Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Saturday, January 26, 2019
CLIMATE CHANGE IN BLACK MEN
CLIMATE CHANGE IN BLACK MEN
Concentrated light directed at a specific target is very powerful. Concentrated wind, water, lava, earth tremors, are no less powerful.
Concentrated laws, prejudices, are comparable to natural forces when they are directed at special people; all people of a certain color creed and/or condition are used to enrich all other non-proscribed citizens , who are protected by law, prejudice and the military power of the state.
The proscribed people enrich the non-proscribed persons by paying higher prices, taxes, receiving lower wages, salaries, rewards, than their counterparts ; by losing lands, properties, legacies, credits, accounts, and by being penalized , imprisoned, lynched, or executed as disposable excrescences of life.
By now, the latter category has surely been recognized as racism which has been visited upon the black people by the white people of the United States of America. This mishmash worked well by reason of the reward retribution dichotomy .
That is, as long as "white" people played their parts and the blacks theirs, all would be well; but when either behaved irregularly, veering, deviating, condign rewards would be withdrawn, retribution inserted.
Inevitably, however, mountains do crumble. Trees do crash to earth. Deserts overtake lush savannas. Magnetic poles shift even flip! In short, there is a changing of the guard in climatologies, so too man.
Climate change is generally viewed through the perspective of earth being victimized by modern man. Less frequently is climate change viewed behaviorally, as Zeitgeist , or "spirit of the times" in society.
I for one feel behavioral change in man is modulated by self concept. Pervasive self concepts like music beats, dances, language, fashion, all play a subliminal part in change.
Each accretes until critical mass is reached. Then ineffable influences "swing low" like a "sweet chariot, coming forth to carry me home;" then, after we "lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmonies of liberty," some "inner city blues" recalls the question lamented earlier about the "strange fruit ... a strange and bitter crop." So, in succession an oppressed resistance beckons the paranormal, spiritual, behavioral, powers, forces, influences to aid as with the progression from boogie woogie, bebop, jazz, blues, spiritual songs that incant change.
Rap music, hip hop, is paradigmatic as well. Its concentrated rhythms and rhymes are as comfortable in this era of change as the forbears.
It is year 2019 so 400 years later of Genesis 15:12-15 is here right now!