I was one of two blacks admitted into the doctoral program to begin in September of 1991. The other, another black woman, hailed from a middle-class background, when being from that class still meant something. Today, most of us are in the "struggling" class.
I have always been in the struggling class. My family were all members of the working class, including a beef boner, my father, a sheriff of police, an uncle next door to us, a lawyer then (now judge) cousin, and an assortment of military vets, nurses, teachers. Even an FBI agent (died in his sixties from cancer this February). I was told by an employment counselor that the staff wasn't to take up much time with me, a woman in her forties, who had taught part-time for ten years at the City Colleges of Chicago, and who worked as a journalist, a published journalist for a few years before that, I, nevertheless, was "too far down to help", according to their boss. Fueled by one imaginative scenario, I had been a poor little black child, raised at one of Chicago's public housing sites.
Take a black out, someone who might show up white supremacy. In our midst...
I was a member of Operation Breadbasket's Youth Division in Chicago in 1969. I didn't think much of the "American Dream" even then. I did, however, think in terms of social justice. Starving children shouldn't be a thing. Neither should there be homeless children. We shouldn't know of an Emmett Till or Tamir Rice.
The narrative surrounding my "origins" persisted for years, long after I managed to secure employment, again, at a university. I remember staying two weeks in the home of a black co-faculty member from a local Wisconsin university. One Saturday, I remember her asking if I "scrubbed" my hair. Used my fingernails, that is, to scrub my hair. I had dreads, but, with or without dreads, I've scrubbed my hair while washing it. What they didn't know, and I suppose, wouldn't believe is that I grew up with an aunt who owned her own beauty shop, and I could be found there every other Saturday in a chair. Getting my hair washed, scrubbed and "pressed"!
But it was the look that passed between her and a grown daughter who also was a university professor that reminded me of that untrue, yet painful narrative from almost ten years before.
The two black women were in communication still with the old narrative created by powerful white men, a narrative in which was offered to explain me as someone not to imitate, as I was an "old militant". Insane ! The two never questioned the narrative they were sold--at my expense.
Someone with heart would have thought that if the narrative is true, then this is the person most in need of help. But no. Like those who signed up to join the Nazi party: moving toward Hitler in Germany aligns one with hundreds of years of prohibiting others from being free in the US.
Cruelty is rewarded, so white supremacy survives.
In 1961, a group of black reporters working for the Baltimore Afro - American, wrote an article entitled, "One Way to Get in a Mental Hospital". It might seem a joke today, but not really. They were referring to the penchant for this society to institutionalize uncomfortable truths represented by the presence of African Americans, those once enslaved and then freed. It was easier to confront black protest to injustice by either incarcerating or institutionalizing black people. The reporters claimed too that this practice of institutionalizing outspoken blacks made it possible to "explain" how this pursuit of freedom is not only old fashion but is also "insane" in order to "discredit" the protesters.
It's insane to protest the unjust treatment of certain segments of the population deemed "unworthy"? What then is sanity?
What do you call it, then, when bombs and drones detonate, destroy schools and hospitals where mothers hide out, with children, seriously wounded? What do you call it when the homes and wells are reduced to rumble? What water is available is contaminated. Unhealthy. What is this kind of cruelty that is honored by the Israeli leadership and supported by US leaders, adopting the fascist way of thinking that non-whites are superior? What is this brand of cruelty that encourages the taking of over 1300 Palestinian children? They must resemble to these fascist Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin, the children left behind in detention camps along the US southern border once they were ripped from the arms of their mothers and fathers.
And when Benjamin Netanyahu declares that he must--he must--kill all the Hamas terrorists... He must get to those terrorists... And he sees them in tunnels under schools and hospitals. He sees them in the person of doctors and journalists... So he must, must, make Israel safe from Hamas, do we not see Bull Connors or George Wallace? Even Truman decided that the world must be made safe for his idea of democracy (during Jim Crow), gave the order to detonate Little Boy over Hiroshima and Fat Boy over Nagasaki, do we see a resemblance of something rising up again and spreading to contaminate the hearts and minds of young white children?
And the Palestinian children, over 1300 of them, are no a no-win situation when 2,000-pound bombs reach their street or hiding place. In their last moments alive, when they see a fighter jet pass over their heads or hear its thunder from their hiding place, do you think they remember America, the home of the brave and free? The jets and bombs originate from US docks to arrive in Israel even while Israel won't allow humanitarian aids to reach starving children. Think this is all sane?
On April 2, 2024, those Made-in-the-US bombs struck three World Central Kitchen trucks, clearly marked trucks. According to WCK, the IDF was notified of the nonprofit organization's movements, their effort to feed starving Palestinians. On that day, the 7 dead volunteers had worked with others to unload 100 tons of food on the Rafah border. The were hit in Deir Al-Balah. The workers escaped on hit vehicle and then, running to another, survived that hit but couldn't escape the bomb that hit the third truck.
While these volunteers were helping unload 100 tons of food for Gazans, the US was shipping billions of dollars' worth of bombs, according to Reuters, to Israel. The package consisted of 1,800-pound bombs, 2000-pound bombs and 500-pound bombs, according to the Washington Post. Jose Andres considers the attack on these humanitarian works, seven of over 196 humanitarian workers killed, as a continuing effort on the part of Israel to "deliberately" target these workers.
Those who work to secure corporate contracts to build more bombs to send to the undemocratic leadership in Israel aren't so valued, are they? Their existence in the world is an annoyance, isn't it, to those determined to see a fascist world thrive.
Is there something sane here?
In 2002, to step away from the white supremacy agenda of the universities in the US, I applied for and received a fellowship to teach English composition and literature, as a volunteer, in Africa for IFESH, a nonprofit organization founded by Rev. Leon Sullivan. By the time I was accepted, the black organization had corporate "owners", and USAID paid our stipends. But I was leaving the burning house, on the way to see Africa, Ethiopia, specifically. The birthplace of humanity.
There was conflict in Central Ethiopia, among the people themselves. One of the issues, involved skin color. The inhabitants of Central Ethiopia, among the descendants of the first humans on the planet, were very dark-skinned while in the surrounding areas skin tone was lighter, that is, brown in color. Better, if one bought into the philosophy of white supremacy.
The eastern border of Ethiopia, where I taught at Haramaya University, Somalians easily came across and merged with local residents. Only a few years later will Somalia become an interest to the US and negotiations begin to ship US weapons to a dictator PM in Ethiopia to fight a proxy war for capitalists.
In the meantime, American diplomats, smartly dressed, rode in equally smart cars down Bole Avenue in Ethiopia, passing the sick, suffering, dying, on the way to important meetings--and I wondered then if these meetings, held among mainly professional whites and upper-class Ethiopians (those for whom rocking the boat would be totally insane!) had anything to do with the starving of children left to care for themselves on the other Ethiopian streets?
And here I am now, many years later, and little has changed. Over 33,000 dead in Gaza. Many have been decomposing in the rubble for weeks. I watch the news and witness fleeing mothers and fathers. Little children covered in blood. No food or water in sight...
But Netanyahu's military must reach Rafah. The military must root out the terrorists. They must continue the slaughter. More Palestinians must be eliminated!
And this is sane?
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