A couple of weeks ago, a mentor and person I greatly admire (a sensei, if you will) said to me “Don’t let the termites get you down…” This cat is heavy and, as some go, not only a decent human being but one of the few that has matriculated from animal to person (a “progressively” more and more difficult feat). A fact made even more profound given his upper Midwest, born over a decade before I was (at the height of Jim Crow), whiteboy background.
Never, were I to live a million lifetimes on Earth, will I understand why I have had so many European mentors (very accomplished ones) and formed the views that I have. One of the proverbial Seven Wonders of the World as far as I am concerned. Move over Great Wall (the one in China, not your 45th president’s). And, for the official record, I will pass on the million lifetimes on Earth as the statement was more poetry than desire.
The aforementioned anonymous guru was responding to me saying to him “I've been so gobsmacked of late, that I have been rendered not deaf...but mute.” I was speaking of being overwhelmed as a writer, as a parent, as a man, and as a person by the state of the world. To say it was a verbal manifestation of a severe case of writer’s block or cognitive constipation is akin to trivializing the Book of Revelation, for I write from a place south of bliss.
Way down south.
I write to exorcise the demons which torment me. They force me to speak, while simultaneously reveling in my silence. The demons win a battle from time to time, but they will never, ever, win the war if for no other reason than the fact war is infinite; only peace has an end. I approach life as I have experienced it and how it has come to me, not as I wish it were.
Damned if I do.
Damned if I don’t.
On January 11, 2018, President Donald Trump made “controversial” remarks during a meeting about protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries. “Africa,” consistent with the European controlling the narrative as a survival mechanism, is actually called Alkebulan. That fact notwithstanding, Trump asked, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?”
Shithole country is a term that has been used to describe generally poor and struggling, politically conflicted countries that seek relief from the United States. The term is often used to describe countries in which most of the people are non-white, as opposed to countries like Norway which are almost all alabaster (aka “white”). Keep your eye on the ball as you “seek relief.”
Since Trump’s invocation of shithole countries, the “unthinkable” term entered the Presidential Lexicon. Inferred shithole countries have been researched, defined and, in fact, adopted into the parlance of the “American” political Wortschatz. Pursuant to same, Atlantic magazine has stated: “Shithole Countries' is shorthand for a racist hierarchy.” The childish, impish, rudimentary, illiterate, unscholarly, ignorant success that Trump has at verbally branding is the stuff of a true idiot savant. That may be entertaining, but what is absolutely terrifying is that I live in place where it is more than entertainment…it is gospel. Biblical and evangelical.
Remember, I’m down south.
Contemporaneously, from far and wide, I have endured whitey commenting, “Kenyatta, you are obsessed with race.” White supremacy, at its absolute finest, made particularly fascinating given that the concept of “race” is a white supremacist product. Yet, another inbred child.
Shithole: noun shit·hole ˈshit-ˌhōl, plural shitholes 1 vulgar slang: a disgusting, run-down, unappealing, or objectionable place (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary). Ruminate on the preceding definition. Cogitate on its universality; assuming you are equipped to do so.
I live in a country, a stolen continent, that eats chicken wings while tens of thousands of people, many of them children, are being slaughtered in Palestine. For over a half of a year this genocide has continued. The government of the country I live in not only has aided and abetted this atrocious, indelible stain on human history, but it has also sponsored it.
I live in a country that propagates, negotiates, anticipates, consumes, imports, exports, digests and excretes so much violence that the news of a mass shooting is about as annoying as highway noise. A grocery store today. A school tomorrow. A theater the next day. A church (of all godforsaken venues) yet a day later. I live in a country that has almost two guns for each inhabitant.
I live in a country that is the only “wealthy” and “industrialized” one on planet Earth that does not provide universal healthcare for the citizens it claims to love. Most industrialized countries and many developing countries operate some form of publicly funded health care with universal coverage as the goal. According to Hudson’s Global Residence Index, all but 43 countries in the world offer free or universal healthcare to at least 90% of citizens. Cuba and many Alkebulanian nations rank among the world’s best systems. There are 195 countries on this planet; you do the math.
I live in a country where, yesterday, I saw a seemingly “homeless” pregnant woman digging in a dumpster for clothing. It was difficult to gauge her age, as the streets weather both body and soul. Nonetheless, she was a European woman at least in her 30’s. She had track marks all over her arms and legs.
Having seen a pregnant woman or two in my life I could say, with fair confidence, she was in her last trimester. There was a male with her riding a bike as she sorted through the discarded refuse. He just kept wandering around in circles and I wondered what circle that child would be born into. I’m still goddamned wondering about wandering.
I live in a country that has started criminal trial(s) against its former leader. A former leader that, in a sick Mephisto Waltz, may very likely become the leader again and the trials may ensure such political prophecy in an unprecedented state of affairs. I have seen one impeachment in my lifetime, my daughters have seen two in six years (not including the Mayorkas attempt and what may be looming for Mr. Biden). I live in a country where two privileged, Jim Crow, decrepit, whiteboys are the best 330 million idiots can proffer to “lead” it.
I live in a country that has the highest first-day infant death rate out of all the industrialized countries in the world. About 11,300 newborns die within 24 hours of their birth in the U.S. each year, 50 percent more first-day deaths than all other industrialized countries combined. If that child looks like me the odds go up exponentially.
At the opposite end of the aforementioned spectrum, I live in a country that has, in terms of healthcare for the elderly, consistently ranked poorly among industrialized nations. According to the 2014 Commonwealth Fund survey, the U.S. health care system was ranked as the worst among these countries for the fifth time. From the womb to the tomb, just keep dreaming.
I have come to realize; I live in a motherfucking shithole.
As this epiphany has unfolded and manifested itself, I found myself listening to a song I would play over and over in the late 70’s as a 14-year-old boy. A 14-year-old boy not unlike Emmett Till or George Stinney, Jr. Vinyl was, and remains, king and I vividly remember the blue light I had in my bedroom as I stared at the ceiling while this song played. My musician pals and I would marvel at the orchestration, the arrangement, the breathtaking virtuosity of Stanley, Al, Chick, Gerry, and Gayle (though Stanley and Gayle had no business singing, they were such instrumental badasses they could get away with anything). Four and a half decades later, I, once again, find myself not only listening to, but living, The Endless Night
The Endless Night
The aching heart, there's no delight
Dreams die in endless night
The lonely soul has yet to see
One love being warm and free
Paradise is gone
Yet, it can come back
Back again, returning to forever
Forever, forever
Mysteries of yesterday
Sometimes, will fade away
But doubts and questions still remain
Confusing all in pain
Reaching out to be, unafraid to see
What is there? Returning to forever
Forever, forever
Paradise is gone
Yet it can come back
Back again, returning to forever
Forever, forever
Kenyatta - I had no clue your writing had progressed to next-level artistry. Absolutely amazing work. Your truth telling is an excavation of the social landfill we're all dying in - a place many commentators love to talk about, but few dare to descend with only a shovel, notepad, and a commitment to report what exactly it is their eyes are seeing. Thank you for your efforts, and courage. You're needed, just the same as Thom or any other of our moral lighthouses.
Your narrative, and Diana's comments below are such powerful truths that not even a fool should err. I am grateful and thankful that I no longer live in shithole USA. European designed economic, political, and religious ideologies, i.e., Capitalism, Democracy, and Christianity, in particular, are the reasons America is a shithole country. But you'll already know that. Enjoy your day as best you can. With 2 guns per citizen, it won't be easy, but give it "the old college try". And even if you can't leave America, you can leave alone their destructive paradigms that are destroying humanity worldwide. Just sayin.