Black…His-story…or a “true story”

We talk too much about the Black skin of ours and sing too many songs about our remembered (and embittered) History. It is kind of a myopic and destructive arrogance – the sheer joy of our recitations on deprivations, misery and enduring cruelty, heaped upon a marked people. And we clutch our tragedy to our bosom, flaunting our personal history of horror, as though it were some bright, jewel-encrusted pin – the envy of every eye that beheld it.

The Black man. His-story. I am the Black man. The reviled and derided. The used and the much abused Black man; sold into slavery by his brothers, separated from kith and kin by the demon white man, who scattered us afar and parted our land. Woe is me! Behold my peculiar suffering… And on and on and on the song , lulling the Black soul into a deep self-satisfied sleep. The self-absorbed sound of the Black men reveling in the sins done to his Black skin. His-story. It’s history, my friend, and like it or not, it’s time to move on!

This continuing obsession of self has already cost us dearly. Our complete self-absorption has blinded us to the world beyond and to the Truth. Our history has nothing to do with our Black skins, per se. Our Black skins were simply a wondrous convenience. If that distinction had not ben provided by Nature, man would have conjured a contrived formula, some definitive external marking, which would help to make their games easier to pursue with some amount of order. A bright yellow star sewn to ones outer garment might have served quite well (as it happens it did!). Red skin might suffice, what? Slanted eyes, maybe? A foreign tongue, crime enough perhaps? Any marking or characteristic would certainly provide adequate excuse for providing a sinister rationale for the  proposed hurt inflicted.

The Black mans history of hurt is not his-story. It is the worlds story! It is the shameful testament of the Evil we have allowed to survive in our midst, unchallenged. How different is the Black mans tale, to that of the Red man, for instance. Read the history of the lies, the hurt and defiling perpetrated upon the Native American Indians, at the hands on the invading hordes…and I dare you not to weep. And yet, its the same old story, nothing new at all. And repeated in the hurt done to all the native peoples in all the other lands that caught the fancy of the aggressor, and upon which he would raise monuments to his glory. Never once sorrowing for the blood and bones of the native sons that lay crushed beneath is impudent drive to power and great glory.

The Black man – lost in his own myopic world view and blind to the wider vision – sees not the painful contradiction, in seeking justice and equity from those who (by reason of grave wrongdoing and total disregard for humanity) established themselves in power by defending  injustice and woeful inequity! The Black man, lulled to sleep by the constant refrain of the songs of his own personal suffering, never for one moment thought to ask: “Do I really want to be the one (and bear equal guilt), with those willing to raise their cities on innocent blood, fearless of a justifying God?”

Can it be wondered then, that maybe the Black man finds himself lost and stumbling down the dark path. When the holiest book invites us to be “…our brothers keeper“, while yet in the Black mans lexicon, he has allowed his ‘brother’ to mean only himself! “We sisters need to look out for each other…” And the Black woman only means herself! It is Skin-talk. The Native American…is not a ‘brother’. The dispossessed Maori woman from New Zealand…is not a ‘sister’. Nor are any of the hundreds and thousands other men and women who have felt the hand of the same undivided, unerring, unchanging…EVIL.

We are united in our Skin. And thus, divided…living in solitary confinement and separated from the rest of the world and the rest of mankind…separated from their hurt, their pain and their fear…in the face of the same one, continuing, recurring EVIL that stalks. The flesh (our Skin), has become the whole and the all, and the Spirit has accounted for nought. And so we miss the point. We miss the boat. And thereby we allow Evil to continue its mad rampage. Not understanding that our story, is NOT ‘our’ story! It is not the story of Blackness or of Black hurt…it is just a part (and a very small part), and proof of the “true story” of Evil, and its continuing presence and impact upon Life.

