Healing from Slavery and Healing Self? It Requires Art, Understanding, and Heart
(and some lessons from the cotton fields)
I just finished reading Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South by Winfred Rembert. I highly recommend it to help us understand a mindset and culture as it exists today because of the past, because of the stubborn ugliness of racism, because it’s not over. Some say things are different today (they are) and the past is dead (it’s not); therefore, They need to let go of the past. Much more work is needed for anyone to conscientiously state such foolishness.
Yes, I’m older than a lot of readers here, which is why I remember all the angst and conflict produced by White supremacy attitudes. You don’t have to be an official White supremacist to live and believe like one. When I read this book, a lot of memories rushed to my consciousness, along with some things I have written about before as in my book Martin, Maya, and Me: A Brief Exploration of Social Injustice.
Remember Winfred Rembert. Look up his artwork. Read his book. I hope one day my poems will be seen as telling my life that reflects a collective expression of Heart energy. I hope many of us, whatever race or history, will come to know that being our sincere Self through Heart expression defines Love — Heart…
