Choose Life
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo
Stanton
Choose Life
WASHINGTON — "Suicide in the United States
has surged to the highest levels in nearly 30 years, a federal data analysis
has found, with increases in every age group except older adults. The rise was
particularly steep for women. It was also substantial among middle-aged
Americans, sending a signal of deep anguish from a group whose suicide rates
had been stable or falling since the 1950s. The suicide rate for middle-aged
women, ages 45 to 64, jumped by 63 percent over the period of the study, while
it rose by 43 percent for men in that age range, the sharpest increase for
males of any age. The overall suicide rate rose by 24 percent from 1999 to
2014, according to the National Center for Health Statistics,
which released the study Friday." http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/us-suicide-rate-jumps-to-28-year-high-160423?news=858701
A recent study by the US government found suicide rates have skyrocketed
in the US
at an alarming rate. In the civilian population suicide rates are rising across
all demographics except for Black men and people over 75. You can read an
article about it at http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/us-suicide-rate-jumps-to-28-year-high-160423?news=858701.
Suicide
rates among US military personnel are also on the rise. Figures now indicate
active duty and veteran suicides are not linked to deployment or battle trauma.
"The latest study, which analyzed records of
3.9 million military personnel who served from 2001 to 2007, did find that
troops who left the military within four years, especially under
less-than-honorable conditions, were at much higher risk of suicide than those
who continued to serve. The prevalence of suicide was not even across branches.
The Army and Marine Corps, which bore the brunt of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, had rates about 25
percent higher than those of the Air Force and Navy. But within those branches,
rates between those who deployed and those who did not were nearly the same."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/us/study-finds-no-link-between-military-suicide-rate-and-deployments.html?_r=0
What
does this say about America
as a nation? What does this reveal about the psyche of Americans that so many are taking their own
lives? Are these suicide linked to economic conditions? Are they a result of a moral
malaise and degeneracy or the glaring cognitive disconnect between what America
professes to be and the stark reality of life in this country?
Suicide
is an act of desperation, an act of hopelessness, helplessness and feeling
overwhelmed by the vicissitudes of life, what Shakespeare called the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune. Psychologists and social support workers say the
top reasons people attempt or commit suicide are: chronic depression, their
cries for help and attention go unrecognized, frustration or despair about
their life conditions, addiction, negative thoughts, economic downturn and impulsive
behavior that has unintended consequences.
Life
is unpredictable. No one escapes the challenges, the valley experiences,
conflicts and uncertainties of life. We all experience them at some point or
points in our lives, no one is exempt. I tell people, the only people with no
problems that we are aware of are in the cemetery. Challenges and obstacle are
part of this thing we call life.
If you have problems of any kind, be thankful,
it means you are alive. To be alive means we have agency we have power and we
can choose how we respond to situations and circumstances. We just have to face
them head on and decide the best way to deal with them.
Many
of our problems we bring on ourselves through misunderstanding, misguided ego,
not being in control of our thoughts, feelings and actions. Most of our
problems are the result of choices we made or didn't make. We zigged when we
should have zagged. We didn't listen to the still small voice we all have that
told us to go here, not to trust that person or to launch out and follow our
dream.
Some things we consider problems are actually
tests, drawn and placed strategically in our lives to teach us valuable lessons
about ourselves, to provide opportunities and situations to bring out our
latent talents, skills and genius. There is a saying, "circumstances don't
create or make a person, they reveal him (or her)." The circumstances of our
lives reveal a lot about us and our inner make up. There is always a message in
the mess and a lesson in the loss. We have to stop the pity party and try to
discern the message and the lessons.
Suicide is
a choice. People choose to end their lives or they choose to try to get
attention by attempting suicide. Often our thoughts are muddled, incoherent or
based on faulty assessments and data. Things aren't always as they appear. We
don't see the blessing or benefit in the situation and we take the wrong
attitude or action. We too often have a pessimistic outlook and we fail to
grasp miracles and unexplained good fortune happen every day.
As Africans
we have faced horrendous challenges, horrific obstacles and difficulties. What lessons
can we learn from these experiences? Which ones have we brought on ourselves, what
can these experiences teach us about ourselves? We have experienced horrific
violence, unfathomable heartache, suffering and disappointment but through it
all we have endured albeit in a wounded way. We have triumphed against
overwhelming and outrageous odds. In the midst of oppression we have been
extraordinarily creative, we have demonstrated to the world our resilience,
fortitude and gumption. We did so in the midst of unimaginable turmoil, insanity
and psychopathy.
