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17 de Diciembre, 2007

A Legacy of Forgetfulness (The Haunted Land, Pt. III)

Categorized under | Tags: The Haunted Land

Slavery - the institutionalized ownership of one human being by another - is arguably the most disempowering system ever created by humans. It is intended to degrade and humiliate to the point that a person no longer feels agency over his own life. Like other systems of injustice, its effects can run so deep that when the institution is removed, the sense of indignity continues for members of the formerly repressed group until there is an open and comprehensive addressing of past injustices and the pain caused by the systematic abuse. In the last 25 years, in countries recovering from severe oppression, "Truth and Reconciliation Commissions" have been set up to accomplish these tasks. Peru, South Africa, Morocco and East Timor are just a few of the places where TRCs have helped their societies heal and have facilitated reform by acknowledging past wrongs and ensuring that the horrors of history will not be repeated.
Because there has been no significant attempt to deal with the history of slavery in this country, it is as though our collective mind has been asked to exist in a state of cognitive dissonance. There are no national monuments in the US to former slaves, although they exist for almost every other group who has sacrificed for the "vital interests" of the nation. As a country, we prefer to pretend that slavery never happened, or that it existed too long ago to be relevant to our lives today. This historical amnesia comes easier to some than to others, and it may be that those who have the hardest time reconciling some sense of injustice with the legal rights afforded to every American are young black men. They know that they should feel powerful - after all, they are young and living in the "world's greatest democracy." But for many there must also be (what I imagine as) a constant, gnawing sense of indignity whose source may be vague, and which is easily manifested in rage, aggression, and other substitutes for true empowerment. To a young, misguided and righteously indignant person, a gun equals power.

— A Citizen's Reflections on Race, Violence and Power

THE HAUNTED LAND- The U.S.A. is a country that was established by people who exploited, lied to, stole from, enslaved, and murdered many other peoples—and justified solely by the invaders' feelings of superiority dependent upon a social construct known as "race." This invented construct remained the justification for murder and theft and deceptions galore for many years, and still does in many instances. This differentiation began here as a standard of "Whiteness vs. Other, Civilized vs. Savage" and was given teeth by the ideology of Religion.

And so those who came to the continent and perpetrated these crimes on the indigenous of the land used much flowery speech and grand idealistic concept. In this way, they justified terrible and inhumane deeds. America has never truly reckoned with this conflict, and so it continues today. The very same behavior of superiority complexes and greed disguised as glory and actualized through bloodshed continues. The U.S.A. now exports, and still allows, in more sophisticated means, this perversion of humanity to exist within her own boundaries.

Of course, there is a shame and a guilt that must occur, on some level, in sentient, emotional creatures descended and suffering and benefitting from this history and genesis of our current order. As we will not turn and look the monstrosity of this in the face, like a great collective unresolved trauma, it leaps out in strange places and unexpected and disproportionate violence or emotional engagements arise in our social dialogue and interaction over issues of race.

I call this dynamic "the haunted land," for this is a place where ghosts do not rest. And they surprise those who pretend to believe the U.S. contradiction and hypocrisy as presented on TV and in many schoolrooms. Or that MLK jr's dream has been realized. Or that "racism is dead."

—The Glosario

I WAS PLEASED to see Cynthia Boaz's piece talking about the dynamic of past wrongs that are ignored, about the dressing we drape over every piece of wreckage in our wake. We need more voices like hers. To combat the message often communicated to us on many levels (one briefly touched on in a movie I greatly enjoyed last night, called Ratatouille) that says "leave the past behind, look forward" and it is a message straight out of a Western expansionist philosophy. But growing up, bombarded by USian media and so much of the cheapass hifi extreeem and ultragratifying culture that surrounds us, we grow with a feeling (that MUST be truth!) that says "don't look back, don't get hung up in the past, keep on moving, look up!"

And in some cases, this is essential to surviving a moment. Or enjoying one. But in the long arc, there is no direction you can run in where your past does not take steps with you, one for one, right there, all the time. It is not behind you. It is a part of you. And as a nation, all the wrongs that are done in our name or to benefit our nation—from slavery to the slaughter of the Indians (still moving forward with that one) to the oppression of women and SO on—is a part of us. And we must own up to all of it. And make peace and make it right. Or we are as fake and phony as an american flag stitched and sewn up in a land of brown people, imported, priced higher, and ultimately waved by a white supremacist as he claims the glory and superiority of his claim on 'his' nation (or her nation).

