The Help: Jim Crow Rules Were Black Folks Blues

American Version: Birds on a Wire

Overseas Version: Still birds on a wire

Forgive the title of this post but if they can reduce our history during that time period to simply two words then surely my 7 won't be considered too dismissive, right?!  To all the white people involved in the making of this book and the movie: You all never seem to disappoint us poor and hapless black people with the level of your prolific ignorance in the constant telling of black people's stories in a completely unrealistic and insensitive manner.   But then, you wouldn't be you if you did, now would you? As evidenced by these covers American white people are just so deceitful considerate of black people's sensibility.


The shallow white lens strikes again and continues to plague the telling of black stories on film and in print by irresponsibly (as usual) lessening white people's negative impact on black lives in America.  White people continue to be cowards in acknowledging that truth with the respect that it deserves. White people want to preserve a redacted history in order to preserve a false sense of good will and superiority.  But they are not alone in this because black people don't want to acknowledge and accept the truth of our negative assault by them either.  Black people that allow this kind of garbage to be seen as harmless entertainment are motivated out of shame and a fear of truly accepting having been abused under that false good will and superiority.  Those black people believe that to do otherwise means that we believe that we were less than white people rather than the fact that we were treated inexcusably as less than by white people.

Negating Black: A Horrible Legacy

Of all the things to choose to pass down to future generations...

"Beautiful Girl" Photo Courtesy of Google

Black American's have a very indifferent relationship and history with this day of celebration. Most of my youth is filled with memories of meeting up at my grandmother's house to do the standard BBQ family affair.  Not once do I ever remember anyone ever discussing the fact that we were "celebrating" a day that at it's inception didn't actually include us.  Our history here seems to have always been intertwined with the notion that we should always participate in all things considered "American" regardless of whether it willingly or even favorably represented or included us in a seemingly futile attempt to prove that we are true/real Americans.

No wonder there are so many Black people in the news these days making a choice to lessen or completely disavow the fact that they (like a lot of the African Diaspora around the world) are descended from Africans that were enslaved in this independent America by Europeans. Enslavement isn't the only history that Black Americans can embrace from our African ancestral culture. Most Black African descendants today are from many different cultures around the world. The unfortunate thing that connects us all is the fact that in all of our varied locations-- the African culture is the one that is selected to be diminished for those that embrace a shame that rightfully belongs to a European ancestry.

America is the land of opportunity, uncertainty and contradiction. Black people have been universally relegated to feeling ashamed for being victimized and then expected to appreciate and pledge allegiance to their oppressors creations without question.

The subliminal and overt expectations for Black people to devalue and disassociate ourselves from our ancestors likeness and heritage in our mangled American struggle for true independence in order to fit into a whitened society is used to keep us off balance and on the defensive. It is not necessary to disassociate and it is actually imperative that we don't if we are truly to participate in this independence that we have been "celebrating" for so many years.