Yet we are
still here. We are still going strong! The suicide study stated the suicide
rate for Black men has gone down! That is great news. What does that say about us
as a people?! How can we build on this? Could the message in the mess be that
we are an awesome people? Could the lesson in our horrific losses be that we
are more than capable of overcoming?
What if we
told each other this and showed love for each other? What if we learned and
internalized the lessons? What if we changed our negative, stultifying externally
imposed self-image to a self-image of winners in every aspect of life not just
sports?! What if we defined ourselves as triumphant doers achievers and genii?!
What if we recognized our inner greatness and linkage to the DIVINE in
everything?! Would our health be better?
Would we
express our genius in ways currently unimagined? How would we manifest our talents,
gifts and skills if we had that kind of consciousness? Would we stop making everyone else rich and empower
and enrich ourselves? if so how? Can you see this in your mind's eye. If so we
can make it real. If so we can make it happen. But to make it happen we have to
first choose life, we have to choose to live on the highest levels possible. Choose
life today my Brothers and Sistahs.
-30-
Things Aren't Much Different Today Than They Were In 1787
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Things Aren't Much Different Today Than
They Were In 1787
"In short, Beard said, the rich must,
in their own interest, either control the government directly or control the
laws by which government operates. Beard applied this general idea to the
Constitution, by studying the economic backgrounds and political ideas of the
fifty-five men who gathered in Philadelphia
in 1787 to draw up the Constitution. He found that a majority of them were
lawyers by profession, that most of them were men of wealth, in land, slaves,
manufacturing, or shipping, that half of them had money loaned out at interest,
and that forty of the fifty-five held government bonds, according to the
records of the Treasury Department. Thus, Beard found that most of the makers
of the Constitution had some direct economic interest in establishing a strong
federal government: the manufacturers needed protective tariffs; the
moneylenders wanted to stop the use of paper money to pay off debts; the land
speculators wanted protection as they invaded Indian lands; slave owners needed
federal security against slave revolts and runaways; bondholders wanted a
government able to raise money by nationwide taxation, to pay off those
bonds... Four groups, Beard noted, were not represented in the Constitutional
Convention: slaves, indentured servants, women, men without property. And so
the Constitution did not reflect the interests of those groups". A People's History of the United States
1492-Present by Howard Zinn page 83
Watching
politicians, corporate leaders, the military, media talking heads lie,
flip-flop, prevaricate, double speak and obfuscate the issues of the day, we
might think this is a new phenomenon. Not so. In the US the politicians, educators,
media and religious leaders have always lied, always sought to dupe the masses whom
they look down upon and have always done whatever they thought they could get
away with including murder to get what they wanted. America's political environment as
seen in the current election cycle is demonstrating to the world just how
disingenuous, corrupt and rigged the political process is and how candidates
easily fall in line and acquiesce to the immorality and sleaze built into and endemic
to the system.
Today two
candidates stand in stark contrast to the business as usual okey-doke of the
two major political parties. Bernie Sanders an avowed socialist who for years
ran as an independent recently joined the Democratic Party to facilitate his
run for the presidency. Sanders realized running as an independent or third
party candidate would not be feasible because the American political system is
a closed and rigid two party system that constructs formidable barriers to
third party candidates. It takes more money for an independent or splinter
party candidate to get on the ballot, often they have to go to court (which
costs money) to even get on the ballot; or they are forced to go to court to fight
challenges to their petitions for eligibility to run. Sanders chose to run as a
Democrat but made the wide scale inequality and corruption of the US economic
system and rigged election process the central theme of his campaign.
Unlike the
Republicans who started off with sixteen announced candidates for the presidency, Sanders only had three
other people running against him. One of them, Hillary Clinton was considered
the lock to get the nomination due to her insider status as a globalist and advocate
of neoliberal economic policies that benefit the one per cent crowd. Sanders
has long railed against the trade policies Clinton supported but now tries to
distance herself from! While a US
Senator he has consistently spoken out against and warned about the increasing
income and wealth disparity metastasizing throughout this country. Sanders has
fashioned his presidential campaign message centering on this issue. For the
most part, Sanders unlike most politicians has remained focused and unwavering
on that part of his campaign while including issues such as justice system,
campaign and election reform as part of his call for a "revolution"
in US politics.