Haterz react here and say "Oh, so what do you want, for us to go around bowing to the black man, or giving the Arrogant Mexicans® everything they want?" (Believe me, I've heard this more than once in more than one place.) This always...impresses me. People who see no way to own up to the wrongs done that have benefitted and benefit us all while concurrently hurting many of us unfairly—aside from turning themselves into some simpering, cowering, subservient, fawning fool at the feet of those they fear. I won't go into my ideas of why they choose this extreme (obvious tho they are), because my main point is that I am not proposing (nor is Ms. Boaz, I'd guess) anything so...silly.

I am a male. Do you think I fear turning myself into some groveling idiot at the feet of women just because I admit that I have been programmed, and that I still have much work to do within my mind in seeing and treating them as equals? It's tempting to say "I'm there, I've arrived, good to go!" But it is an ongoing work I make of myself. In many areas. Most of the time, I do my best. I won't accept punishment from anyone on the way, and I won't eat shame. But also, I will not accept the status quo. In this specific example, because the status quo is hurting women, has hurt women in my family, and will hurt mijas, and I can't have that. So I accept that I am both part of the problem and a hope for its solution, if I take part there. I don't think it can happen right away, not even in five years. But I will make progress. And I have made progress. It involves a constant work on my thoughts, it involves studying and reading history and applying it today to my understanding. Reshaping my references, my language, my values. It takes willingness. And courage. And love.

I feel this is what we all must do on many levels, and I make friends with those that live that way (or at least I feel friendly toward them). They are the true future, the true front of "Progressivism." Because there is really only one way forward, if we want to see actual progress. This way must be through open eyes, and with open heart, and with an honest accounting of where we have come from and who we are. Glazing and gloss and veneer are for furniture, and just as the best speechwriter cannot make a putz into a Great President, neither can the richest films and fables and notions change the actual history of our human race.

 The Unapologetic Mexican has been known to scribble a few things besides meandering, verbose, self-congratulatory blog posts. However, they are rarely as fun. Finally, let it be known that Nezua first dared bust out this Habanero of Truth at exactly 7:24 AM.  | Top | View blog reactions

Comentarios (5)

Kai dijo:

Ah, back to The Haunted Land. I think this was the series that first hooked me to your blog, Nez. And this piece is another example of why. This exposition of yours right here is exactly the world I live in, every day, fighting ghostly enemies blurred by society's foggy lenses, back to back with my friends and allies, following the shifting terrain and forever keeping an eye on the glint of sunlight on the horizon. And as you say, some of those ghosts are lodged in our own psyches and it is each of our social responsibilities to work on that.

I've supported the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission here in the US ever since I followed the proceedings in South Africa. That's the central component of the reparations movement, not some huge cash giveaway as some unhinged white folks pretend (wanna see a huge cash giveway? see "corporate-military welfare"). The point is to right some of the wrongs that not only continue to haunt our psyches, but are actively replicated and perpetuated day by day by the holding patterns of our societal institutions.

"Move on!" implore the club-swinging mountain trolls as they attempt to smash you and take your shit. I've never been one to say "Can't we all just get along?" to such people. You don't "move on" from an oncoming attacker, you put them in the ground. You don't "move on" from a mortal wound, you treat it. We'll move on when the ghosts are slain. Those in our society who wish to move on prematurely have chosen to side with evil ghosts; they will meet their fates. In my estimation, those of us who wish to fight the ghosts head on are far better off, because our very struggles help propel our individual and collective spirits up and out of the Haunted Land.

Peace.

Palabras por Kai spat forth on el 18 de Diciembre, 2007 at 07:14 AM

nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez dijo:

yeah, i'm not much of a "cant we all get along" guy in many cases. while i want peace, i also desire truth, and one of the forms truth takes is righteous settling of accounts. you know, you burn an exhausted garden down to prepare the fallow ground for a pure spring.

thank you man.

Palabras por nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez spat forth on el 18 de Diciembre, 2007 at 07:55 AM