Saturday, August 3, 2024
Well, I did it again! I was watching Fort Apache, a Western starring John Wayne and Henry Fonda, and I found myself rooting for the white man against the Indians. It appears that I’ve been much more indoctrinated than I thought, after all these years. What a ting! I mean, the Indians were attacking the cavalry for chasing them off their lands, where they had lived for thousands of years; without horses, by the way, until the Spaniards brought these animals over. I think one of the reasons we, or I, root for “the man”, is because of the righteousness of conviction they project, while depriving the indigenous of their lands and their rights!
Anyway, I caught myself doing what I always complain about, and immediately switched sides. The Indians lost, of course, in this movie, as they usually do in real life, except when Custer was thoroughly defeated by Crazy Horse. Even then, Custer, who was young and careless, and a great admirer of the Lakota and Cheyenne Indians, became the hero, and Crazy Horse, the bad guy. Go figure!
Watching the Olympics, sometimes I’m torn as to whether to root for the American or the Caribbean athlete. As an American citizen with Caribbean blood flowing through me, I’m conflicted. Of course, even Americans, white or black, root for a Usain Bolt; one can’t help but. Saint Lucia’s Alfred won the gold medal for the 100-meter dash. I was rooting for Richardson from the United States, but felt equally proud of the Caribbean sister, the fastest woman on earth. “Pania” machete, I guess.
I suppose it doesn’t matter how aware you are of your identity; colonialism has been so deeply ingrained into our psyche, that it becomes very difficult to disentangle yourself from hundreds of years of indoctrination. Even Africans that lived under colonial rule feel the same way. We still pay deference to our oppressors!
I was reading the Publisher’s column about the mineral rich Katanga province in the Congo back in the early 6Os, which was a major reason for the death of Lumumba, by greedy westerners. Well, it’s still going on today, with the Chinese and Americans fighting for dominance over precious minerals; this time it is copper, in Zambia.
And here again, I find myself rooting for the Americans, instead of rooting for people of the Zambia, who should be able to extract, develop, and get rich, off their natural resources; but who are again deferring to the white man to give them a cut, a reward for the billions of dollars that will be made off said resources. As in days of old, the African remains poor and exploited, while the East and the West prosper!
Why does this keep happening? Why do we go against our own self-interests and bow down before false gods? I personally believe that religion, and that ideology, white supremacy, which we were born into and lived through, are like calluses in our minds and hearts, and that are very difficult to rid oneself of! Some succeed, but they are few and rare, and are mostly marginalized by the rest of us.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this. Maybe I should stop watching Westerns and the Olympics, and confine myself to watching boring documentaries about the planet and animals and global warming!
I sincerely believe that people of color have ceded their rights, their lives, their identities, to those who consider themselves the superior race of people. It’s a sickness with no cure in the foreseeable future, in my opinion.
Glen