Using the
word revolution has not endeared Sanders to the ruling class which is why the
corporate media takes every opportunity to paint him as a wild eyed radical. Sander's opponent has been forced due to the
huge crowds he draws, his unconventional message and his rising momentum during
the recent primaries to obfuscate her corporatist voting record, flip-flop her
previous positions and pretend she is a populous, that she is concerned about
poor people.
When Hillary Clinton was confronted by the
Black Lives Matter movement about mass incarceration she was forced to try to
defend the indefensible, using the term "super predators" when she
pushed for and supported her husband's 1994 Crime Bill. Clinton's bill was the legislation that
augmented Nixon's 1971 and Reagan's 1980 War on drugs bills which created the
mass incarceration of Black and Brown people. Clinton's bill especially fueled the rise of Wall Street stock market traded private prisons
and the prison industrial complex Michelle Alexander calls the "New Jim
Crow".
Clinton
has attempted to use Barack Obama as her shield to deflect Sander's charge she
took hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign and foundation funds from
corporations and special interests groups by saying Obama took money from them too
but did not concede anything to them; typical politician lies. Looking at the
facts and you can see for yourself at www.opensecrets.com. Barack Obama took
far more money from lawyers, the investment industry, universities and real
estate than he did from small individual contributors (only 6%).
When you
look at Obama's priorities and actions ,or lack thereof, you can connect the
dots yourself. For example in 2007-2008 Obama took $ 1,205,736 from the
investment industry (Wall Street, insurance, hedge funds etc). Is that why the
Obama administration prosecuted not one Wall Street firm, not one bond rating
company, not one hedge fund, not one insurance company or why no one from those
industries went to jail for blowing up the global economy?! Yet he supported
and pushed for supposed "affordable health care legislation" that was
written in whole by the insurance company trade association! These are the facts whether you want to accept
them or not.
This is the
very thing Bernie Sanders and to a limited degree Donald Trump are talking about,
the nexus between big money and government policy; how the big wigs control
what happens that always accrues to their benefit.
This nexus
goes back to the founding of this country. A White Anglo Saxon Protestant
ruling elite created the constitutional government and societal institutions
then used them to perpetuate and strengthen their wealth, position and power to
the detriment and exclusion of the masses. Over the years with the influx of
new ethnic groups who subsequently built their own economic power bases and
used them to infiltrate the political process the WASPs no longer exclusively
dominate the socio-economic and political landscape. African-Americans for
the most part are still outlanders not
having been able to penetrate the ruling elite other than as lackeys and
sycophants of the system like Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Eric Holder and
Barack Obama.
The one
thing that has remained constant is: the poor and working class hold no check
or influence in public, national or international policy. "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised
groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government
policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no
independent influence. In English: the wealthy few move policy, while
the average American has little power. The two professors came to this
conclusion after reviewing answers to 1,779 survey questions asked between 1981
and 2002 on public policy issues. They broke the responses down by income
level, and then determined how often certain income levels and organised
interest groups saw their policy preferences enacted. "A proposed policy
change with low support among economically elite Americans (one-out-of-five in
favour) is adopted only about 18% of the time," they write, "while a
proposed change with high support (four-out-of-five in favour) is adopted about
45% of the time." On the other hand: When a majority of citizens
disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally
lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political
system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change,
they generally do not get it. They conclude: Americans do enjoy many
features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom
of speech and association and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But
we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organisations
and a small number of affluent Americans, then America's claims to being a
democratic society are seriously threatened." Study: US is an oligarchy
not a democracy. http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
If
you are reading this and saying tell me something I don't already know, then my
question to you is what are you doing in light of this reality? I ask this
because in the past there were countless rebellions, riots, strikes, shut downs
and other forms of resistance to ruling class exploitation and control from
colonial times to the modern era, Beacon's Rebellion 1676, Shay's Rebellion
1786, Nat Turner 1831, the Homestead Pa. Steel Strike in 1892, the Minnesota
Food Riots of 1932, the Civil Rights and
Black Power Movements, Deacons for Justice and Defense in the 1960's, the
Occupy Wall Street Movement of 2011, the
Bundy standoff of 2016 to cite just a
few.
The question is what are you/we going to do
about the present situation? Are you one of the millions who doesn't vote or
even keep up with current events? Are you a reformer seeking to bring about
true justice and inclusivity in a corrupt divided society? Are you seeking to
enter headlong into the burning and collapsing house that is modern America? Or are
you trying to figure out how to survive the immanent collapse and build a morally
viable and humane community of like minded people who know we can do and be
better?
