Rethinking the Meaning of 'Juneteenth'

Juneteenth was problematic for me. The Emancipation Proclamation was signed on 23 Sept 1863, but the word did not get to Texas until 1865. This ensured nearly two extra years  of slavery for Texas blacks.

Slavery in Texas has a complicated history. Almost more than any other location in the CSA, whites stood against slavery. Despite that nine of every ten Texans came from the South, the great Sam Houston opposed the extension of slavery. Houston became governor of Texas in 1859 running on a pro-union/anti-slavery platform.

At the beginning of the Civil War, the Texas legislature put the vote for secession to the people. It is interesting to note that the vote was for secession, but not for joining the Confederacy. Houston had no faith in the Confederacy and refused to swear allegiance. He was removed from office.

After the firing on Fort Sumpter, the 2700 Federal troops in Texas were made prisoners-of-war. By 1862 there was an unpopular draft. Many union supporters took their families and moved to the north to either fight for the union or evade the draft.  Others hid out and were joined by the numerous deserters from the rebel army.  By the summer of 1863, just before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, so many Texas soldiers were deserting the army that General Magruder contacted the governor and asked for his direct intervention to stop the number of men who were simply walking away. Denton and Wise counties become home to so many deserters that people loyal to the Confederates became terrified at the influx of pro-union supporters. 

In Cooks Country, 40 white men were hanged for being union sympathizers. 

The last battle of the Civil War was fought on 13 May 1865 at Palmito Beach (near Brownswille.) Men from both races died in this battle, some from the ‘Colored’ regiment.  The undisputed  irony is that these men died for no cause as General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox six weeks earlier.  It was at this battle that many Texans first learned of Lee's capitulation.

The sphere and circumstances of life are devalued during war. Humanity is diminished. Everyone suffers.

I see Juneteenth differently. 

The Juneteenth Holiday is beyond color,  holding a level of symbolism for every person in the State. It represents a day of closure-- a day from which everyone could finally move forward and shape a different future with a focus on peace and prosperity....a new hope.

Cotton, Capitalism and the documentary," LaLee's Kin"

The second principle of Capitalism is to control wages, salaries and benefits. One cannot plunder if labor costs are steadily rising — and plunder is a consequence of capitalism. It’s just who get to do the plundering.

With this in mind, we plunge into the documentary, LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton. I watched it thinking: “Man, what great archival footage they have of Mississippi in the 1930s.” 

LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton, made by the great Albert Maysles is stunning filmmaking. The first time I watched the picture I came in about 1/3 of the way through. Naively, I thought the film a historical piece about Mississippi sharecropping-- circa 1940s. I dropped my coffee cup on the living room floor upon realizing this was from 2001.

The story follows LaLee Wallace, a 62-year old grandmother living in West Tallahatchie County, one the poorest areas in the U.S.

Sharecropping. Still.

After reconstruction, there was a halcyon period where blacks had some political power. To say it was short-lived, is an understatement. The rise of the KKK and black codes hastened the demise. As the ‘Negro’ of the late 18th century came to realize that political power was D.O.A., they turned to the labor unions. In the South, ‘Negroes’ were excluded from unions because of race. Although, in some instances, brickmasons, plasterers, painters and carpenters founded their own unions.

Booker T. Washington believed ‘skilled labor’ was the future for race. For every one lawyer or doctor, there were hundreds of jobs for skilled, trained blacks.  This, he believed, is where advancement of the race held its best opportunity.
 

In the manufacturing North, advancement was also tough. 'Negroes' learned trade and serve apprenticeships but there were no unions to accept them, no great industrial class willing to employ them and no banks to make business loans to sustain or support them in forming their own enterprises.

In the best Orwellian dialectic, we seek to eradicate a robust discussion of slavery from U.S. History--or, at least dilute it. There is a symbiotic relationships between cotton, slavery and the disenfranchisement of black persons in America. I am not saying there is anything that can be done about today--but, it must be acknowledged.

Mississippi has a dark and desolate past—a placed haunted by the ghosts of senseless murders, lynching and sadness. There are no lynchings and murder in LaLee’s Kin, but there’s a lot of sadness. What happened to LaLee’s ‘American dream?'

