The central metaphorical image of the Fieldhand, alongside the compare and contrast to the House Servant, is the most important part.

There are other important parts, embellishments, tangents.

I love what he says about “we” and “our”, when it comes to talking about the government. Once upon a time, it may well have been We The People, at least if the people were white, male, and landowning. But it was never Ours for the fieldhands, and they’ve never thought of the project in terms of We.

We, kimosabe, are much more inclined to be receptive, when it comes to talk of Separating, from ya’ll.

The part about the nice clothes, nice food, nice house–that resonated. Pretty recently, I’ve been schooled about all that: ‘say all you want about the bad parts of America, but we’ve got all this nice stuff and don’t have to live in a shithole country’.

The nicer stuff only comes if you are both willing, and qualify, to work in the house instead of the fields. Generally speaking, I’ve been willing, even though I might keep my counsel about the conditionality of that willingness. Most of my life, I’ve been qualified–on paper anyway–but after a time, it turns out, there are other less tangible qualifications that complicate the sustainability of that. Eventually, it becomes impossible to hide what they might diplomatically call an Attitude Problem. Less tactfully it might be called hate for the Master and the Master’s System.

Novocaine. That which makes suffering silent and passive … a Peaceful suffering. Malcolm was a critic of religion as the primary pain drug. Especially Christianity, especially turning the other cheek. He was openly critical of even Reverend MLK for that.

Nowadays the opiate is corporate media, and it comes with diversity, high production values, a nice haircut, and a chirpy attempt at including you and me with language tricks and attempted humor. Like this:

This is a still I pulled from a video called
Stark contrast of how CBC explains inflation vs Economist Richard D Wolff and Mark Blyth

The chirpy man wants you to keep watching, and to believe his sketchy explanations, and laugh along at his dumb jokes. The chirpy man is a dangerous propagandist who would never see himself that way ever. But compare what he’s doing, to what Wolff and Blyth do after. There’s almost no difference between the chirpy man of the CBC and the Morning Joes and Rachel Maddows of the world, except that they get paid better, down here in the seventh circle.

Muzak for soothing anxious house negroes, is all that is. Here’s looking at you, NPR.

Let me slap public radio and television with one hand and then turn around and offer you their best with the other. It’s an older piece, of course.

Malcolm X – Make It Plain (Full PBS Documentary)

2+ hours of biography that examines certain important issues critically and evenly, including the straight dope on who gunned Malcolm down in the Avalon Ballroom, and even a bit of speculation regarding who was behind motivating the triggermen.

Ultimately he was killed because he had figured a lot of things out and was sharing his epiphanies too loudly.

Toward the end of his life he was evolving faster than ever, still clinging to his own religious crutch of Islam, but reaching out to Christians like Martin Luther King, and even to certain less toxic species of white devils.

And King for his part was becoming ever more anti-war and socialistic, more of the revolutionary that Malcolm always was.

We don’t have poor boulevards named after Mister X. His birthday will never be a holiday.

Even in death, no one can succeed in turning him into a useful idiot, not even a little bit. He was too hot to handle alive, and filling him full of bullets didn’t change it either.

He was a better man than I am. I only observe and comment, where he fought the good fight both intellectually and in the streets.

He left us some useful metaphors, like this one about the different kinds of Negro on this modern cybernetic plantation.

I’m listening. I’m hearing. I’m grateful.