|
Reading
Charles Silberman’s Crisis in Black
and White after its publication the prior year, Martin Luther King
scribbled a long note in the margins of his personal copy: ‘The South
deluded
itself with the illusion that the Negro was happy in his place; the
North
deluded itself with the illusion that it had freed the Negro. The
Emancipation
Proclamation freed the slave, a legal entity, but it failed to free the
Negro,
a person.’ In every aspect and almost every demographic, how American
society
digested and processed the long, dark chapter between the end of the
Civil War
and the beginning of the civil rights movement has been delusion.
-Douglas
A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name
A delusional mindset is no accident.Douglas
A. Blackmon adds that when he began his quest to find Green Cottenham,
he
discovered “an unsettling truth” that all white Americans, including
himself,
are “marked by.” “Whether a company or an individual, we are marred
either by
our connections to the specific crimes and injuries of our fathers and
their
fathers. Or we are tainted by the failures of our fathers to fulfill
our
national credos when their courage was most needed.” It is, he writes,
“undeniably our inheritance.”
And the “inheritance” is
global!
Poverty
kept a percentage of freed Blacks on the plantation after the signing
of the
Emancipation Proclaimed. Convict leasing assured the continued
servitude of
Blacks and helped establish “industrial slavery.” The privilege of
being a
plantation owner, a company, or a Sheriff, a lawyer or a judge, the 1%
of this
profitable scheme to re-enslave Black Americans, bought “justice” and
“freedom”
for white America. Criminalize Black life and the business of
maintaining
racial segregation codes has gone global. Blacks still work in the
labor camps,
on the cotton fields, in the mines, and in the iron furnaces, and the United States
is on its way to Empire building.
The
“medieval water torture technique,” known as waterboarding, and
floggings kept
the forced laborers in place, along with the gun and rifle. The former
is
preferable for use in foreign lands today. The gun and the rifle,
particularly
in the hands of law enforcement today is still an option. The company
store did
the rest until it became more efficient at the profitable business of
enslavement.
Everyone
wants to do business with the company store today. Many work for the
company
store and they are all not Black, Brown, Red, or Yellow. The
globalization of
the company store is no surprise to those who learn from history. Only
the
enslaved believe it is a sign of progress, invincible.
Only the enslaved believe it is a sign of progress, invincible.
At
the core of any “good” American enterprise is the repression of Black,
Red,
Brown, and Yellow people. But such enterprises rarely have remained
restricted
- racially. The “inheritance” has come to haunt American citizens. And
we
cannot continue to say - let’s forget
that past! Companies like Walmart have not. CEOs and their
research
personnel and managers are the learned men and women of our time, the
truly
“educated” in what matters here in the United States. “’Education
would
spoil a good plow hand,’” a state legislature once said (Slavery
by Another Name). Why not expand on a good idea! And, no, “freedom”
is a profitable idea for these most honored entrepreneurs.
But
Americans want things rather than freedom. Ownership and possession of
things
and people is freedom!
So
the Walton family gets what it wants. Who can blame the family? This is
America.
Even
the workers at Walmart, earning on average $12,000 a year, would agree.
Yes,
this is America!
Play the lottery with merge earning in
hopes of winning and joining the truly free! Play the lottery,
collect food
stamps, stand in the food pantry lines, shop at the company store after
hours,
and one day have the chauffeur, the house maid, the nanny, and the
mansion
filled to the brim with the latest from Macy’s and DeBeers, Sony and
the very
quaint and exclusive shops. Those enslaved at some of the biggest
company
stores sell the idea in tailored clothes and meticulously styled hair
with white
teeth and zeal as they announce: Walmart
is celebrating a victory! Black Friday was a success!
How
many hours, dedicated to the acquisition of a corporate worldview and
corporate
productions, did “reporters” and “announcers” interview shoppers in
long lines,
followed by listing the companies most “successful” at attracting the
shoppers
and profits?
America,
the land where, when Walmart workers, brave and courageous, announce a
strike
for Black Friday, a strike for living wages and benefits, a strike for
respect,
other Walmart employees and fellow workers on other corporate
plantations,
enslaved labors all, merrily or resigned to their fate, proceed to work
and
shop at Walmart on Black Friday, November 23, 2012. So Walmart could
announce
before and certainly after - see! we made
out like bandits!
Oh,
America!
Home of the Free!
How
much more profitable to criminalize the masses of the 99%? The 99%’s
crime: They are simply NOT us! Or who would labor
to amass the resources of the Earth and wealth for us! The 99% want to
take
away OUR freedom!
Transition
the workers from family farmers and craft shops, from auto and
specialized
manufacturing plants, from ma and pa store fronts and educational
institutions
to glamorized forced labor camps and chains of stores on miles of
artificial
landscaping. The lucky Americans - Walmart’s happy campers - workers
and
shoppers all – enslaved, forced to the ingenious and America
idea of “freedom,” while escaping by the exceptional privilege of being
an
AMERICAN, escaping an even worse fate in the sweatshops of Bangladesh or phone call centers in India.
There, workers
are forced to internalize “Happiness” Made in the USA!
And
Americans know freedom when they see it! They vote, never failing to
enter the
voting booth to pick the lesser of two evils!
Criminalize Black life and the business of maintaining racial segregation codes has gone global.
It
is no accident that disregarding one’s own interests to procure favors,
status,
and a place in the sun with the multinational corporations, on the one
hand,
and indifferent to the plight of fellow workers on the other is THE
norm. For
workers to call a strike for fair wages is nearly akin to terrorism!
These are not fun-loving
people!
These are not people
content with
LIFE!
These are not people,
humans - but
those who want to set off explosions through the “economy” and do harm
to the
nation!
Denounce these
“radicals,” these
“troublemakers,” these ungrateful! Put the fear of God in them! Fire
them! Let
them experience 1929! Foreclosures, food pantry lines, Emergency rooms,
isolation! Lynch them! Waterboard them!
These strikers do not
know how to
handle FREEDOM! (And no “foreigners” will come and take the “freedoms”
we
have!)
When we hit the lottery
and are able
to break loose from our chains, we’ll teach them a thing or two, too!
When it’s
own turn!
This,
too, is the 99%, tamed, reliable because they are marked by their
inheritance
of “innocence”/ignorance of this United States’ history of
injustice! No, a delusional mindset is no accident! How else could the
1%
proceed to spread injustice globally - and yet be welcomed by the
masses it
enslaves!
Black
Friday succeeds for Walmart and its fellow corporate brothers. Convict
leasing
continues!
BlackCommentator.com Editorial
Board member and Columnist, Lenore Jean Daniels, PhD, has a Doctorate
in Modern
American Literature/Cultural Theory. Click here to contact Dr.
Daniels.
|
