WHY CAN”T “THEY” PULL THEMSELVES
UP WITH THEIR OWN BOOTSTRAPS
ridicule/scorn/superiority/mockery/condescension
commentary.
I would explode.
My response to this arrogant narrow-minded
clueless hermetic world view:
How can you expect for a nation of people who were
kidnapped, bound, families shattered,
every individual stripped
of their
humanity and dignity
and
sold as a commodity, free labor- slaves,
pummeled, broken
into
submission,
seen as animals/children,
by
torture,
brutality,
rape,
by another human being
be expected by
the dominant white male culture,
with all the unconscious privileges bestowed,
to fulfill
the
“privileged white male dominate culture”
notion
of success.
Note: an expectation to “serve” !
X
No responsibility for the consequences
of breaking the spine of another human being.
No responsibility of the deep scars of betrayal,
trust of man’s inhumanity to man.
No understanding that once free individuals
are made invisible,
used, owned, boxed, labeled, brutalized
generation after generation
from their homeland
where they were the strongest
and, perhaps,
the kings, the queens,
their template of success, empowerment, the right to tell the truth
was
shredded and stolen and severed.
X
Why was I they only one at my family dinner table to explode?
X
I lived a life that was knowledgeable of the loss of humanity.
X
Do not see me as a white person,
a white woman ,
with a set of your consigned assumptions.
Because it would be false, lazy, superficial and a lie.
You do not know me.
X
I would explode.
X
FREEDOM
X
WHY IS
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
ONCE
A YEAR?
A month long dedicated to a people underscores what?
Telling the truth is a celebration of setting oneself free.
LISTENING TO THE TRUTH IS THE CELEBRATION.
Call and Response.
X
To NOT need a
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
would be a benchmark of equality.
A transcendence, a transformation- out of a box.
X
We the people…..
x
My blood is red.
My heart beats.
I cry.
I laugh.
I love.
I hurt.
I hope.
I dream.
My heart has been broken.
I have been loved.
I sing.
I dance.
I desire.
I have five senses.
I breathe.
x
“It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself
by his own bootstraps,
but it is cruel jest
to say to a bootless man
that
he ought to lift himself
by his own bootstraps.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
X
HUMANITY PORTFOLIO: WHITEWASH Catherine L. Johnson 2013
HUMANITY PORTFOLIO: FRESHDRIEDBLOODIAMHUMAN Catherine L. Johnson 2013
HUMANITY PORTFOLIO: WHATCOLOROFSKINDOYOUWEAR Catherine L. Johnson 2013
HUMANITY PORTFOLIO: EXODUSIAIN’TGOINGBACKFREE Catherine L. Johnson 2013
CATHERINE L. JOHNSON 