Black Dynamite examines "white" slavery

Martial arts actor Michael Jai White elected to produce a film in 2010. The genre he selected was comedy and was a parody of 1970s blacksploitation films that made stars of Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree, Jim Brown, Rudy Ray Moore & Fred Williamson.  The film was entitled "Black Dynamite" and it follows a larger than life John Shaft-like detective whose given name is Black Dynamite who seemed to be the embodiment of every "positive" black male macho stereo-type.
         The films release was limited and its box office receipts resulted in it breaking even, but it became a cult classic.  Someone at The Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" division thought Dynamite should be an animated series and it became an unlikely hit. Dynamite is still a detective, ladies man and all around tough guy, but in the animated series he owns and operates a combination bordello and orphanage which he calls the "whore-phanage."

        The series pokes fun at people and events which were at the peak of their popularity in the 70s and thus far Elvis Presley, Richard Pryor, O.J. Simpson and young Michael Jackson have been fair game. The most recent episode centered around the black community in which Dynamite lives viewing Alex Haley's Roots when it airs on TV, becoming enraged at the white community as a whole and then overthowing and enslaving them including a young Woody Allen whom Dynamite calls a "Child molester lookin' mutha-f#cka."
      Dynamite is initially indifferent towards slavery but after running over runaway slave Woody Allen in his Cadillac and preparing to pummel him for scratching his paint when  he allowed himself to get hit, Dynamite changes his point of view then works to emancipate the white slaves.
     Woody Allen being the agitator tells the black community that he (and others) simply can't go back to Beverly Hills (or Beverly Hills Adjacent) as they're now PART of the black community and he and his fellow former slaves take over Roscoe's Chicken and waffles while clad in dashikis. The episode ends with a speech from black Dynamite where he threatens EVERYONE of every race and all simply go home.

            The episode made me think about the nature of slavery, not just the AMERICAN institution, but slavery in general. Americans didn't INVENT the concept of owning another human being. One would think that for as long as man has existed and figured out that he could take from his fellow man slavery has been alive and well.  Slave and master's roles could be decided by race, religion, gender or geographic location.
            What dawned on me while pondering the allegory which was an adult cartoon airing at 9:30 on a Saturday evening was that as long as there have been slaves (and they still exist) is that there have always been three groups of non slaves in every society which permitted it. 1. Slave owners who often owned them for convenience or essentially as livestock 2. Those indifferent to slaves and slave owners and 3. Those opposed to the institution for one reason or another.

     The question I asked myself was this: Could I have owned slaves in any scenario?  As the descendant of slaves my short answer is "no," but I also grew up reading about how horrible an institution it was and how generations of fear based laws came into existence to insure that former slaves and their descendants would still be treated like a servant class.
    What if I had grown up in a privileged family in which owning another person was as common as having a cup of coffee with breakfast, would I have the same view?  What if I were the descendant of some hard working immigrant who didn't care one way or another about the "peculiar institution" (as one American called it) and simply saw anyone who brought up it's history as either a malcontent or a whiner?

      The fact of the matter is that most Americans regardless of their race, have no idea how they would feel about the "peculiar institution" if they had been born in 1840 and were either slave or master.  Slavery in the Caribbean was MUCH worse than it was here in the United States, as slaves in the Islands were literally worked to death, but that's not to say that southern plantations were resorts where slaves sat by the side of olympic sized pools being waited on hand and foot.
      I'm of the opinion that a few things need to happen. We Americans need to acknowledge the fact slavery will always be the elephant in the room.  We shouldn't attempt to erase it from history books or even water it down, but at the same time we shouldn't spend the next century acting as if it all transpired yesterday.
     The descendants of the enslaved, their masters the indifferent and those who opposed another person being owned need to stand up to the institution where it still exist. Reverend Rob Parsley raises money to go into Africa and purchase the freedom of those still enslaved. Singer Ricky Martin fights tirelessly to end human trafficking around the world.  Back to the slave owner question. Living in the 21st century it's easy to say that one wouldn't do something as abhorrent as owning another person, but 19th century morality could use biblical scripture to justify it.  At the end of the day we'd all like to think we'd easily say "no" but were we to go back in time, we'd learn that most who owned other people considered themselves good "Christians", "Muslims" or whatever faith they belonged to. For the record not having skin the color or mahogany or ebony it would be safe to assume I can see both slave and master in my own family tree so I'd have little rational choices other than to attempt to see the issue from as many  points of view as possible.