How did she end up living a sharecropper’s life in 2001 that was thematically identical to a sharecropper’s life in 1901? Surely, this can’t be what Booker T. Washington had in mind when he advocated for the 'Negro' to be content in his or her position.

LaLee’s Kin – to a U.S. audience—causes people to ask: “Is this really the United States?” Well, it is—for many people. The stardust left by the American dream is sawdust for those who live in poverty.

We can never face the long term impact of our history until we face the impact of slavery and cotton. LaLee Kin is a movie that accomplishes that.

Rear Window -- Even when you're alone, someone is looking.

The loneliness lays a veneer over the murder. 

There is something savage and aching about the loneliness in Rear Window. It’s less about death--although someone dies, but more about life and how inexplicable it often is. Rear Window resonates even more today because technology has made us less contemplative with more access to more stuff but less connection with real persons. Loneliness does not depend on death, yet death follows the lonely, advertising for them to rush headlong to the balcony and toss themselves over. Or, as is Hitchcock’s way, find someone to do it for you.

Loneliness shines light on the cracks in our self-sufficiency. We are not nearly as secure as think. Technology has made us accept mediocre relationships.

The unspoken joke is that only in the movies could a beauty like Lisa Carol Fremont (played by Grace Kelly) throw themselves at a stiff like L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart)  and he ‘can’t make up his mind whether he’s interested in her or not.” I’ve always found this amusing. Another way Hitchcock, toys with us.

There isn’t much humor in Rear Window. It’s dark...filled with anguish. It is about the loneliness and alienation that stalks us. It about how we crave acceptance and companionship, yet see it elusively slip just beyond our grasp.

Yes, there is a murder in Rear Window--but the murder is of less importance than what we learn about the characters—and, ourselves. Rear Window withstands multiple viewings because of the intricate nuances that permeate his work. It stands above “Vertigo” and “North by Northwest” because it unravels the voyeuristic tendencies that lives inside each of us…and, how those tendencies turn us inward, drawing us more into ourselves making us more vulnerable to the effects of alienation. Rear Window is not a cautionary tale—unless, of course, you live in an apartment complex with nosy neighbors and have a penchant for murder.

It's hard to save your own soul.

Duvall's 'The Apostle," is a movie I've seen more than 30 times. Duvall wrote it, directed it, produced it and wrote the checks. For that reason alone, it's worth seeing.  There is a lot going this picture. It reminds me of the way I grew up.

Without regard to one's position on the still smoldering embers that is Liberation Theology, one must admit that  confronting Jesus Christ, wherever this occurs, is transformational.

Christianity creates dissonance because  its belief system is devoid of middle ground. Christ corroborated this: , "I will spit the lukewarm out of my mouth." (Revelations, 3:16.) The middle ground is Christianity's dead zone, an  abyss from which all  should flee.  With this in mind, I reflect on  The Apostle. The film drives a telescopic lens into the touchpoint between a man and his quest to know God.  It is of no surprise that classic Pentecostals are gaining adherents in Latin America and Africa.

Latin and African cultures connect with the expressiveness  --the verbal release, if you will-- at the core of the Pentecostal Experience.  Liberation theology seeks this expressiveness--but, through acts of service to others.

The main character (Apostle E.F.) lives in a world--a Pentecostal galaxy --  where liberation is expressed  through acts of service to God. Simply stated, this means saving souls.

Robert Duvall-- a gift to anyone who loves movies -- directs Miranda Richardson, the late Farrah Fawcett, Billy Bob Thornton and, of course, himself, to muted, flawless performances.

This films unravels the paradoxical threads of Christianity— that hungry quest for knowing, that desire for meaning and the quixotic, uneven balancing of time versus eternity. The Apostle  is filled with characters yearning  to avoid the abyss. In this film no one takes the middle ground because they see it for what it is: as a transparent fallacy. 

The universe does not balance all things.

Did I say how much I love this film?

An Affair to Remember: Kerr, Grant and the closest thing to heaven.

In every love affair, there is a moment when you have the opportunity to simply be decent. After the euphoria departs and is replaced with a knowing this real and enduring is the point where love can begin. “An Affair to Remembers” glides along the course. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr meet and fall in love in a perfect shipboard romance.

