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Stepping out of SUMMUMBONUMBOOJUM, by Joe Starck
Last summer I created a word collage and posted it to this list as
"Buzzy Crumhunger's 'Tales with the UNKNOWABLE/JS,' Episode One." There are any number of ways to make collages, with any number of materials, like, with pictures, or with any item that, in and of itself, and with, and in contrast with other things, create myriad meanings. I don't know about the rest of you folks, but I think mostly in pictures, predominately visual, with thought pictorials and thought film ever on. Why that is, I don't know for su nature/nurture. I didn't speak much as a child, but certainly thought lots, and it wasn't until my twenties that I began to add verbal thought to deep, methodic -- actual and representative -- running visuals. Lately, I've been asking people how they think, and it's interesting to find differences and similarities on the range of thought styles, adding more to the verbal/visual spectrum, kinetic, for example. My "Tales" word collage morphed into "Two Bicycles," Five Bicycles," "No Bicycles," and finally to a number of SUMMUMBONUMBOOJUMs, with a cast of characrters in the form of pronouns, common nouns, proper nouns, concrete nouns, and abstract nouns. There is probably no better source of definitions and understanding of all the abstract nouns that lead to and make up one big, bad abstract noun, "hatred," than Willard Gaylin's "Hatred: The Psychological Descent Into Violence." When I was just a kid, I do know that other kids, and probably myself, commonly used "jewed" and "gyped" for the notion of having been "cheated." I don't know about the other kids, and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but I was unaware that I was using terms with origins derisive of religion/culture until about Junior High School('72-'73), when we began to see graphic footage of the atrocities of Nazi Germany. And in elementary school, when another kid showed me how to draw swastikas, I drew them all over my notebook because I thought they were just some cool symbol, oblivious to there symbol of, among other things, anti-semitism. We played King of the Hill in the winter: who could stay on the top of the snow pile longest, and in the summer, we played Smear the Queer: who could outrun all the longest with the football. Grade School, 1966 to 1971. Some years ago, Michael Jackson used the vulgarity, "kike" in one of his songs. I think he said "...kike me..." or "...don't kike me..." or something like that in one of his songs. There was a strong reaction from Jewish leaders, and rightly so. As I recall, one leader protested that the term had been dead and buried for so long and that it was unconscionable to revive it into the public conscious. I had to look it up in the dictionary back then, having never before heard it. I suppose a year doesn't go by that the horrors of the Holocaust aren't aired on television. For me, beginning in earnest in my mid-thirties, and as my years pass, a day doesn't go by that the horrors of the Holocaust aren't played in my mind, and epecially now, post 9/11, post murder of the several thousand innocents on that day, and present killing/murder in Iraq/The Mideast/and around the World every day. Soldiers are trained to kill. And it is my understanding that they, by necessity, are trained to hate the enemy to expedite the killing of the enemy. In Vietnam our enemy was the "gooks." In World War 2 our enemy was the "japs" and the "krauts." Now our enemies that are said to make up "Al Qaida," are mostly Arabs, Muslims for sure, and defined by a number of cultural and racial, derogatory vulgarities. I'll leave it at that. We Americans in the U.S. are defined by our present "Al Qaeda" enemies as the devil, mostly white devils. That's a long way from "cracker;" we're not just someone to put down, but someone to kill, now. Contrast "white devil" with "heeb" or "bitch." I haven't seen a "white devil" magazine, but I do read "Heeb" magazine, and I've seen "Bitch" magazine, and have probably perused it. Where "bitch" has been turned around from a woman who would be characterized as lewd and malicious, to a feminist taking on what ails them, "Heeb" is, a new generation of Jews taking on themselves. I'm not even sure how derogatory "heeb" ever was for a Jew, shortened from Hebrew. What say you? Now, while I had to look up "kike" in the dictionary when I first heard it, and while there are plenty of racial and ethnic slurs for all the kinds of people in the United States of America, no term is as commonly used, historically and presently, as "******," for African-Americans. In literature, in films, in music, it's quite commonly used in a number of ways, for example, as was originally intended, a racial slur aimed at the most historically villified people in America, or, as inward examination from African-American comedians, or, as turned