Saturday, February 19, 2011

Cotton

It must be hard to lead this country with the House Senate and Congress and the various States all careening to bankruptcy and then mix in the Arab world issues and it cannot be easy. That Planned Parenthood is under attack by the conservative pro-lifers is a shame and then I think well Oprah could write a check and fix that. Poor rich Oprah she is the solution for so much and yet she hasn’t done enough for diversity in media if you ask me, yes she has done plenty for Oprah in the media but that is another conversation. I can’t help but ponder the irony that in America its root wealth came from slaves, African Slaves. Cotton built America and today most cities country wide have wiped away the memory of the slave trade. I think we should be reminded of it everywhere like we are whip lashed over the Holocaust. It isn’t lost on me that our first African American president is cozy with the rich elite in this country and that he is trying to meld the two sides into one big happy family. That he is struggling to find his way in a huge dung pile left by the devils of war the profiteers of all things toxic. I mean the triad of Bush, Cheney and Crummy Rummy. It is ironic that slaves picking cotton and servicing America made it what we have today and yet there are not statues in Time square or on Wall Street of men and women and children who died for this country by being tortured bought and sold or murdered in America. It’s crazy but it’s something, a glaring gap…Oh I know we should move on from that and people of “color” would say the same maybe. I find it ironic that our fresh great hope of a president is pandering to the very same forces that enslaved his ancestors’ I suppose like Oprah it’s really about his image and likeness and Obama-ness and less about the greater good like get out of Afghanistan please, and like Oprah it’s a shame really.

5 comments:

Diane said...

Slavery is a ugly stain apart of American History white Americans ignores. Ignore....our black faces in a reminder of the dark cloud that shames their History. It's our History that is a reminder of what was, and the struggles are people have went through to give our lives a little comfort. Rae Dawn, I think we should celebrate black history every month of the year. We have amazing contributors within our culture. Being reduced to one month out of a your is just like not being able to read, set in the back of the bus, or look a white person in the eye. When black celebrities or politicians stay "I feel like an American for the first time'. To me it means for the first time white Americans are treating them like Americans. The movie Soul Man was a socially moving funny film, that tried to address that issue out of a white mans eyes... but some people did not get it.

Unknown said...

Wow what a response...I am floored and I appreciate the point of view Thank you!

Diane said...

Thank you Rae Dawn, As crazy as it may sound, I confessed to a friend last year that I was born a slave in 1969 and I freed myself a few years ago. I use to wear and a drag shackle around most of life, convinced by other wasn’t going to be successful. This goes back to my childhood from the constant reminded or the color of my skin and the limitations that comes along with it. Psychologically I had had no value in myself…. I don’t know if I read this quote somewhere, but I said to myself. We as people of color should be a positive opposite instead of a negative expected. We need to rise, left are heads, and quit bringing each other down. I rather fail trying than not to try at all.

glt said...

I think, RD, that there's a loop of you slapping Oprah on youtube. I posted it once on FB. It's very symbolic of yer free progressive emotions and her uptight fear of change and growth and immediate union of all humanity.

Unknown said...

Yeah...I pick on Oprah because she is a rather large target. Not sure if it were me in her position I would have done any better. When the emotion and heat of huge success envelopes us it is hard to stay on course. I give her that. Only it has been 25 years and SURPRISE we are still being O'd as if she secretly feels we will forget her. She owns a network do something new with it? Hire folks of color, but and share stories that are relevant and diverse, share what we know to be our experiences...gawd!

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