My home is still Jim Crow's plantation. Louisiana still has an old guard who influence the young through racist rhetoric and fear factor thought. Every hateful and misguided view that a mind can imagine is being tossed around the family in far too many households in my home state. Leave aside the Beverly Hillbillies imagery; some of the worst hatemongers in Louisiana wear designer clothing, live in twenty-room mansions, and manipulate government action from the garden patios of spacious bayou-wrapped yards. The scenery has changed over the years, but the hate and the wrong still remain. Six children are living a lesson in the hypocrisy of the technical age: intellectual and technological advancements abound, but racial hate and discrimination are alive and well.
I am crying inside.
I am praying for my people.
I am Black and proud.
I am scared for the children--those six young souls.
I am exorcising the demons of a lifelong battle with hate that started in kindergarten.
Praying for justice and holding a scream of anger inside my lungs, I am TIRED of the injustice. I want that Lady Justice to take her thumb off those scales and to leave that blindfold in place. Free the Jena 6. Let real justice prevail.
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14 comments:
great "cry", Brother Ced. Truth be told the hatred is TAUGHT in kgn. or more accurately, it's breast fed to babies...it doesn't originate in children...
True indeed, Sister Cap. My first lesson in hate was courtesy of a kindergarten teacher who decided that ebony skin + books = impossibility. She threw me into a reading group for children who had major learning disabilities or great trouble reading even at the pre-K level. My mother saw the hustle quickly: a child who could read even the toughest names in the Bible and who comprehended Shakespeare's work (though I hated most of it) by age 4 could NOT keep up with his peers in KINDERGARTEN? Riiiiiiiiight. Mom had a talk with the teacher to address the error--after she did some research on the teacher and learned that the "nice lady" was married to a leader in the local KKK chapter. One mention of this to the teacher along with the promise that the school principal was the next stop, and I was in the accelerated reading group...as its LEADER.
Hate is taught, but I KNOW that some children shake off the chains of misguided thinking and rhetoric. We do it all the time so why would I believe that someone who was born on the "other side of town" couldn't do the same? At least, that's my HOPE.
Head down. Clenched fist up!
well said.....but the warrior/scholar mentality that is required is slowly dying like the "good men" of ancient times
SG, I keep my head up and eyes wide these days while my fist is up. Lately, handcuffs have been shackling wrists on men and women who don't pay attention. Think the San Francisco 8. Even old revolutionaries are still considered a threat to be silenced and imprisoned. Warnings about the ways that the laws concerning "terrorists" could be used against the common American and possibly focused against people who have expressed a "beef" with America that led to civil disobedience of any sort are now slapping us in the face.
TS, is it dying, or is it just not in vogue right now? I believe that the American media is pushing the lie that trained warriors are far from scholarly and that the leaders of the "free" world are de facto "geniuses" who know EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED TO DO...but they should have ended such notions with the disclaimer "...TO FUCK SHIT UP."
Forgive me, y'all. I just have a despairing feeling about September 20, 2007. God, I pray that justice prevails.
Speak on it, brah Ced...We all feel the pain, no matter how hard we try to act like it doesn't exist. We've got to stand strong & PRAY that one day we can unite to overcome our oppressors...got my fist in the air too!
Feeling your pain, even through my raised and clenched fist. They cut down the "tree" but did they take up the "root"? Miles to go...
K, I'm glad that people banded together--PEOPLE, HUMAN BEINGS--to show support to the families and to speak a quiet yet strong response to this foolishness. CNN reporters served constant notes of surprise about the lack of even ONE negative incident at the rally outside the courthouse and throughout Lasalle Parish (parish = county) back home. Truth be told, God used two things to our aid today: Objecting citizens in that area did not want to call any further ugly attention to the area, and the pervasive mood among all the wonderful brothers and sisters (If you fight for humanity, you're my kin.) present was decisive choices to speak peace and walk accordingly today in central Louisiana. I thank God for covering every person there with peace--the event could have been a massacre.
MsJayy, thanks for that. In the words of Brother Fred Hampton, Jr.:
HEADS UP!
EYES OPEN!
FISTS CLENCHED!
WE GOT TO BE STRONG...
WE GOT TO SEE...
WE GOT TO FIGHT!
I learned something about myself this past couple of days. I can't tolerate this now that I'm a man. As a kid, I didn't like it and it just saddened me, but as a man, I want to hurt somebody.
As I watched that Louisiana prosecutor speak on the news, you could tell by his sarcasm that he donned the white hood at night. Makes you want to slap the taste out of his mouth.
I better go watch something light and entertaining, being in civil rights mode can sometimes lead to maddening behavior.
yeah its sad, but the small cities in southern states still live back in the 60's. They are still taught to hate.
So true Ced...i've witnessed it firsthand in the past, and just the other day! Excellent post!
Rich, don't catch a case...but I feel ya like a pinprick.
Andrew, I know...but I'm a 21st-century-break-a-foot-off-in-the-ass-of-a-KKK-member/Aryan in a HEARTBEAT!
Sista, thanks for understanding and caring.
I am stunned and disgusted at the events that un-justice system perpetuates.
I missed ya, brah.
Let's catch up soon!
Man, you said it! If it were localized to my home state, I could feel ironically better about the injustice. Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco--every major city and tons of smaller places have the same problem. No one is speaking loudly enough just yet about them. It's tragic...but it won't be forever.
It's good to hear from you, DC!
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