"I regard her (Haiti) as the original pioneer emancipator of the nineteenth century..." Douglass, 1893
I was feeling the spirit of Frederick Douglass & Haiti HEAVY in my house yesterday. I could not understand it. Now I know why.
This morning, I saw my sister-friend's Facebook status: "February 7,1986~ marked the END of Duvalier Regime in Haiti...24 years later, Haitians continue to suffer...Remembering, Praying & Supporting Haiti." The current political landscape made me wonder...What would Douglass say today? How would his eyes see his beloved Haiti during these trying times?
I spent the morning buried in his chest of words. This is not the first time that I have found identity, meaning and solace there. Today, he enraptured me. All I could do was surrender. His lecture given in Chicago 1893 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Haiti's independence is relevant today. It is as if he stood up to speak after the recent earthquake. As an ancestor, he still speaks about our beloved Haiti. He still reminds us that Haiti is not only the birthplace of black liberation in the world - it is the resurrection place of freedom for humanity. Haiti is why we don't accept slavery for ourselves or anyone else. Whether you are black, brown, yellow, red or pink...Haiti is our living proof of why we stand and are willing to die as long is our last breath is, " I AM FREE."
Haiti was born at a pivotal point in history and we forget that. We want to think that slavery was just about black people. It was not. It was about a rape of humanity. It was about the disintegration of the human spirit. It was about the acceleration of power by a very small group of people over the masses. The question of freedom was not a black question. It was a human question. It was an experiment to see if the world would stand for the enslavement of one and therefore welcome the enslavement of all over time.
Haiti reminded us all - black, white, poor, uneducated, privileged, yellow, red, man, woman - that we surrender to God alone. We are here to serve a higher power that exist in each in and beyond everyone of us. Haiti reminded us that if any man denies the God in himself to enslave the God in me then we all must die and I will happily return this body to the earth from which I come...right after yours. And that holds true because I am human. I am spirit. Not because I am black and a woman. My blackness and my womb merely informs the urgency of the matter.
I see these people and I wonder how the same ones who vilify Damballah manage to be snakes themselves. The same ones who claim to drink the blood of Christ are the first on site to slaughter the lamb. The same ones who quote the sermon on the mount are the first to lay Haiti, Congo, Bosnia,Tibet, Anacostia, Appalachia, Susquehanna, etc. flat on their back and I wonder who am I in all of this? I feel them crawling over earth, burning their own history into her face and it sickens me because I wonder...how long will it be before it is my face? How long will it be before it is your face? Or perhaps, by birth, by blood, by breathing - we are already marked. Well, if I am marked, it is so I won't forget and my existence won't let you forget. This mark is a reminder - like Douglass' speech, that we don't lay down under this blanket of snow. We won't surrender our humanity. We fight till the death.
You may not see it in some grand action, but best believe that the few of us left that know that we are marked with spirit of humanity are rising. We go to work every day. We teach your children. We manage your money. We grow your food. We are rising. We sit in your pews. We run your countries. We sort your coal. We sleep under the same sky and from this darkness we are rising and returning to that first light that the Divine commanded and we all are saying are those same first words..."Let there be light." And we are pulling out flashlights, cell phones, lighters, or just our pretty white teeth to let ANY man or woman know that we will not allow death and destruction, the separation of humanity, the pillaging of earth to hide and sleep in the corners of your words, actions, and policies. We will shine that light on you and what you do to Haiti because we know it is merely a prelude of what is to come for us all.
So, I return to my day to day with understanding. Don't see this as a surrender or slumber. I have looked at the history of humanity and turn its pages and seen this cycle of life and goodness. The human spirit is not one to deny. We have never been one to sleep when it is quiet.
I look around me and in my own mirror and watch the divine spirit whisper through those eyes, calling out to me and others those first words..."Let there be light...Let there be light...Let there be light."
For Haiti, for Southeast, for North and Long, for Appalachia, for Crenshaw, for Potomac, for the fertile crescent, for the delta, for the Ganges, for the Thames, for Canaan, for the Inuits, for the bluegrass, for the backwoods, for the rural plains, for the aborigine, for Liberia, for Sarajevo, for humanity...I stand up and say "Let there be light." Shine on these issues, so we truly understand and move forward.
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