II.

I read Roots. I read Beloved. Goddamn it, I read The Autobiography of Frederick Douglas! Doesn’t that make me Black enough? As an African-American we always feel the need to prove that we are enough. I’m smart enough. I’m pretty enough. I’m cool enough. I have worth. My life has value beyond what a bidder would pay for my Great Great Great Grandmother on an auction block. We come from a great line of humans as possessions. Even the quest for freedom is the search for ownership. Can I purchase my own life please? Can my body, mind, and soul actually be mine? Is the cost of liberation now equal to what you paid for my bondage?

Life is hard enough already. Imagine being beaten for disobeying, or deciding to follow my own path. It wasn’t all that long ago. I’m actually not convinced that the slaves were ever freed. I study Lincoln and the Civil War and the Civil Rights era, and somehow all these historical figures just seem like puppets in a show meant to appease the masses. Feed them soma stories to tame their beasts. Make them believe that things have changed because now we have a Black president. But he’s a Magic Negro, and I, a house slave. My brothers on the corner, super brolic and hella ra ra, selling dope, busting caps, and making jack moves are field slaves. They taught me how to read. Let’s see what cute little Phyllis Wheatley will do. She couldn’t possibly start a revolution. We have only taught her double-think. She has no words to express her true feelings. The only language she knows is that of the Oppressor.

The slaves gather and talk of mobilization. They talk of retaliation and insurgencies and injustice, and sometimes with a particularly passionate leader or particularly hysterical followers, an action is made: a march on Washington, a massacre at Harper’s Ferry, an Underground Railroad that leads to so-called freedom. But these rabble-rousers are taken care of, executed, misrepresented in historical accounts, and unreachable to future generations which seek their guidance. This must have been planned. Here Intelligent Design seems the more likely cause than evolution. Systems of oppression do not speciate by way of random mutation and natural selection, do they? Was there a precedent for this? Was there an ancestral form of slavery that continued to change over time, becoming more and more unique in its pathogenicity? How virulent the history of one man owning another man. It makes the recently freed men want to own things: cars, clothes, jewels, women, various status symbols that say nothing except “you’se a nigga.”

My older cousin said, “anyone can max out a card. Bitch you got a $3,000 purse, but do you have $3,000?” The answer is no. We do not have anything of value. We do not own land or property. We do not have control over our own food production. We barely have control over our own minds when we watch television... and I’m still waiting on my 40 acres and a mule.