     One wishes such a complicated issue could be solved in 30 minutes by a cool ladies man with a bad attitude and a 44 magnum who need only threaten to kick the butfs of those who allowed themselves to be devoid of empathy or simply allowed themselves to be awash in ignorance.  TV always makes it look so easy doesn't it?
    

Geneva Dejean Riggs: Civil Rights Pioneer?

In the summer of 1989, I was going though the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego California. We were going through the second phase of training when I was pulled off a training exercise, shoved into the back of a hummer and transported to the rear where I was ordered to call my mother from a pay phone. When I did, I heard my mom hit me with the sad news that her mother, my grandmother had passed away. I was devastated.  Mamí as we called her was the Riggs family matriarch. She was a bespectacled, slender, chain smoking freak of nature who had hearing so acute that most bats envied her. She had a dry sarcastic wit, which could make almost ANYTHING sound funny and was possibly the best cook I've ever known and you had better stay out of her kitchen if you knew what was good for you.
         When Geneva Dejean was born in Opelousas, Louisiana in the 20s she had two things going against her. She was black and a woman back when neither blacks nor women had any voice at all. What's more, she was the second daughter of a beautiful black woman and a white man at a time when persons of mixed race (male or female) were treated as pariahs by both the black AND white communities.  She met and married a man named Alvin Riggs and raised a big family which included an adorable daughter with a funny voice named Lee Etta who would eventually have five children of her own including myself.
         For reasons I'll never quite understand the Department of defense & Marine Corps in their infinite wisdom would not allow me to attend Mamí's funeral. This made the loss seem that much worse.

       I didn't know this until a few days ago but paying last respects to Mamí changed the HISTORY of small town of Church Point, Louisiana.  My mother had made Mamí's arrangements years earlier with a mortician in Church Point. Contracts had been signed, fees had been paid and all had been taken care of, at least that's what any sane person would have assumed; however, the good people at the mortuary informed the grieving children of Geneva Dejean Riggs, widow of Alvin Riggs that their mother could not be interred at their facility because she was "colored." My mother, aunts and uncles were then informed that "colored" funerals were handled by the mortuary near the old Handy place.
      
      Those who have met my mother describe her as an unassuming, very humble person. She is as sweet as a peach cobbler unless you're stupid enough to make her mad and unfortunately the good people at the un-named funeral home did precisely that.  My mother can be called many things, but I've never heard the time shrieking violet used to describe her. When you mess with those she loves mom digs in her heels and you're in for one hell of a fight.
      Over the course of two days mom battled an idiot mortician and his son, mentioned getting the NAACP and their lawyers to stop by, threatened to call the Louisiana Attorney General AND the State Licensing board of morticians to review his license and at the end of all of that she reminded him that unless he was ready to go outside and put up "Whites Only" and "Coloreds Need Not Apply" signs outside he needed to look at a calendar to remind him that it was 1989 and not 1959.

         The mortician yelled, screamed and nearly had a small heart attack but in the end relented.
So it came to pass that Geneva Dejean Riggs who grew up and spent the better part of her life being told to use the rear entrances, who was relegated to using certain water fountains and public facilities because of the color of her skin was the first person of color (well technically bi-racial person) interred in Church Point, Louisiana at a mortician who had previously served an exclusively white clientele.  All the while this was happening I was flat on my back in California receiving intravenous fluids and some beautiful medications to help me rest and recuperate from dehydration I suffered in the desert,  oblivious to the events in the part of the world which I frequently call "The ancestral homeland".
         I've always respected my mother, she's a person of character and if there is any good in me she most certainly is responsible for it.  Being a humble person mom waited more than 20 years to tell me of those events and while I didn't think it POSSIBLE my already towering respect for my mother grew.

      Some would have been content to have had the wake and services some place else and would have gone away threatening a lawsuit that would have never materialized, but my mom fought and by doing so gave Mamí the dignity and respect that she had been denied so many times in her lifetime by men and women who had no reason save the color of her skin.
      When I remember my grandmother the first thing that came to mind was a gumbo recipe which I try to emulate each time I'm standing over a cast iron skillet attempting to re-create her roux. I remember a woman who woke up in the morning and lit a cigarette on her stove and seemed to have one dangling from her lip for the rest of the day. I remember a woman with a quick, dry sarcastic wit who could always quickly clown me, my cousins Darnell, Junior, Terry & Jason with impeccable timing and relative ease, and NOW I'll remember a civil rights pioneer.
        She wasn't told to go to the back of a bus, but she forever changed the small town in which she had quietly lived her life and for that I'm even more proud to be her grandson. Happy Mother's day Mamí.

Love,
          Tiny