Hair Today…Gone Tomorrow

It is time we stopped making an issue of “HAIR“! It is time that we stopped burdening the Black Woman with the nonsense surrounding the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of her choosing hairstyles…filling her with guilt about foolishness. Why must everything be twisted to fit some supremely Black agenda? Why must the Black Woman live forever confined in the shade of Blackness? Why can’t she be allowed to drop the qualifying adjective from her persona? And, let us be reminded, a qualification – not imposed from without and not enforced by some alien ‘other’ – but manacled to her by none other than her sister-self. Her boundaries patrolled, lest she break free and escape (her Past, perhaps?).

When will she be allowed to understand herself as a WOMAN? If she happens to like wearing wigs…let her admit it and enjoy it! Without apology, excuse or guilt. If she likes her hair arrow-straight, let that be her prerogative. Life has chained her choices for long enough already. Leave her alone and let her breathe. Let her become an individual at last, and no more anyones ‘Black’! It is time that the Black lady be allowed to like what she likes…without having to hear how ‘twisted’ History has made her.

How many White women do you know, for instance, who wear their hair in its God-given state and entirely naturally? In all the world, I doubt one could find more than a handful. So what? Are we to understand by that fact, that the White woman is ashamed of who she is? And what of the Chinese women, who favour permed hair? And the White woman, who sees wearing her hair in braids as exotic? Do these women yearn secretly to be Black! Or are they simply Woman, and exercising a Womans prerogative to change…to change her mind, to change herself and to change her look! Doing what Woman does best…creating…reinventing herself! Decorating! Guilding! Dreaming!

Ah, that’s it. Dreaming! She dares to Dream. How dare she! It is not allowed. And not even upon the canvas that is her own personal. private, physical persona, may she lift her artists brush, to paint upon herself a particular fancy, drawing her inspiration from where she will. She is enslaved to the Will of her Blackness and subjected to its voice. Her Blackness, that supremely hard task-master, who would own her mind, body and soul. The Black lady is not free. It is not allowed. The real Black Woman will see to that. She who patrols the perimeter fence of Blackness, making this or that allowable and acceptable within its confines; and declaring this and that intolerable, unacceptable and against the ‘rules’…the rules of being Black!

Other Women may draw inspiration from around the world, and from every part of the universe, to fashion the ‘temple’ of their souls…only the Black Woman must confine her palette to a single shade. No magnificently appointed temples for her; no guilded domes and friezes, no fretwork, no playing with ideas from Japanese costumery or French hair-design…No temples, just the share-croppers dwelling of yesteryear; blinkered against change, eschewing an inheritance in the world at large and limiting her whole existence to the known and familiar. Eyes firmly fixed behind her, fixed in the Past…where her Blackness lives…

“Don’t forget your (nappy) roots, Black Woman! What have you to do with the rest of the world? Don’t you know that you are a being apart, sequestered from the whole? How dare you draw inspiration therefrom. Unblinkered, you fail us. Stay within the lines Black Woman…or have your knuckles rapped“.

 

Dear Black Woman…

It’s not about Colour…its about being a WOMAN; about understanding and honouring the voice and truth of the Sacred Feminine.

In an earlier work (of mine), I charge Feminism with hurting all our children, of whatever race, colour, religion, nation or tongue. In fact, I charge Feminism with costing us all! Full stop! Robbing our children of mothers and mothering; robbing our men of the strength that makes them protectors and providers, and robbing them of the need to be  masculine, strong and supportive; and robbing our communities of the intuitive guardianship of Woman-at-home. Against that backdrop, therefore, it may easily be said that the Black Woman missed an opportunity, that would ultimately have injured the benefit of Every-Woman.

Had the Black Woman chosen (as she had every right to) against taking, as it were, ‘the road most travelled’, and had she chosen instead to recognize and embrace her already plainly irrefutable claim on equality (with all but God), she would have defended the sanctity of her womanhood, protected it jealously, and fearlessly broken new ground and created new and different paths wherein to dwell. After all, the Black Womans display of strength and fortitude (in the arena of her enslavement), her courage and her compassion – even under fire – spoke, not to the race, but to the enormity of the Spirit of Woman. It spoke to its grandeur and its unconquerable depths. We were strong because we had to be…not because we were Black! We were strong…because we are WOMAN! And hence, it may be said (like it or not) that what I (Black Woman) have done…We (Every-Woman) have done.

