I had a really hard time with Postcolonial Britain. There were so many pieces that we read in which the value of the indigenous person was unseen. I felt too often the British just marched in and demanded unearned respect and instead of working with the people and learning from them, the individuals were forced to work for their foreign counterparts and done so in ways that the body was left disheveled and abused. I continually see the picture Conrad has painted for me in “A Heart of Darkness,” in which Marlow recognizes there is wrong and yet he does not actively intervene. There are moments when he refuses to administer a beating, yet he never takes a full stance against it. I believe Marlow had a deep understanding for humanity and harbored it internally which is what ultimately led to his distress. Regardless, this highlighted our need to recognize the wrongs that were preformed to acquire land. It showcased the slander and slaughter and lack of morality we so often seem to idolize as achievement for land that we neither earned or deserved (Conrad, 2020).
Then I think of the story of “The Moment Before the Gun Went Off” where the farmer had to bury his son - his son. Yet there was no proclamation for his sorrow because it was shameful to have a black child (Gordimer, n.d.). And I think of how he obtained that child, of how that child was conceived, and I wonder if the mother was raped. If the woman was screaming. If she ever felt like she could say anything and I think about how her child was raised as a slave by his own father. And I feel.. disgust. Sadness. Heartache. Anger. Recoiling bile. So many things. I wonder how this man loved his child so and yet still seemed to love the child less, if only because his treatment was favorable but not truly love. It all hurts and it all echoes so loudly in my ears.
I think of how we continue to come up short of as a society. Yes, reform is taking place and yet, we need to reconstruct the entire image of the black man. We have been raised to fear. We have been raised to see ourselves as superior because time and time again, white people have been told we are superior. I wonder how we can take the innocence of children and place it into adults. I wonder how we can alter it entirely.
I watched a video where a black man assumed his old white neighbor didn’t like him because the white man did not socialize. The white man hung an American flag from his porch. The white man had two white bunnies that sat on the steps and everything about the man screamed prejudice. And yet – when the Black Lives Matter Movement took hold – the man painted one of his bunnies black. The black neighbor noticed and approached him and explained to him how much it meant to see that and the old white man explained that growing up he had a black house maid who raised him. And he loved that woman because she loved him. The old white man wanted black people to know they mattered in his home (Today, USA, 2020).
And I wonder how we as a society can embrace more. Love better. Acknowledge hurt and bias and admit that as a white society, we have fucked up.
How do we act more like the old white man? But how do we do so more boldly?
Today, U. (2020, June 12). Neighbor paints yard bunny black in show of unity. Retrieved June 21, 2020, from https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=613530469512823