The pair—betrothed to other lovers—made a unique pact: “If what we feel is real, let’s meet at the highest point in New York—the top of the Empire State Building—in six months.” Such was the conflict.

 Would this --after returning separately to their lives and their loves-- survive or tumble onto the quiet slope of memory. At the agreed upon moment, six months later, only one of the lovers arrives at New York’s nearest point to heaven. The story, really, begins here.  The lovers—and their love—matures and is tested. What they learn gives tacit hope to all who in the wilderness of loneliness hope for an enduring love, a last love…one that is remembered.

Michael Brown, Eric Garner and a Polish Story

I stopped in a logo apparel store  to purchase  a new Lakers hat because my current one is 20 years old. The owner of the shop looked to be in his 50s.  After he tells he doesn't have Laker hats he looks at me and says, "You are obviously from L.A,. and seem like a mature guy, can I ask you a question."

I'm thinking: Ok, he means I'm old...but, whatever...

"Sure," I  say. He starts giving me his version of the Michael Brown/Eric Garner murders and blah, blah, blah...

Then, he gets to the crux of it. "Look man, I'm a white dude and when I get stopped by cops I just put my hands or get on the ground and do what they say and I don't understand why  'you' black dudes just don't do what cops say..." He goes on: "....they would leave you guys alone if you would just obey them.'

I'm thinking: "Why didn't I just leave when the guy said he had no Laker gear?" But, I let him finish.

"You seem like a reasonable guy and I don't mean any harm by asking, but I just don't get it. Why do blacks acts that way?" Inside, I am cursing myself for not having left. I just wanted a Laker hat, I don't want this conversation with the guy.

I said: "Let me tell you a story. When the German army rolled into Warsaw in what they called the 'September Campaign, they killed every Polish soldier in sight. German efficiency at its finest. A small team, with a few older handguns, hid in a sewer overnight. Aside from the sewage, they were besieged by rats.  The Germans were patrolling every street, gunning people down like mangy animals. There was a debate whether to stay in the sewer or climb out. Rats and stench or bullets. A tragic choice, perhaps. Or, maybe not. One soldier said: "All of you who are going to stay here, give me your bullets because I am going above ground....better to stand up like a man than die in a sewer in the company of vermin."

So he, alone, climbed out of the sewer and within minutes came face to face to face with a German patrol unit...."

I stopped the story at that moment.

He says, "Go on, what happened..."

"It doesn't matter what happened, I said.  "What matters is that you make the choice about how you're going to be treated...that's what men do. Courageous men die but once, but cowardly men experience a thousand deaths.'

"So, are you saying these men were courageous?"

"I don't know them personally, so I can't speak to that. You can draw from the story what you will," I said.

I went on: "For me, I decided, while standing at the corner of Manchester and Figueroa some 42 years where my line was...namely this...I'd rather be shot at than get on my knees like a...well, you know..."

He said: "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard... but I don't mean you disrespect, sir."

"None taken," I said. "Just get some Laker gear in your store.'

We shook hands and I left. He did try and sell me some Mavericks gear as I was leaving....but, I don't support the Mavs although I like Dirk a lot.

THERE WASN'T ANY LOVE IN THE HEART OF THE CONGO

Listening as my mother described being raped, though heartbreaking, was not as traumatic as watching the HBO Documentary, The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo. It's my belief that the director, documentary filmmaker Lisa Jackson (herself a victim of a gang rape), felt similarly while listening to the Congolese women tell their stories. Such is the power of untethered emotion laid bare on the altar of abject disregard and abandonment by civil society.

My interest in the Congo tracks to the first time I saw Casablanca. For you non-cineastes, that’s where Louis and Rick escaped to after ditching Ilsa and Victor to ‘embark on their own beautiful friendship.’

I remember thinking, “Ok, so where is Brazzaville?” For many years, I kept an article by the amazing and talented Helene Cooper in the space above my Mac. The headline from the New York Times article read thusly: “In the Congo, Trolling through the Lives of Those Too Wretched to Merit Aid.” This article is a reminder that the people in Walungu province suffered a tragedy that defies description. Of course, just like most people, I don’t do anything…except look at the article once or twice a week. Empathy, but not action.