-30-
The Real Face (Farce) of "Democracy"
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
The Real Face (Farce) of
"Democracy"
"In
what may go down as the defining moment of the 2016 Republican Presidential
Race, GOP party
insiders in Colorado completed their scheme to
cancel the voice of over 900,000 registered Republicans and award the states
delegates to Senator Ted Cruz in what is widely believed to be a transparent
attack on the candidacy of Donald Trump. In late
August GOP insiders quietly decided to cancel the vote of the citizens of Colorado,a move that put
the election of delegates into the hands of establishment insiders and
activists. Now, seven months later, the scheme has apparently paid off with
Cruz gaining all 34 of the states delegates." https://www.intellihub.com/gop-establishment-cancels-vote-in-colorado/
The
2016 presidential primaries are revealing just how corrupt the American
political system actually is. The revelations are getting more bizarre and
disturbing every day. As the stakes get higher the Democratic and Republican
Party inner circles are rallying to maintain the status quo in the face of
overwhelming voter dissatisfaction, discontent and a genuine desire to alter
the current course of politics in the United States. During the various presidential
primaries both political parties have distinguished themselves as unabashedly
corrupt.
Beginning
in Iowa there
were allegations Ted Cruz won based on voter fraud and dirty tricks. As Donald
Trump surged and won several states to become the frontrunner the Republican
elites have openly and publicly conspired to deny him the chance to become the
Republican nominee. They are so desperate they are plotting several strategies
to steal the nomination from Trump: one is to rig the elections in favor of Ted
Cruz who is universally disliked by the Party and a man many say is not even qualified
to run since he is not a natural born citizen of the US and the other plan is
to do everything possible to deny Trump the need delegates to win on the first
ballot so they can manipulate a "brokered convention" in Cleveland
Ohio this summer. That is not democracy where the party members choose the candidates they want
to represent them by voting in the primary and general elections. What we are seeing in both political parties
is banana republic type stuff.
On
the Democratic Party side, Hillary Clinton is alleged to have used out of state
paid staffers pretending to be precinct captains in Iowa to steer local participants to vote for
her. There are additional instances of seeming irregularity such as in every
contested precinct vote in Iowa
the winner was decided by a coin toss; and in a statistical improbability, Hillary
Clinton won every toss! Moving on from Iowa, Clinton used her
formidable backing by the party insiders to gain every advantage possible. But
even with that Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls and has won eight
straight primaries.
I
don't have a dog in either fight, to me the system is a sham and is totally
corrupt. I have known this for decades but what we are seeing now confirms it
for all the world to see. My first experience with electoral politics came in
the early nineteen seventies when I was asked to help one of my college
fraternity brothers who was running for the Pennsylvania state legislature. He was
running against the current speaker of the Pennsylvania House Herbert Fineman
in a district that was changing demographically. Fineman popular and he was
also a powerful ward leader. The Jews were leaving the Wynnfield section of the
city in droves but were still thick in Overbrook Park
and in the apartments on the Philly side of City Line Avenue in the 70's. Blacks were
concentrated in what was called The Bottom but there were also a lot of white students
from Drexel University there. His strategy was to
concentrate on the Black wards and his Winnfield neighbors and leave the white enclaves
to Fineman. I went out every Saturday and sometimes during the week when my
schedule permitted putting literature in people's doors and talking to folks on
the street.
My
frat brother was his neighborhood's committeeman but he had no financial support
from the Democratic Party. He was operating as an independent reformer on a
shoestring budget to say the least and our efforts were made more difficult
because many Blacks in the district were
afraid to go against an incumbent who was very powerful in Philadelphia
and Pennsylvania
politics.
On
the day of the primary I took a day off from grad school and served as a poll
watcher in the Wynnfield section of the district. I began my duties when the
polling place opened and became friendly with the other poll watchers and
workers most of whom were supporting Mr. Fineman. Around lunch time one of the
women whispered to me, "I'm only telling you this because you seem like a
nice person, the machines aren't registering the votes of your candidate."
