Do you see it? The inner, the mechanism, the gears and bolts. The beginner, molecular systems, is fear continuous? The original thought. Take a peak behind your curtain and tell me, what accelerates the hands on your clock? The Machine.
Recognition will always equal libertaion. My mind was refreshingly reminded of that phrase after reading a “perception shifter” of a write up on how COVID -19 is negatively impacting young black men. While the articles body holds the appearance of bringing to the forefront impactful and horrific COVID-19 death stories, the articles soul lives and navigates through the intriguing folkloric mythology of John Henry. The name sounded extremely familiar to me, it was as if I was hearing the name of a big cousin I have been introduced to as a child, but haven’t seen or heard of them since then.
“Ohhh, that’s that nigga with the hammer!”, I said to my dog Oso, who just happened to be laying beside me. He didn’t acknowledge me back. I nudged him to make sure he was alive, he was alive.
The tale of John Henry is something every American has either read, seen, or atleast heard about. According to some collective agreeable entity that absorbs myths and places them on the self of weird semi historical fact, legend has it that John Henry was born a slave and proceeded working for a railroad company once the Civil War ended. Henry, who at a young age was already built like a NFL linebacker, gravitated towards becoming a steel driving- hammer man. He would swing his 20 pound hammer at boulder size rocks, slicing through them like a hot knife cordially introducing itself to a thick-ol’ stick of butter. Henry worked harder and faster then all the men combined, already building towards a legend status reputation around his name. That status would be put to the test when Henry is faced with creating a tunnel through the Big Bend Mountain. That status is tested even more, when Henry is challenged by a salesman who is looking for a buyer to purchase his steam-power drill. The salesman bets Henry’s boss that the steam-power drill can drill faster through the mountains rock than all of his workers. Henry, already submerged deep in the depths of his own murky pride, steps forward and accepts the challenge…alone. With 20 pound hammers in both hands, Henry was able to punch a hole to the other side of the mountain, while the steam powered machine broke down and crashed. The workers all rejoiced for John Henry had lived up to his archetypal image of being a black superman. As the air became filled with joy and pure adolescent style amazement from John Henry’s victory, John Henry’s lungs proceeded to take it’s last inhale and exhale. Sitting on a rock and still holding on to his hammers, John Henry died from a heart attack.
Disclaimer for reader* Before one continues reading, I would like to offer a concept that one should keep in their peripheral point of view when continued reading . Ofcourse I can not make you or anyone forcefully believe in any concept, but maybe I can provide a shift of perception with the intentions built on compassion and branded as understanding. Maybe with that package I can generate in ones mind the chemical and physical reaction that produces the thought that leads to the action of one saying, “Hm, I never thought of it that way”. Maybe, having said all of that I’ll like to present, there is no “us vs them”. I do see and recognize a person or group who wants to play the role of us, and the same can go for a person or group who wants to play the role of them. When it comes to us vs them, there is just no such thing. Anytime there is an us vs them scenario, you can find traces of the machine being at work. Us vs them at the very core of things, has it roots nested in the conceptual image of being a game. To understand this better, substitute the name Lakers vs Celtics with Us vs Them. Substitute Democrat vs Republican with Us vs Them, the same can go for Black vs White. If us vs them is the basic building blocks for being a game, that means there are more factors that come into play. For even if the players showed up, would their be a game without referes, coaches, or even owners? Us vs them is the extreme by product of the machine at work, with the main goal being to create conflict. A story does not move without conflict (or hope), this creates the necessary energy that keeps the machine moving. At the end of the day when the alarm, work whistle, final call, game horn, church bell, trumpet or whatever signal is recognized as the ceasing of play is sounded. When everybody is leaving one begins to notice that us vs them is truly running off the oil of you, you, you, you, and you. There is no us vs them without you. *
But do they see it? One said it’s a spear. The other said it’s a fan. The other said it’s a snake. The other said it’s a tree. The other said it’s a rope. The other said it’s a wall. But if they, the other, or the one, understood the objective, a total mental perceptional collective speaking in tongue. The Machine will calmly remind us- “y’all are fuckin’ dumb”
After re-familiarizing myself with the tale of John Henry, I did not feel that same sense of amazement I felt when I was a child. It was as if I was listening to a very old uncle who only feels happy when reminiscing on the way- back glory days of high school athletics. I couldn’t stop thinking about if I possessed the power to travel back in time. When illustrated in books John Henry is always depicated as smiling. A big jolly black man smiling and whistling while he swings his hammer away at boulders in the blistering sun. I wondered, if I appeared back in time at the Big Bend Mountain in West Virginia with a copy of the book, would John Henry reveal to me that big ol’ smile and allow me to hear his deep bravado whistling? What would he do if I could tell him that facing the machine will kill him? I imagined John Henry with deep warm brown eyes piercing right through my soul, while at the same time still revealing that big ol’ smile. I imagined him putting his hand on my shoulder, that being a sign of him acknowledging any sense of doubt in my young mind. He uses that same hand to gently move me to the side, to go create his destiny. As he struts by carrying hammers in both hands, I imagined asking John Henry, “as a free’d slave, how do you feel about America immortalizing your story and injecting it into the veins of black culture and the black narrative”. He stops in his steps as if he has been hit in the back by a small peeble. Recognition will always equal liberation, it is only through the process of recognizing something that can free you from the trapping of assumptions and appearances. Seeing may or may not lead to believing, but believing does not lead in any way to liberation. Believing is only a gateway to hope, a mover of the machine, hope is the yin while conflict is the yang. Anything that leads to either hope or conflict, can be traced back to being associated with the machine. “John Henry, hope and conflict is where your story is birthed from”, I imagined saying. He let go of the hammer in his left hand, it falling down to the earth as if it has been banished from heavens. “Living up to the conceptualized image of John Henry, is the true machine that is going to kill you”, I imagined saying. He let go of the hammer in his right hand, it falling down to the earth like an asteroid that has just been sent from deep space. “John Henry, do you recognize that America created you, black culture, and black history, but you, black culture, and black history created America?” I said.