around by rappers in the originally intended's face. In 2001, the Philadelphia Theatre Company produced a play set in 1949, titled "No ******s, No Jews, No Dogs." In 2003 came Randall Kennedy's book, "******: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word." In my "SUMMUMBONUMBOOJUM" that I posted to this list on Labor Day of 2004, I wrote "******" 135 times. And I wonder, would 135 be an average week outta the mouths of those who hate African-Americans? Would 135 be an average outta the mouths of characters outta a season of films outta Hollywood? Would 135 be an average day outta the mouths of African-American rappers? Or even, would 135 be the average, of whatever duration, in the minds of whoever, whereever, whenever, however and whyever? 135. Go back 135 years to 1869 or thereabouts. In 1814 the Dutch abolished slavery. In 1848 the French abolished slavery. In 1869 Portugal abolished slavery. In 1886 Cuba abolished slavey. In 1888 Brazil abolished slavery. It wasn't until 1936 that Northern Nigeria abolished slavery. One could go on around the World, from whence slavery came, from whence slavery ended, but that's another story or two. On the first day of 1863 President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves, albeit requiring the newly freed to immediately fight and die for the land they were slaves on the day before. In 1882, a labor union organized the first Labor Day, a "workingmen's holiday," held in New York City. The holiday grew and expanded to other cities, then to states, and finally, 12 years hence, in 1894, Labor Day became a national holiday. Only one year later, in 1895, was slavery abolished in the United States of America with the 13th amendment to the constitution. Then came the Jim Crow laws, the lynchings, the segregation, the struggle for civil rights, and all the humiliation, pain, oppression, murders and hatred that occured, and there are African-Americans living today who experienced it all first hand, whose children and grandchildren make up the the greater part of African-Americans living today in the U.S.A. It seems to me Labor Day ought to be expanded to Labor History Month, with the work of African-American slaves honored, and the work of all honored, and included, with an emphasis on fairness in the workforce. A great share of work in the trades of carpentry, plumbing, electrical, heating and air conditioning, machining, masonry and others is done by low-wage Mexicans in Southern California. In Wisconsin, the workforce is mostly white, high-wage. Two examples, either way, there are obstacles for African-Americans to be accepted into jobs in these trades. It is an issue for many African-Americans who want in on these jobs, who, like so many whites, aren't college bound, who, like so many whites, want to rise out of minimum wage jobs. I've been a craftsman half my life; I had opportunity; everybody should have opportunity. Now, I suppose one could retort that capitalism is business is free enterprise is competition is nobody ever said life was fair. I'm with that retort up until "nobody ever said life was fair." It seems to me that everybody has said life is fair, or at least, life will be fair. It seems to me that fairness is the ultimate spirit of the three major religions. It seems to me that, in Judaism, God's law to Moses in the form of the Ten Commandments is all about fairness. Ultimately, with Christianity, everthing Jesus said is about fairness. What little I've read of Islam, I've seen the spirit of fairness. Ghandi? Fairness. I believe fairness to be the supreme civilizing precept, forever. Fairness, really, is what's lacking in relations between black and white, between others and others. 135 "******s" I wrote. I suppose I could have just as well alternated "******s" with "wiggers" with "uncle toms." We've got a problem in these here United States with crossover inclusion. Both blacks and whites preaching race-traitor ****. Is that fair to either, for a step from the right to the left, for a step from the left to the right, for a step to white from black, for a step from black to white, in the name of understanding, and ultimately, fairness? If the man on the moon is heralded for "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," surely a man or woman, black or white or other, ON EARTH, should be heralded for the same? So much goodness in the USA and elsewhere can be found with just a step. Me, I have flaws, skeletons, demons, failures, amends to make, and yet, I need apologies too, you know, but I can wait; for no one's done me such harm to the extent that slavery did to African-Americans, to the extent that Nazis did to Jews, to the extent that suicide bombers do to others, to the extent that global, nationalistic, and political maneuvers that come before and after the tragic suicide/murders do. Joe Starck, madison, wi |
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