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OpEdNews Op Eds    H4'ed 8/2/20

From the Congo to the US: The Many Hands and Black Bodies Sacrificed to the Monuments of White Supremacy

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Message Dr. Lenore Daniels

But I've been getting in 'good trouble,' necessary trouble ever since.

John Lewis

"Wizards well versed in treachery and black magic came from the south and forced the people from the land."

These wizards are indeed superior in their cunning. They know how to chew gum and walk at the same time. So while capturing the minds and hearts of grandmothers, the warriors push through the land, chasing people away as they further their progression.

And then, with land and resources in tow, the wizards decide to enslave the displaced.

"The white wizards had no use for women and children." So many, forced to abandon their farms, begin walking. And walking. The grandmother is one of the women and her young son is by her side. There are rumors about "holy" wizards. The grandmother is in search of saviors.

So begins the family legend so entangled with the wizards.

Unfortunately, the grandmother didn't understand how it was a lie in order to command her submission and that of her son and that of her grandchildren to the white wizards.

The grandmother's story is an old one. It's the legend of a rising son.

The son, then nine years old, is educated "in their wizardry," after the grandmother begged and begged, the wizards accepted "him for life in their world."

Please! And then the magic: the grandmother is captivated by the "holy" wizards. She sees the wizards in her son. She sees the wizards when he's able to enjoy prosperity and respect from the people who are without. She sees in her son instead of light, darkness. His daughter certainly did when, after struggling to reach him, attempts suicide. She began to see in herself, her father's darkness and wanted to exterminate it.

And so the wizards, the "holy" wizards, that is, supplanted the "conquerors" ones wherever they could and the people sought comfort from the conquerors with the "holy" ones. In grandmother's story, t he suffering isn't minimized, no. But the "message was clear: endure and obey. For there is no other way."

Luckily for the young female narrator of Nervous Conditions the wizards, the "holy" wizards, aren't so opaque. Or so different from the "conquerors," their kin in kind.

Grandmother's story, no more than any other Western "romantic story," is as violent as the conquerors, for how could the generations of conquerors have achieved so much without a narrative? The granddaughter doesn't buy it! Sometimes that happens too!

Was the grandmother lying?


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Activist, writer, American Modern Literature, Cultural Theory, PhD.

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