I had seven majors in college. I started in pre-med, and graduated with honors in English. Along the way I met mr lowercase e e cummings. I’d performed his works at local high schools, wrote tomes about him, and one professor gifted me with his collective works. Here’s one I’ll have to explain, but first:
plato told
him:he couldn’t
believe it(jesus
told him;he
wouldn’t believe
it)lao
tsze
certainly told
him,and general
(yes
mam)
sherman;
and even
(believe it
or
not)you
told him:i told
him;we told him
(he didn’t believe it,no
sir)it took
a nipponized bit of
the old sixth
avenue
el;in the top of his head:to tell
him
That “nipponized bit of the old sixth avenue el” refers to the elevated train in New York that was scrapped and the metal was sold to Japan. They built weapons and war machinery, which they sent back to us.
History is always trying to tell us something, but most of us are too busy, too distracted to listen
Last night I watched (for the third time) the 2016 documentary called, I Am Not Your Negro, made by Raoul Peck that uses James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember This House to examine the history and reality of racism in America.
Baldwin didn’t just warn us, he told us exactly how we got to where we were, back then, and where we are right now.
Where Are We?
Extra judicial killings of Venezuelan boat people, an illegal war fraught with war crimes, people being rounded up in our streets, shoved into detention centers with fewer comforts than prisons, forced to eat horrible, almost inedible food; people are dying in captivity [58 at present], women are being raped [according to Human Rights Watch], and in our own streets Americans are being killed (I’d say “murdered” but that’s for the courts to decide if these killings ever get to court).
What we are witnessing is force and violence. This is what we’ve come to. And James Baldwin warned us that when power is used to create violence, it doesn’t prove strength, but exposes fear. And once the victims sees that fear, the entire structure begins to crack.
Force and violence signal weakness, not strength, fear, not confidence.
They signal panic, not stability.
Baldwin saw all this in the sixties, living through the assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr.
When he says, I am not your negro, he means: YOU have created me.
Our ignorance creates enemies. I recently wrote about Islamophobia entitled: Ignorance is the Easiest Pathway to Hatred.
I never started out to be a student of history. Yes, I’m an autodidact. Much of what I know, my expertise is self taught, self learned. Take computer programming. My love of languages shoved me into computer programming where I picked up half a dozen programming languages.
I guess I became a student of history because I listen. I hear the warnings.
And I created this meme last week:
While watching the documentary last night, I learned that according to James Baldwin, America survives by lying to itself, because the truth would break the story it needs to believe.
We’ve constructed a mythology of innocence, goodness, fairness, and exceptionalism. All of which demand we deny reality. These myths, these lies protect the power structure, protects our identity, and give us oh so much comfort.
But worst of all, this “scaffolding” prevents growth.
And so what Baldwin saw in the sixties and seventies has come to a head and our nation, our society is on the verge of collapse.
Baldwin, and many historians, believe the only path to freedom and justice is through truth. We cling to delusions because facing the truth would require transformation, both personal and political.
The entire celebration of our 250th anniversary was built on lies. Our nation was founded on slavery and the society we imported from Europe was woven with misogyny.
These are the truths our nation is desperate to hide. History texts have expurgated mentions of slavery, unions, the genocide of our Natives, the suffragette movement, and any mention of our oppression of minorities. It’s almost as if the Ku Klux Klan is writing our school text books.
Baldwin’s most famous statement about confronting the buried truths of America is this:
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
The dumbing down of America began at the grass roots level. According to Baldwin, it began at the level of ordinary people long before it became policy. It was cultivated in families, churches, neighborhoods, and everyday life. He told us that the nation teaches people how not to think because thinking leads to reckoning.
“People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction.”
So, if it started at this level, then it is at this level we have to destroy it. Parents must force the schools to teach what’s been hidden, to expose what’s been covered up, and they must teach how to ask questions. This can lead to our children learning how to think instead of what to think.
I once said that every scientist had a science teacher. The same goes for our leaders; they best ones had great history teachers.
One last thing.
A rabbi once told me that hatred bonds people stronger than love. Hitler had three million followers, while Jesus had just twelve.
Hatred is easy to organize. Love is hard to sustain.
The message today seems to be: if we all just hate each other a bit longer, everything will work out fine.
Not if you ask the right questions and not if you question the hate. And not if you demand answers.
It’s not too late to start.
