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.
Friday, February 7, 2020
FLIM-FLAM
FLIM-FLAM FOLDEROL
Deceit, craftiness, lies, disguise, trickery, comedy, disinformation, deviousness , impersonation and the like are gifts of nature to vulnerable living things.
Animals plants insects birds microbes and mankind employ this secret flim-flam folderol closet of deft things whenever they have discern the need to conceal , evade, flee, surprise , ambush, or to outwit: enemies, prey, sponsors, paramours , parents, spouses, friends , siblings, opponents etc.
Deceit and lies are useful to save life and to take life; to enrich and to maintain the status quo. Flim-flam is as virtuous as forthrightness when it succeeds. Harriet Tubman made frequent use of flim-flam to escape the clutches of slavery and pursuing slave masters’ dogs to help many hundreds more to do so! General Tubman coyly, craftily , cleverly, ingeniously, spiritually divested the masters of flim-flam folderol at their own game with no shame,by stealing away their most valuable property : African slaves !
Everybody everything everywhere makes strategic use of flim-flam folderol —be they weak or strong—-to overcome, to conquer odds.
Reintroducing my African American people to an as-ancient implement in their closet of capabilities is but fair, considering that all others are engaging in film-flam to suppress us mentally, physically, spiritually.
Meet game with a more deft game!
Flim-flam folderol defies the folly of getting caught or killed by being discoverable! —the “redcoats” are coming—Use the flim-flam. Creep creep creep into your closet and emerge as Superman/woman! Emerge as their worst nightmare !
Booker T. Washington was a wizard of flim-flam, using it to educate the lowly left-behind, betrayed freemen of the Reconstruction-era South into the modern industrial world of work and self-reliance, by being as sharp, as perceptive, creative, bold as the were the racists of Alabama New York, Washington, D.C., which worked to re-enslave, to curtail the advances of former slaves by law, by resorting to, by rewarding, by encouraging European emigration.
Flim-flam is not always fraud! It is , can be as frequently an art of war!