On that basis, it should be plain that Woman long ago established the truth of her equality – in every endeavor -with her male counterpart.  She had no need to test it, or prove it, or demonstrate it. It had been fully and finally established on the killing fields of the slave plantations. Certainly, our melanin-rich skins provided more than adequate  protection against the ravages of the suns heat (for both male and female), but the ravages of the sun were perhaps the kindest of all the cruelties to be borne, and the least of all the hardships and trials. And melanin played no part in providing courage and strength of character, and strength of purpose; it was no sop against fear and despair and longing, and long hours; it had no part in comforting our young or in sustaining dreams to stay alive to meet tomorrow and tomorrow; it did not endow the body with steadfastness and determination, wisdom, patience and hope…Those were Womans wiles – her special, precious gifts, preserved and brought forth even in that place of abject horror. It was her gifts, more than anything else, that would keep an enslaved people purposed, striving and alive. It was the strength and resilience of WOMAN…in their midst.

There are innumerable accounts in the History of mankind wherein this truth has been self-evident. Speak to me of the Jewish Woman, in the day of their reckoning; the Woman of the French Resistance movements; the Russian woman, the Vietnamese Woman, The German Woman, the early pioneering Woman of America…just WOMAN!

Herein lies the fundamental truth (often misunderstood) about this thing called Life. We are One. One is All…All is One.

In her poem “With No Immediate Cause“, (from Nappy Edges) by Ntozake Shange it is written thus :

every 3 minutes a woman is beaten
every five minutes a
woman is raped/every ten minutes
a little girl is molested
yet I rode the subway today
I sat next to an old man who
may have beaten his old wife
3 minutes ago or 3 days/30 years ago
he might have sodomized his daughter
but I sat there
cuz the men on the train
might beat some young women
later in the day or tomorrow
I might not shut my door fast
enough push hard enough
every 3 minutes it happens
some women’s innocence
rushes to her cheeks/pours from her mouth
like the betsy wetsy dolls have been torn
apart/their mouths
menses red split/every
three minutes a shoulder
is jammed through plaster and the oven door/
chairs push thru the rib cage/hot water or
boiling sperm decorate her body
I rode the subway today
and bought a paper from an east Indian man who might
have held his old lady onto
a hot pressing iron/ I didn’t know
maybe he catches little girls in the
parks and rips open their behinds
with steel rods/ I can not decide
what he might have done I
know every 3 minutes
every 5 minutes every 10 minutes
I boughtt the paper
looking for the announcement
there has to be an announcement
of the women’s bodies fond
yesterday the missing little girl
I sat in a restaurant with my
paper looking for the announcement
a young man served me coffee
I wondered did he pour the boiling
coffee on the woman because she was stupid
did he put the infant girl in
the coffee pot because she cried too much
what exactly did he do with hot coffee
I looked for the announcement
the discover of the dismembered
woman’s body
victims have not all been
identified today they are
naked and dead/some refuse to
testify girl out of 10 is not
coherent/ I took the coffee
and spit it up I found an
announcement/ not the woman’s
bloated body in the river floating
not the child bleeding in the
59th street corridor/ not the baby
broken on the floor/

“there is some concern
that alleged battered women
might start to murder their
husbands and lovers with no
immediate cause”
I spit up I vomit I am screaming
we all have immediate cause
every 3 minutes
every 5 minutes
every 10 minutes
every day
women’s bodies are found
in alleys and bedrooms/at the top of the stairs
before I ride the subway/buy a paper of drink
coffee from your hands I must know
have you hurt a woman today
did you beat a woman today
throw a child cross a room
are the little girl’s pants in your pocket
did you hurt a woman today
I have to ask these obscene questions
I must know you see
the authorities require us to
establish
immediate cause
every three minutes
every five minutes
every ten minutes
every day (pg. 269 – 270)

It is all about WOMAN. Colour?…Colour is the grand illusion. The Grand Lie that hides our common pain, conceals our common joy, denies our common achievement and effectively obscures our Oneness that we are. Colour…the grand illusion that would steal our love (from, and for each other) and destroy our friendships.

