I have a face that is known around the world, but I’m most infamous in the United States of America. It is there that I was born untold years ago and it is there that I am propagated and nurtured. I am as much a symbol of American culture as baseball, but my appearances aren’t seasonal. I am ordained whenever the need arises. A young white mother in South Carolina drowned her two sons by rolling her car into a lake. Attempting to absolve herself of any blame, she lied that a black man car-jacked her children. She gave a police sketch artist a description of me and for days, in front of television cameras, she tearfully pleaded that I should return her children. That sketch appeared in newscasts around the world. I was once again resurrected.
One day, a powerful white politician parked his car on the Manhattan side of the East River with a panoramic view of his home borough of Queens. Then this important official shot himself in an attempt to divert public attention from his past corruption. It was I whom he fingered from his hospital bed. I shot him; he lied, in an attempt to rob him. The picture of his empty car parked at the spot of the shooting was shown on television for a week with an appeal for information that would lead to the arrest of a shadowy black man fitting my description.
An unfaithful white husband, in Boston, drove his wife he no longer wanted, pregnant with a baby boy, he had not desired, atop an unkempt bridge in a black neighborhood and shot them dead. He knew that this was a prime location from which to launch his fabrication. He also knew what description to give in order to set the Boston Police Department on the lookout for me. The hunt began, as it has for hundreds of years, with compelling zeal.
That I am a convenient and believable scapegoat for some white people with sinister motives, due to no fault of my own is at the heart of my story, and is also a symptom of an incessant American illness. I tell my story in the protest style of the old Negro writers of the Negro Renaissance because so many people proclaim that the time for that kind of protest has long past. I disagree – how can the time for that kind of protest have pasted when the reasons for protest has not? Far too many white people still find it easy to believe that I did it, whatever the it might be because they know human nature they say. For half of the time I’ve been with them on this continent, they have denied my humanity, but now they accept and fear the reality that my instincts are, indeed, human ones. And, knowing human nature as they do, they reasoned that if my instincts are human, I would want to kill them for all that they have suffered upon me. They know that this is how they would react had the shoe been on the other foot and in this sense; they inadvertently allow that I am the same as they. Whenever the alarm goes out for my arrest, they suspect that I am striking back at them, as they would do, for the centuries of harm they have heaped on me.
Article comments
1 - taurus47
On January 20, 2009 Barack H. Obama became the first African American President of the United States. Yes, there is racism in these United States and we should not forget tht, but there is also hope. Of course we need to remember the past, but we also need to look at our actions that feed into the myths, stereotypes and just plain lies about us. We could pull up our pants, tie our shoes, stop producing and buying crude music that is disrespectful to our women and our people, stop using the "N" word, stop putting poison (food and drugs) into our bodies, persue higher education and stop being so ever loving angry all the time. This is 2009!!!
2 - Horace Mungin
Yes, there are many self-afflicted wrongs in the black community and I hope to get to write about some of them in the course of things - this article,a careful read will reveal,is not about those those self-afflicted problems.
3 - roger nowosielski
Beautiful writing, Horace. Echoes Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.
I'm really surprised you have received so few comments thus far. I suppose the political junkies don't have much appreciation or use for fine literature.
You should try to have this piece re-posted in "literature" section (but unfortunately, we don't have one); or in "culture" perhaps.
I really loved it.
4 - Horace Mungin
"Fairy tales," what fairy tales? To me a fairy tale is a fabrication - there is none of that in this peice. I didn't intent this article to be an example of racist dogma, I merely chunched a brick in the dark to see who would screem - I ain't blaming anyone for anything and I protest the removel of AlterEgo's posts - please return them - they are essential to the point my article makes.
5 - Baronius
The big tip-off is that most people, if their comments are deleted from a site, would leave in a huff and never return. H&C keeps coming back and asking why his comments are deleted. Next, typically, is his "who is this JOM person you're talking about" phase. Anyone else getting called by the "wrong" name would just assume that the commenters are jerks, and quit. He sticks with it.
I find in unfortunate that H&C cannot play well with others, because I bet that his commentary about Obama would be hilarious.
6 - Jet Gardner
That and a lack of a back URL... Who is H&C?
7 - Jet Gardner
Is it me or is everyone on Pacific time now?
Who is JOM????
8 - roger nowosielski
I think it's too reasoned for H&C. He wears his prejudices on his sleeve and no apologies of any kind. That's what kind of "charming" about him, never mind the lesser characters.
9 - Jet Gardner
Ah, then it was me, probably the title of this article threw me :)
10 - Aaron Whitehead
Horace --
Enjoyed the story. Reminds me of a lot of August Wilson's characters.
It is odd to me that, like #1, many people point to Obama as president as if to say "it's over" or "at least things are better!" But that doesn't seem to me to be what Horace is saying. For so many people -- white and black -- things haven't changed. They don't change just because there's a Republican or a Democrat in the White House and they don't change because of the color of their skin.
I think if you want to refute the essence of the piece, you have to argue that Horace's character doesn't exist, and that what he describes as reality is not, in fact, real. That is very, very difficult.
And I don't know what black-on-black crime has to do with this. A little elaboration is in order.
Speaking as a white male who is in favor of moral -- if not political -- correctness, I think we need to start talking about our big, unspoken fears and desires. And we need to stop looking for a quick fix -- a presidential election or an elaborate burial of a racial slur -- to a complex problem.
To quote Shambala Green on "Law & Order," "Putting a picture of Bobby Kennedy on your wall isn't enough anymore."
11 - Christopher Rose
Horace and whoever else may be interested:- The comments made by the person hiding behind the AlterEgo name is already banned from Blogcritics and has only managed to sneak in here because of the ongoing tech issues.
He and his comments will be gone soon so please don't waste your time or mine by engaging with him.
12 - Jet Gardner
Horace, a bit long but a good read none the less... minus the distractions of course
13 - roger nowosielski
Why, Jet. I think it was very descriptive.
Have you ever read "Invisible Man" by Ellison?
14 - Jet Gardner
Roger I wasn't talking about distractions within the article. and yes I have a copy of it here somewhere withing my hundreds of books I own, but it's been a lonnnnnnng time since I read it.
15 - roger nowosielski
I get you!
16 - Jeannie Danna
Hello Horace, I really like your style . It is crisp and to the point. You are so right about the white fools in this country running to the Republican Party for the wrong reason. My father taught me at a young age to treat all people with respect and not to clump one another together and label with tags. So I am trying hard not to do that to all these white fools running to the Republican party! I like your use of the word slippery and I wish aliens would come from outer space so we could all get together to fight THEM!
17 - roger nowosielski
Horace,
Would it be OK if I were to republish your article on my own weblog?
You can check the site by clicking on my url.
Roger
18 - Horace Mungin
Roger- publish on, my brother.
19 - roger nowosielski
Thanks. And I will provide all the references once done.
20 - William Carter
Excellent read. I remember you talking with me about that some time ago. It's as though the politicians are playing both sides against each other while they pursue their own agenda.
21 - Horace Mungin
5/26/09 " The Phantom Culprit and accomplice accused of abducting white mother and daughter " both later found at Disney World.