I have wanted to say something about the emergence of a newish progressive movement, but have been too overwhelmed with the banality of my own struggles with unemployment, no personal life and the weight of being a big dark skinned girl in a world ruled not only by the tyranny of thinness but a real hatred of women taking up space. So I will just talk about those issues until I can get to something really important for our communal life on the planet.
I used to pray for 'right work,' a means of earning my daily bread that allowed me to utilize all my gifts, talents and interests--a career that would allow me to fire on all cylinders. Now I just hope for something that will bring in enough cash to allow me to live simply with some shreds of dignity. That hope is fading quickly as I move on in years. The time when I should have been contributing to society and to a retirement was spent getting dangerously educated--three advanced degrees and not much to show for it beyond crushing student loan debt.
I used to hope to find a life partner to create a contented life together. Someone with whom to travel the world on cultural adventures, create a restful creative and welcoming home life, perhaps with children or not. My friend Bill once prophesied that I would meet someone late in life...it is the midnight hour Bill so if you have any pull over there in the next life beyond this one I could use some help.
So here I am with no money and no honey but plenty of fear. And maybe here is where we might actually move beyond the mundane for a moment. Yesterday I was listening to the Jonathan Schwartz Show on the NPR station WNYC as I do most Saturday afternoons. He plays a mix of material, mostly jazz a lot of jazz vocals some big bands stuff and some Broadway musical material. He played a few tunes from a live recording of Sarah Vaughn at Ronnie's and it was a revelation for me. Sassy was swinging with amazing mastery as usual...but big the hit I on this occasion was her complete confidence. There appeared to be no fear just leaping off into the abyss of difficult intervals and meaning filled phrasing. Freedom and joy but no fear.
I can not pretend to write as cogently about the twisted knot of race, power and privilege as our brother Tim Wise, and I recommend his latest piece on the Trayvon Martin case to you. But I will say that the piece about how the system of oppression called racism utilizes fear to maintain itself is real in my life.
Fear is what allowed the German people to round up their fellow citizens and send them to their deaths. Guilt shame and the accompanying fear that are part and parcel with how racism works in the US are what were operating in the death of yet another young black male, who was apparently minding his own business and was shot down in the street by a so-call neighborhood watch member. And here's a newsflash Geraldo(and didn't you at one time prior to the Al Capone's vault fiasco used to be a progressive voice? What the hell happened to you...too many sucker punches to your mug?)that fact that Trayvon was wearing a hoodie had nothing to do with the fact that he was murdered. He was murdered because blacks and particularly male males are ontologically frightening to members of dominant culture. I am not a psychologist nor do I play one on TV, however it should be obvious that the roots of racism are deep subtle and consistently result in either right up in your face violence or soul killing instances of aversive acts in the lives of most folks of color on a daily basis.
I am not even going to attempt to tease out the differences between black on black violence and racially based acts of aggression against people of color, of language of national origin. It all flows from the stream of subordination and oppression that is as American as apple pie and hot dogs on the fourth of July.
I will in later posts try to give more substantial space to thinking about black on black crime, the so-called justice system and why it is that there were always far more black guys in almost any US cell block than in all the undergrad classes I ever taught.
But here is a day/night dream for you...imagine that the energies and peoples of the current movement toward justice for Trayvon Martin, the outrage and the humor(loving the "snatchels" movement direct and whimsical at same time!) The powerful witness of the women of Texas, directed toward a group of men in positions of power who are trying to control women's bodies, the many Occupy communities all come together and form a powerful coalition with the working poor and dispossessed oh what an amazing day that would be! I have a dream children...I have a dream!
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