Black Woman…do the impossible one last time. Step out of the Skin that holds you (and the rest of the world) prisoner. Embrace your freedom for all our sakes. Deny the illusion. Ordain death on that Lie. Crush the serpent under heel. Claim the Earth – your birthright – and give voice to your song. Dream, Black Woman. Let you daughter be born and call her name: Womankind. We have love enough and heart enough…if we will only Dream. Let your Dreams colour our world anew, and create “…a place for all at the rendezvous of victory“.

Is the Black Mans vision impaired?

The Europe of the late ‘sixties and early seventies’, had little fondness for the perceived brashness of America and the Americans. And I can remember, during that period (as a young University student in Montreal in Canada), Canadian students would go backpacking through Europe for the summer; and they would return with woeful tales of being greeted with outright hostility, in the places like France and Italy, when it was thought that they were Americans! And they had to be at great pains to identify themselves as Canadians. They would make the point that Canada and America were two very different countries. Once the point was made, the young travelers were always guaranteed a warmer, more hospitable reception. That tale would be told repeatedly by returning students. So extreme were the reactions they met; they all began travelling with the Canadian Flag in positions visible enough to deter further hostile interactions.

I tell this tale to make the point that whereas the world knew that Americans were not popular abroad…the only people who did not know, where the Americans! And why? Because the Americans were the best and the greatest…to the Americans! And they would not, quite honestly, conceive of, entertain, comprehend or believe…any other reality. Nor did they court any other reality. It was never their style to see themselves through the eyes of others. What you saw, was entirely your affair…He knew who he was, and he knew he was ‘the greatest’. “I’m American!” For him that was more than good enough. If you had a problem with it, it had little to do with him (and may I say, I concur wholeheartedly).

Why should it be otherwise for the Black man (or any man at all)? How another sees you cannot be your concern. What is, and will always remain material…is how you see you. And although he may deny it – that is the base of the Black mans dilemma. He has not learned to like (or love) what he sees. And in ‘not liking’, is unwilling to embrace the personal responsibility to change what in himself, he does not like; instead, he would make excuses, or blame the world for reflecting back at him, truths with which he would rather not contend. And then allege that the photographer is biased or the camera lens is flawed.

We do not need television stations or television programs to help people to see us (or Africa) differently. What we need are lessons in how to see ourselves differently, and how to be at peace with the ‘self’ one sees. What we need are lessons in how to accept the self that one sees; what we need is the humility to see and acknowledge where we are flawed; the courage to admit the need to change and the wisdom to do just that. In the meantime, let America be an example (instead of fretting and fuming about ‘getting others’ to like you…love you…respect you…understand you…). The (white) Americans spend no time trying to ‘get others’ to see them in the way that they see, and understand, themselves! They see themselves in a particular way, and the rest of the world (even while protesting the truth of Americas vision of itself) goes along with it. They have no choice. The Americans say: “America is the greatest!” And pretty soon – even despite clear evidence to the contrary – the rest of the world is singing the same refrain and treating every American as though this great myth…were the truth.

Let the Black man forget the nonsense of the “….Two new TV channels, recently launched in the USA and Brazil…to change how the world sees Africa and people of African descent” – pg. 64 New African magazine, February 2006. It is not how the world sees the Black man, that is the heart of his dilemma…it is how the Black man sees himself which is the root of all his difficulties. Change that…and he will have changed his life and his fortunes. Change that, and the world will follow.

When Africa knows that Africa is Great…the world will have no choice but to know it too. When the people of African descent love themselves and what their history, their lineage, melanin, and life, have bequeathed them…the rest of the world will love them too.And if they don’t love you…guess what? The Black man (like America) would be the last to know it, so certain would he be (in his own mind) that nothing to the contrary could possibly obtain.

How ‘others’ see you…is only a concern, if you are blind.