There's a new [to me] commercial advertising tourism in Colonial Williamsburg, PA, US. The version I saw featured a young, White child imagining himself in the image of the 1800's he's been programmed with. He envisioned chopping wood, being a valiant pilgram, log cabins and such.
I blinked for a quick minute and thought; I know that they don't just means pasific peeple but everebody. So I's started thinking my own 1800's ekspereece. I's thinkin bout choppin' wood, pikin cottin, finin my chans to run, and my wife beeng raped or sold, or both, by "massa." Thinkin Id be beetin jus fo reedin ans ritin. Thinkin of the cracker (from the original use of the word; cracker; the person who is in charge of whipping.) i.e. Go call the cracker to whip this unruly nigger. (from the original use of the word; nigger; anything with dark skin.) I's thinkin bout the teers I coodent cry. There aint nothin good bout the 1800's to me.
The 1800 was a time when relations between Black people was tenuous and fragmented. Blacks were highly illiterate, in comparison to the larger society. Most areas that were predominantly Black were blighted, i.e. slave quarters. 200 years later, we still have problems relating to each other. We are still plagued with an undereducated state of being, in comparison to the larger society. And...still most areas that are predominantly Black are blighted, i.e. projects (urban), slums (suburban & rural). Now that I've had my flashback, I'd have to say that their little theme dreem (sorry, forgot where I was. LOL) dream isn't for me.
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