Black History Month
Created | Updated Feb 4, 2012
February is Black History Month.
Where, every year we learn a little bit more
about colonial policies of slave ownership
in the early days of America and the struggle
by African Americans since Lincoln's Emancipation
Act to assimilate into the culture, society and
economy of the United States.
We know we have black Americans to thank for peanuts
and for traffic lights and jazz and rock and roll. We will
continue to learn more about the Civil Rights Movement.
We admire Sydney Pottier, Bill Cosby and Samuel L Jackson
and we are very careful not to use the word black or refer
to things that are described as black despite these terms
being in the English language, many since the Dark Ages.
Some say there was a Black Maria, a former slave woman,
later a police officer in Boston who drove the departmental
'Paddy Wagon'. But this is disputed by many in the UK
who call a hearse a Black Maria from an earlier date.
The point is that there are many other references about
which we are often wrongly defensive, such as black humour
and blackmail. These concepts have nothing to do with the
dark sinned races and everything to do with the nature of
blackness itself.
Among others are the black death, the black knight and the
black prince. We should also add black thoughts, black moods,
black cats, blackguards and black widow spiders.
But I am most concerned for black magic. The phrase has
been unduly suppressed for decades. It used to be famously
celebrated in a song.
<magic> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc3keLhZ1yI
Black Magic is not voodoo. It existed long before we ever
heard of voodoo or hootoo. It is not voodoo but then it is not
unlike voodoo in its area of operation, being on the mysterious
side of reason and rationale and more inclined to the unknown,
including ghosts and the harnessing of spiritual energies.
Black magic must be preserved. But first it must rid itself
of the stigma of voodoo and its poisons and resurrections.
As well, BM must distance itself from any identification with
black people who might be offended by the term.
To do so begins with understanding the irony of embracing an
idea so simplistic and dualistic as white hat = good guys and
black hats = bad guys.
<sheep><blacksheep>
Nothing is that simple.
<book>
~jwf~
Where, every year we learn a little bit more
about colonial policies of slave ownership
in the early days of America and the struggle
by African Americans since Lincoln's Emancipation
Act to assimilate into the culture, society and
economy of the United States.
We know we have black Americans to thank for peanuts
and for traffic lights and jazz and rock and roll. We will
continue to learn more about the Civil Rights Movement.
We admire Sydney Pottier, Bill Cosby and Samuel L Jackson
and we are very careful not to use the word black or refer
to things that are described as black despite these terms
being in the English language, many since the Dark Ages.
Some say there was a Black Maria, a former slave woman,
later a police officer in Boston who drove the departmental
'Paddy Wagon'. But this is disputed by many in the UK
who call a hearse a Black Maria from an earlier date.
The point is that there are many other references about
which we are often wrongly defensive, such as black humour
and blackmail. These concepts have nothing to do with the
dark sinned races and everything to do with the nature of
blackness itself.
Among others are the black death, the black knight and the
black prince. We should also add black thoughts, black moods,
black cats, blackguards and black widow spiders.
But I am most concerned for black magic. The phrase has
been unduly suppressed for decades. It used to be famously
celebrated in a song.
<magic> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc3keLhZ1yI
Black Magic is not voodoo. It existed long before we ever
heard of voodoo or hootoo. It is not voodoo but then it is not
unlike voodoo in its area of operation, being on the mysterious
side of reason and rationale and more inclined to the unknown,
including ghosts and the harnessing of spiritual energies.
Black magic must be preserved. But first it must rid itself
of the stigma of voodoo and its poisons and resurrections.
As well, BM must distance itself from any identification with
black people who might be offended by the term.
To do so begins with understanding the irony of embracing an
idea so simplistic and dualistic as white hat = good guys and
black hats = bad guys.
<sheep><blacksheep>
Nothing is that simple.
<book>
~jwf~