We didn't have cell phones back then so
I went to a payphone and called my frat brother. He followed up, made some
calls to The Committee of Seventy an election watchdog group who sent representatives
to the site and Mr. Fineman came to the polling site later that afternoon
asking what the commotion was all about. The election proceeded the rest of the
day without incident. I never found out if what the woman told me was true, but
my candidate lost by a landslide which I attributed to our lack of money and
staff, Fineman's name recognition and political longevity as a candidate as
well as the dirty tricks. I received a first hand lesson then that the reality
of electoral politics is not what they each in civics class in school, college
and grad school.
Two years later, my frat brother ran against Herb
Fineman and lost again. I helped him in
that campaign also. He had the same problems then as he had the previous time: lack
of money, lack of name recognition outside his immediate community and lack of
party support and endorsement although they liked his energy and spunk.
I
experienced dirty tricks used against my running mate and I when we ran as an incumbent
candidates for borough council in a small all Black incorporated self
-governing town years later when I moved to New Jersey. I had served the community on
the Planning Board for many years and was asked to fill an open council seat
when one of the council members passed away unexpectedly. During my second term
the council was considering a controversial land development proposal and there
was staunch opposition to it by some community members. The opposition used fear mongering, lies and a
lawsuit which our side eventually won in federal court but that cost the town
over $400,000. For a small town of less
than 4,000 residents that was a lot of money, especially when the government mutual
insurance fund our town belonged to and contributed money to that was supposed
to help in cases like this, refused to give us money to defend ourselves. The
irony of it was the people they ran against us had never done anything of significance
in the town or volunteered to serve the community. They won but were voted out of office three
years later after serving one term.
As
the 2016 presidential circus continues to unfound, do not be surprised when the
ruling classes pull strings, bend the rules or openly steal the nominations
from Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. What we are seeing is abject proof the American system is totally corrupt and the
will of the people is being thwarted! The ruling elites have high jacked the
system, elections are a sham merely a way to keep the rabble going for the
ruling elites' okey-doke.
I'm
not saying don't vote. You should vote for the local initiatives like the
school board elections (where
applicable), the school board budget, referendums and your local
representatives. But as we can see, the presidential process is a farce. We
should recognize this and act accordingly.
-30-
Underground An Oasis In A Vast Wasteland
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Underground An Oasis In
A Vast Wasteland
In 1961 Newton Minow who at that
time was the newly appointed Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission
gave a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters where he chastised
the owners for the poor quality of the programming on their stations. He said,
"When television is good,
nothing--not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers--nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your
television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book,
magazine, newspaper, profit and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you--and
keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you
that you will observe a vast wasteland. You will see a
procession of game shows, violence, audience-participation shows, formula
comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem,
violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes,
gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials--many
screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you will see
a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think
I exaggerate, try it." http://www.janda.org/b20/News%20articles/vastwastland.htm.
Not much
has changed in television programming since 1961; in fact we could say things
are far worse because of the proliferation of cable channels, additional over
the air stations, satellite and streaming companies that are airing some of the
exact same programming Minow complained about in 1961. These stations and
channels show evn more reruns along with additional original programming on
hundreds more stations, channels, streaming and viewing platforms. The vast
wasteland is metastasizing and infecting all the broadcasting and streaming
options. Now more and more generations of Americans are being exposed to the
mindless drivel, intelligence insulting lies, corporate and government propaganda.
They don't call it programming for nothing. We are being programmed to see the world in a certain way by the six
media conglomerates who control most of what we see on television, in the
theater, read in the newspapers, magazines books and even on the Internet.
Media
outlets like WGN America mostly show reruns of former network programs like Law
and Order, Walker Texas Ranger, 30 Rock, How I met Your Mother along with a
smattering of original programming. But
just like in any desert you can find an oasis. One of WGN America's original programs is
extremely good, very well written and shows African people in a positive light.
If your cable company or satellite provider carries WGN America, I strongly encourage
you to tune in on Wednesday evenings to watch a very good series entitled Underground.
It is the ongoing chronicle of a group of plantation slaves in Georgia
who plot and plan to escape using the words of a song as their map to freedom.
Singer John Legend is one of the Executive
Producers as is Anthony Heminway, Mike Jackson John Legend's long time talent
manager and Misha Green is one of the show's Executive Producers, creators and
writers. It is unusual for a US
television series to have this many people of African descent at the helm of a
show. The other key producers are: Ty Stiklorius, Joe Pokaski and
Akiva Goldman.