The Machine. But do I see it? With shutters slowed and this lifted veil disposed. This intrinsic design, “Arjuna, I want you to understand…I am TIME.” Exposed, to the reality of eyes close behind the mirror- you are alone, and, juxtaposed to the reality where blinding luminosity arose- you are the clone. Alone as a clone and slave to the idea that at the top of this subjective pyramid sits your golden throne.
Mythology can be defined as a body of interconnected myths or stories. These myths or stories can be told by a specific cultural group to explain the world consistent with their experience in which they live in. The formation of stories and myths then leads way into what is called a narrative. Narrative, is the collection of weaved story material that when put together creates a persona, a certain image or personality that is projected into the public-sphere. The projected personality of narratives that has been created from the gluing together of myths or stories, is what creates culture. Narratives though do not always equate to being cultural, but a cultural being mainly runs off of narratives. This is why people are not born with a culture, but rather it is learned through a process called enculturation. For a culture to flourish and survive, it has to satisfy the basic needs of people who live by its rules, develop means to ensue its transmission and continuity across generations, and provide an orderly existence for members of society. But what does all this mean for people who have a culture, but has no means or ways to controlling their narrative? What is creating this culture when the myths and stories are continually hiijacked and sucked into a vast oppressive ether, and then exits out as “acceptance”?
Information is a direct pipeline to power, and whoever has control over a narrative, has an immediate chokehold on that power. Hence when more people of a certain culture are informed, the more power that group of people have in weaving together their narrative. This premise can truly be seen in the unwavering endurance of black people to continously define and preserve black culture, but what exactly is black culture, and what does it mean to be black? The word black when attributed to a color, or towards describing a group of people, always leaves me with my eyebrows peculiarly raised. For starters black is not a color (white isn’t one either), for black is actually the absence of all color. When an object is labeled as black that means all colors of the visible spectrum are absorbed, none of the colors get reflected into the eye. So technically the divisive derogatory destructive phrase “colored people”, truly makes not one bit of sense because black is not a color. But again, what does it mean to be black? Well before there was black, there existed Black American, before there was Black American there existed African-American, along with African- American was its cousin Afro- American, before African- American and Afro- American existed Colored People. Before Colored People existed nigger, and before nigger existed negro. Tracing these epithetic labels too the root negro truly humors me, I’m well aware of the African presence in España for over 800 years, but it is hard to imagine people living in Africa conversing in spanish with each other. I could be wrong but I don’t think tribes located on the western terrian of the continent, considered themselves or labeled themselves as negros. It was early Spanish and Portuguese kidnappers who first put the label negro onto Africans and brought them to the Americas. Majority of those first Africans were taken to the Caribbean or other spanish colonies that were set up in Central and South America. In 1545 Spain signed the Asiento agreement, which allowed different nations to be able to transport slaves to Spanish colonies. This agreement is the precursor for the British trans-atlantic slave trade, for many banks in many European nations at the time realized just how much money can be made through the insurance of selling enslaved Africans. In my humble opinion this is the energy that blinded those European nations eyes, and when their sight came back, all they can see were niggers. Slavery is and was nothing new, but the justification of slavery in America through the means of ideologically thinking of a certain group of people to be considered something nowhere near human, is what makes black people’s plight different than any other group. Black, negro, nigger, African- American and so on are all epithets that are not apart of the narrative of black people, they are apart of the narrative of America. There were no black people, black culture, or any other phrase pretaining to that matter before the white supremacist capitalistic patriarchy created black people. Before the creation of black people, different tribes located in Africa held different beliefs and different cultures. Africa is a continent not a country, when using the word black to categorize a group of people, it conceals a remarkable heterogeneity of cultures among diverse African populations and reinforce racial stereotypes. But, this is where the machine is at work, this is where hope and conflict come into play. I am black, only because I am American, and I am American, only because I am black. This goes back to my imaginary attempt to get John Henry to drop his hammers. There would be no America without the ability for black people to survive and create a narrative and culture for themselves, but that narrative and culture that was created, is just as American as apple pie. To truly digest what I am saying, look in the mirror and ask yourself, “What is America without black people?”, and then ask “What is black people without America?”. Recognizing this might not liberate you, but recognizing the machine at work will liberate you from an entrapping narrative cycle that an oppressive system has bestowed upon you.
The Machine. I see it. For aren’t these building blocks and pyramids of thought, only made from stone? Eroded away consistently by the vibrations strung by the present day. Don’t find comfort in your wave, understand the forces at play, for when the wave crashes, the tide return to its home.
