I did not realize the intensity of the agenda to trivialize Black Americans was until I began watching these shows, In this one show, there were two Black male characters who had trivial parts in the storyline, i.e., appeared on more than one show and actually had a backstory. Both characters were killed off at the end of the show’s run.
One character taught the white male lead his craft and the other married a white female. By the end of the show, the white male had learned all he needed to learn from the Black male. The other Black male had begun to make money from his creative work and, at his death, the wealth from this work would pass to the white woman. Note: none of the other trivial characters were killed off at the end of the show. I know this is fiction, but the takeaway is that we are solely useful to benefit the white group by teaching them our skills or leaving them our wealth. Once the white group has benefited, we should die and leave them to enjoy those benefits which they will claim unto death that they deserved and even claim that the benefits were all their own doing. Take and erase…steal and kill…pithily apt for that particular bit of evil, don’t you think?
Needless to say, more than one show has this hidden agenda which, if you know what to look for, is blatant. In movies, me and my friends would point out the character that didn’t look like the white lead and wait for their speedy demise. Comics even made jokes about it.
Which leads me to the random Black character in so many movies and TV shows. Their roles and dialogue are so artificial and forced that sometimes they are laughable. Maybe, somewhere there are Black people who can relate to them, but, in my mind, they are some white person’s concept of the “good” Black. The Stepin Fetchits of the twenty-first century. But, I do agree with Hattie McDaniel…better to be paid $700.00 a week to play a maid than to make $7.00 a week actually being a maid. That’s a paraphrase, but you get the meaning.
Is one of the reasons we can’t seem to fathom the evil of white people is that we, through our ancestors, associate the color “white” with death? And we do. A friend’s cat died and she wrapped it in a white sheet(?) before burying it. And, at a childhood friend’s mother’s funeral all the female relatives dressed in white. It’s so much a part of who we are that we don’t question or think too much about it. This is something that truly is.
There is an old Mesopotamian tale about a man who meets death in the marketplace. In the tale, the man recognizes death (an old woman…really?). Death recognizes him and gestures toward him. The man is frightened by the gesture. Why would death recognize him is his frightened thought. So, he thinks– if death is here, let me run far away where death cannot find me. The man runs far away, but death finds him. How? he asks. Death shrugs and says, I knew I was to meet you here, on this day, at this time. I was surprised that you were so far from this place, but you are here and all is well. (Some artistic license taken.)
I think the patriarchy brought with it a fear of death. Death to our ancestors was a joining with they who walked before. Our ancestors knew that we were energy and that energy is eternal. They didn’t know what form energy would become, so they revered all of nature. Because they understood they were as much a part of nature as a tree, a rock, a shell, the creatures that shared the Earth with them, the wind, the water. Returning to energy did not frighten them.
But these people who have appropriated the color we associate with death are not like us. So, is our unconscious thinking–if we appease white people, we somehow ease our fear of death? They see this Earth as something to be owned and dominated. That is what their Bible says. Maybe, if we could understand that they rape, pillage, steal, murder to meet that mandate, we would understand that validation from them is worthless. We would not look to them as some kind of savior. How many Ugandan babies and children did that white woman missionary murder by pretending to be a doctor? (There should be a special place in hell for her and her ilk.)
Have you ever read the Lord of the Flies by William Golding? When I was in high school, it was required reading. I told a friend that white people have written about who they are and some of them will actually tell you. In the Lord of the Flies, a group of upper class British boys are stranded. I don’t remember the details, just a fuzzy recollection of the barbaric behavior they exhibited while stranded. I don’t think there were any consequences after they were rescued…just the need to maintain secrecy so no one would know the depths of their horribly cruel and savage behavior. That’s just one novel…there are plenty more. Face it…we are dealing with a group whose veneer of civilization is thinner than a micron. I wish we would read the Bible with an open mind and not a mind steeped in their society that that does not acknowledge us as human beings. But, we don’t. However, one day they will understand that they lost the war when they translated what is called the Bible to benefit their greed. Nothing dominates Mother Earth. Mother Earth will always win.
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