If you have
On Demand you can see the first four
episodes using your On Demand selector on your remote control device. Or you
can go to the WGN America Website to see
what the series is about, read about the actors who play the characters, learn
about the producers and other information about the series. I don't usually
recommend Hollywood type productions but Underground
is a riveting drama, it keeps your interest, it is based upon actual historical
events, the characters have depth and are not caricatures or stereotypes.
The series
depicts the callousness, grit, grunge and viciousness of slavery but also the
resourcefulness of enslaved Black folks and their determination to be free despite
the constant scrutiny, oppression and punishment in their daily lives. The
series challenges much of what we think we know about slavery, the abolitionist
movement and the Underground Railroad. It shows the real deal not the fairy
tale narrative of happy, dancing darkies or shiftless, trifling Blacks.
American
slavery was an insane, vicious institution created and maintained by whites for
their benefit and enrichment. The ruling class created an institution based
upon class, color and racial divisions and the legacy of that system is still
with us to this day. This series is well cast, well acted and looks at slavery
primarily from the perspective of enslaved Africans but it also shows the
motivations of the ruling class, poor whites, abolitionists, their complex
interpersonal relationships and power dynamics.
In the
series we see historical figures like Black abolitionist and underground
railroad operator William Still played by Chris Chalk working assiduously to
free his people and enlist the aid of sympathetic whites to operate safe houses
and transport the Africans from safe house to safe house. References are made
to real events such as Henry "Box" Brown shipping himself to freedom
in a wooden crate. Plantation
life is depicted in its fullness. We are shown the social hierarchy, the power
dynamics of the Big House and the slave quarters. We see the lavish lifestyles
of the plantation owners and the upper class whites. But we also see the ugly underside
of slavery, how that system was propped up and maintained by the sweat, genius
and free labor of Africans.
We are also shown poor whites who served as the
overseers, slave patrollers ("patty rollers"), slave catchers, bounty
hunters, US Marshalls and their interactions with enslaved and free Africans. The
various levels and threads of the White- Black plantation power dynamic are
depicted through the characters; one is a house servant named Ernestine played
by Amirah Vann. She is head of the female house servants. She is a mulatto who uses
her wits, her beauty and her sex to protect her mulatto daughter who also works
in the Big House and her youngest child who is about six or seven. Her daughter Rosalee played by Jurnee
Smollett-Bell (Eve's Bayou, The Great Debaters) is one of the main characters
who becomes one of the Macon Seven.
The story line has Ernestine having sexual
relations with the master and it is probable that at least two of her children
are for white men probably the master played by Reed Diamond. Ernestine welds
authority in the service of the master and mistress of the Big House but she is
still a slave so she uses her wiles and sexual allure to ensure she and two of her
children have a better life.
We see the
cruelty the overseers used to punish Blacks for the slightest infraction or
mishap. In one scene the master's son and Ernestine's youngest son are running
playing and they run in front of a horse drawn wagon causing it to drop some of
its contents when the driver pulls the reigns to stop from hitting them. The
white driver jumps off the wagon and pulls out his whip to go after the Black boy
totally ignoring the white boy who caused the horse to draw up. This still
happens today, Blacks get punished for the same behavior as whites but the
whites go free.
There is
unspoken tension in the Big House because Ernestine's young son plays with the
master and mistress of the house's young son and the mistress of the house
threatens to send him to work in the field when he gets a little older;
something Ernestine doesn't want to happen. Ernestine's oldest son is the
plantation carpenter but he lives in the slave quarters. He resents his mother
for leaving him, for her working and living in the Big House.
Ernestine
is a shrewd pragmatist, she uses her wiles to get the master to promise he will
not send her youngest to the fields but let him be her oldest son's apprentice
in the plantation carpenter shop. Ernestine has the master totally under her
spell and he agrees to comply with her wishes.
I will not
spoil any more of the plot and sub plots. I just wanted to let you know the
story deals with what actually happened to our ancestors on those plantations
for several hundred years! Underground is an engrossing story
about the indomitable human spirit, selfless sacrifice and our ancestors'
determination to be free. In the midst of unfathomable and horrific cruelty,
abuse, oppression and violence our ancestors attempted to mete out an
existence, maintain some semblance of dignity, seek better lives for themselves
and their families, even if it meant they might not live to see it.
Underground
is doing fairly well in the ratings, it is good programming and needs our
support! It airs Wednesday evenings on WGN America at 10 PM with an immediate
repeat at 11 PM. I know a lot of you watch Empire; but give yourself a break
from the vast television wasteland, treat yourself to quality programming,
check out Underground.
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