Ferguson/Fear/Fury
“If any are anxious to ascertain who I am, know the
world, that I am one of the oppressed, degraded and wretched sons of Africa,
rendered so by the avaricious and unmerciful, among the whites.”
David Walker, Appeal,
Article IV (1829)
40. Verily the Day
of Sorting Out is the time appointed for all of them.
41. The Day when
no protector can avail his client in anything, and no help can they receive,
42. Except such as
receive Allah’s Mercy: for He is Exalted in Might, Most Merciful.
43. Verily the
tree of Zaqqum
44. Will be the
food of the sinful,--
Qur’an, Surah
44
From the
notebook of a visitor to Earth
August 16, 2014
Dreams of harmony and peace or absurd visions of the end
of time are legitimate constructions of human imagination. If you are dealing
with pure cinema, they are effective.
Such spectacles appear to confirm the implacable universality of
violence, the murky origins of terrorism, and the marriage of reason with
insanity. They are primary features of life on planet Earth. Women and men may
satisfy their fantasies by speaking of amoral Nature in their own images. They
are free to tamper with Nature in efforts to make a more living-friendly
“world.” They may succeed for brief
periods of time.
Ultimately, they fail. They manufacture abstract and
material “worlds” that are mercurial, that speak back to them of their cosmic
insignificance in visual and audible languages which negate interpretations.
Ultimately, they forfeit Cosmic Good. They replace a greater god with a lesser
one. Ultimately, they worship Cosmic
Evil. Planet Earth assumes a death-bound color.
All that happened in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 is a bitter
rerun of tribally-motivated antiquities. A frantic male of one tribe, believing
himself to be authorized by the Holy Bible, the United States Constitution, a badge
of office, and the laws of Charles Darwin, murders a male of a different tribe.
People who identify themselves with the dead male react naturally. They are shocked. They grieve. They make counter-violence. Unfortunately,
the grief of injustice is paradoxically understood and misunderstood in a
nanosecond by the American body politic.
December 7, 2014
Today is the 73rd anniversary of the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor.
Violence obeys folklore and Holy Bible injunctions to
increase and multiply. American as well
as foreign mass media take delight in spewing misinformation (or
disinformation) about how violence procreates. Mass media refuses to analyze the systemic
nature of violence. Infotainment becomes impotent when it beholds what is actually
systemic.
In the historical drama entitled “The United States of
America, “the George Zimmermans, Darren Wilsons, Peter Liangs, and Daniel
Pantaleos are proclaimed to be the stars of the show. They are the militants
who keep democracy safe for those who are wealthy enough to buy it. It is most
often the case that oddly instructed grand juries applaud them. The Michael
Browns, Akai Gurleys, Eric Garners, Trayvon Martins and the thousands of
unarmed dead who were the targets are treated as footnotes in the smallest
print on the playbill. Do you dare to ask why many (but not all) African
Americans are profoundly angry? Do you
dare to ask whether some (but not all) American police officers are clones of
Rosemary’s Baby?
In the sacred
narratives of womankind and mankind, violence is proclaimed to be natural and
universal.
According to such
logic ---
the American Nightmare that has replaced the American
Dream;
the death-bound mission of Europe and international
cartels;
the family squabbles between Palestinians and Israelis
and diabolic plots in the Arab/Islamic winter of the Middle East;
the symbolic assassination of the President of the United
States;
the neo-barbarism of ISIS and other agents of imperial
terrorism;
the progress of environmental destruction in Asia and the
Americas;
the rampant neo-colonialism and unique ethnic hatreds on
the continent of Africa;
a periodic
outbreak of such health treats as Ebola, HIV-AIDS, and yearly variations of
influenza;
the refusal to acknowledge the humanity of indigenous
peoples everywhere;
the wages of
global climate change;
the open season that males of no-color have declared on
males of color
-----according to such logic, all these things are normal
on Earth. After all, this is the season of Advent and Christmas shall arrive
despite the blessings of Cosmic Evil.
The
growing number of murders of African American males should anger many Americans
to the point of being totally irrational. They should petition the United
Nations to investigate whether the United States of America should be brought
to the World Court for crimes against humanity, for the injustice of benign
genocide. Unfortunately, the iron-clad logic of the absurd may stall
such a request. Many Americans confuse
transparent criticism with treason. They want to believe that a meek savior
will serve peace and harmony at a post-post-racial banquet. They forget that the dessert at the feast will
be the fruit of the tree of Zaqqum. The Day of Sorting Out has arrived.
Jerry W. Ward,
Jr.
