A Voice With No Sound

December 7, 2014.Reading time 2 minutes.

I have been unable to watch the video of Eric Garner’s death for three reasons:

First, I am exceedingly sensitive to such graphic images and when possible, I actually avoid television and any video based news for the internal downward emotional spiral it creates in me. I read almost everything I learn about the world…or I talk to people….or I’m there in person.

Secod, the end of life, no matter how brutal, is sacred. It does not deserve to “go viral” without honoring the very real passing of life. We should not be able to look at an image like the one of Eric Garner or the image above of a man being lynched without first praying or in some way honoring that a real live person was publicly killed. They both have names, and families, yet too quickly, we make them into historical and sensational “media.”

Third, and most importantly, it conjures up an image that I can’t help but see in a historical context. It is an image that will live alongside images of white police beating black men in the 1960’s; It is an image that will live alongside the countless images of black bodies hanging from trees; It is an image that will live along side the picture of timid ignorant slaves being emancipated by the beneficent godlike white man; it is an image that brings to mind the careless and vicious rape of countless black and brown women for white men’s entertainment; it is an image that shows me what it must have looked like when white men captured slaves in Africa; it is an image that shows me exactly what the lives of blacks and all people of color in America has been under white domination:

A conflict with an unjustified beginning.
A battle that is public yet no one will defend.
An image that confounds reality and conscience.
A struggle where death is too often the end.
A voice with no sound.

Rest in Peace Eric Garner and God help us all.

Too Little Too Late

July 18, 2013.Reading time 2 minutes.

I chose this morning’s word because I was reflecting on things that are unique in the American struggle with race. In that reflection I realized that part of what has registered for black Americans with the Zimmerman trial and verdict is a throwback to lynching. The US government sat on its hands for 100 years while thousands of blacks were murdered by groups of white vigilantes. Blacks were held on trumped up charges and then casually turned over by local enforcement officials to angry mobs who hung, burned, castrated and mutilated blacks as a public display and a threat to black communities. The current Federal law on ‘lynching’ is not explicit to the act and is fairly deeply buried in the Civil Rights Act (Housing Rights Act) of 1968. In 2005, the US Senate officially apologized for not enacting anti-lynching legislation when it was most necessary. But by this point, lynching and the mentality that allowed it, was already part of our cultural DNA.

There is no mistaking that shades of the inaction on lynching are evident in the public vindication of a vigilante who decided to tail a 17 year old without provocation…other than his appearance.

Strange Fruit

By Abel Meeropol (Recorded by Billie Holiday)

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south
the bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
scent of magnolia
sweet and fresh
then the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is a fruit
for the crows to pluck
for the rain to gather
for the wind to suck
for the sun to rot
for the tree to drop
Here is a strange
and bitter crop

http://www.americanlynching.com/photos-old.htm

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/245

You can now share your own “un-mugged” shots on my Tumblr page…http://adamdyersays.tumblr.com/

spirituwellness

Tag: Lynching

A Voice With No Sound

Too Little Too Late