Because of Cooper’s article, I watched the doc. If I had a DVR, I would have stopped watching twenty minutes in. I'm not given to squeamishness. I’ve seen teenagers shot with handguns and rifles. I’ve watched my Grandfather put a ring in a bulls’ nose. I saw people do things to cats, dogs and other live animals that would drive PETA into shock. And, when I was a young man, I spent years working at a busy airport. For those who have never had this experience, allow me to say that nearly every possible experience along the human continuum occurs at airports. Airports are a microcosm of mankind’s evolutionary pattern. Babies born in elevators- old men dying on jet bridges.

Nothing prepared me for this documentary. There were no reenactments, no hidden video of actual rapes—no stunning mise-en-scene-- just beautiful dark-skinned human beings describing their observations and experiences in chilling monotone. And, that they told the self-lacerating stories in their proper native French created an atmosphere ever more nightmarish.

Rwanda’s genocide left me speechless. I don’t understand it – nor, do I understand the current events in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). I assert it is the true nature of evil—no empathy for ones fellow man, no interest in anything but oneself. It is what spawned Hitler’s final solution—the absence of all goodness. It is a snapshot of a world without God. It is a world pregnant with the DNA of King Leopold--the first butcher of the Congo.

An OB-GYN doctor at Panzi Hospital in the DRC—one of the few locals providing aftercare to rape victims—described how several patients were so viciously raped with wooden instruments that their  uterus, bladder and vaginal walls were punctured. Surviving, of course, equates to a lifetime of perpetual incontinence. Ponder such humiliation.

But the most unimaginable lay just around the bend. One pregnant woman--from the province of Bunyakyjer— was captured by rebel soldiers. After being repeatedly raped by the soldiers, her children were made to ‘jump up and down’ on her belly until she aborted her fetus. Or, there is Sofie’s story—this smooth-skinned kid of 11 looks like she should be starting at forward on the 7th grade basketball team. Of course, this beguiling possibility doesn't exist because she was raped by soldiers and now has a son. The Interhawahine soldiers saw no distinction in age—they raped girls as young as five and women well past 70 years. One soldier described his passion for the septuagenarian: Well, she is not too old for me.”

A U.N. Peacekeeper— veteran of many missions — framed these events: “I have not seen, in my experience as a soldier, anything like this—as a human being, I am not comfortable talking about what I have seen.”

Honorine, a cop and mom of four,  has become the 'Olivia Benson' for the DRCs small police department. Honorine trudges  deep into the bush to find victims and obtain police reports. She is relentless in these efforts. She and her volunteers prepare statements using manual typewriters. Honorine promises to help usher in “the rule of law” by bringing perpetrators to justice.

Long ago, I abandoned the naïve belief that ‘people are basically good.’ I’ve seen too much on the journey. Human beings, I believe, are raw material for evil. It is only by the ubiquitous presence of God’s grace that any goodness manifests around humankind.

Life gets tougher in America—the oppressive weight of despair encroaches into the lives of small towners and big-city dwellers. But conversely, I know a guy selling Ferrari’s and Aston Martin's who says, “He can’t keep ‘em on the lot.” The chasm between the  'haves' and ‘have nots’ splits like I-35 when you pass Hillsboro— in times past, this chasm was bridged by a pale veneer of hope…a brittle possibility that ‘someday, I, too, can have opportunity.”

But opportunity floats like a ghostly vapor for those living in Bukava.  

There are few things that we, who are so far away from the DRC, can do to alleviate such suffering-- or at least ease the pain. So like most Americans, drunk with 300 channels of HDTV and an ever-expanding list of 'first world problems,' I sit and stare-- sometimes catatonically-- and wonder how I ended up here and not in the DRC. And of course, I do nothing to help the Congolese women because all conceivable actions seem pedestrian. I don’t know where to begin. Thus, I place my lamp beneath a barrel and write words about their plight instead of getting up and doing something real.

Notwithstanding, tonight, in Bukava, someone old enough to be my grandmother or young enough to be my granddaughter could be raped by a soldier. And I, of course, I sit alone, Malbec in hand, fretting about whether the Lakers will lose enough games to draft Emmanuel Mudiay. I wonder what that says about me.

@Lindell153 (Follow Lindell on Twitter)