I have seen a land right merry with the sun, where children sing, and rolling hills lie like passioned women wanton with harvest. -W.E.B. DuBois
Finally got around to it, dear worst-reader. You know, that list of authors you’ve been meaning to read but somehow never get to. The thing is, if I get caught on one author that blows me a way I’m preoccupied with him (or her) for a while. And as we all know, worst-writer ain’t the fastest or the bestest reader.
The short-list of authors I’ve been waiting to get to regarding the subject of my beloved America’s downfall is Cornel West and W.E.B. DuBois. Well, last week, while searching around I came across a free version of “The Souls of Black Folk”. As soon as I finished the second page, I was hooked. Wow can this guy write! Who’d ever guess that in order for one to learn something about a part of America that is truly the most f’d up part (slavery!) some guy would come along and write about it (a hundred years go) with such beauty and elegance that sometimes you have to pinch yourself to remember you’re not reading Shakespeare.
One of the reasons I felt I should (finally) read DuBois (and Cornel West) is because I think one should try and understand the origin of his or her exploitation. I mean, when you’re practically exploited because you’re begging for it, lusting for it, needing it, shouldn’t you at least understand it? With that in mind, here’s one of the most motivating things I’ve ever heard:
“America has been niggarised since nine-eleven. When you’re niggarised you’re unsafe, unprotected, subject to random violence, hated for who you are and you become so scared that you defer to the powers that be and consent to your own domination.” -Cornel West
Now that America has lost its way and has become #Americant, is it too much to ask to be taught something about what’s going on? I mean, obviously, considering the state of THE MEDIA in a place that has chosen as a surname THE HOMELAND, where should this knowledge come from? Ok. A good start would be Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. But the problem with Orwell is that he ain’t #Americant–even though that book totally fits the bill at this point in history. Ok. How ’bout Gore Vidal? There’s also Howard Zinn if you need a quickie History-101 course. On the entertainment side, you know, to both busy and sooth the mind, give the likes of Henry Miller a read. He’ll teach you something about #Americant, for sure. Also, Miller’s smut never hurts if you need to better enter into your lover. And on that note, I digress.
“The South ought to be lead, by candid and honest criticism, to assert her better self and to do her full duty to the race she has cruelly wronged and is still wronging.” -W.E.B. DuBois
Obviously something is eerily awry in my beloved & missed United Mistakes and one book ain’t gonna explain it all to me. Then again, considering THE MEDIA, especially the likes of faux-newz and the convoluted messages from the #MeToo movement and the #BlackLivesMatter movement, where the hell is any knowledge gonna come from? Wait. Is there knowledge in hysteria?
How the fcuk do I know?
Perhaps trying to grasp the pain of others, especially a pain that runs so deep and through so many generations of African Americans, as slavery does, is worth the slight effort of reading Mr. DeBois. At the least you’re given the written word in its highest form.
-Rant on
T
worstwriter 