the wretched and the damned


An Epistle to the Wretched and the Damned





Dear Citizens,



In the Age of Trump (2018), under the rule of fiction, we have license to commit heresy and treason and other acts of uncertainty with impunity. A fiction can be censored, but it can't be forced to testify against itself.  It is protected by a theory of justice.  We have excellent warrants in the context of imagination to annoy one another with sense and nonsense.  Consider that 21st century heretics are rarely burned at the stake , no matter how many witch hunts are conducted; that the Trump administration, unable to come up with proof positive, will not demand that Russia extradite Edward Snowden; that many of our most brilliant scientists use the principle of uncertainty to make noteworthy discoveries. In the realm of imagination, we are blessed.



When we set imagination aside to dwell in the territory of Realpolitik, we must admit that we are wretched in the sense that David Walker used that word in Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World  (1829) and damned as were the people Frantz Fanon wrote about in Les damnés de la terre (1961). To ignore how swiftly our sense of being in this world is affected by national and international (transnational) politics would be stupid and tragic.  Our best option is to focus our energies on local politics and civic duty. The most appropriate sites for productive revolution are our homes, our neighborhoods, and our towns or cities. Let us be intelligent as we engage the necessity of local politics.



Productive revolution in New Orleans, for example, is not a matter of romance, televised spectacle, and commercial celebration.  It is a matter of research, fact-checking, and relentless inquiry about what at any moment is true or not true in the Crescent City.  It is hard work and public conversations wherein genteel discourse may not always prevail.  The amount of repressed,  pent-up anger and raw trauma in the three hundred years of this city's history is difficult, if not impossible, to transcend.  We must find strength to deal with the obscenity of a truth, to accept that problem-solving is an eternal project.  Yes, we should not reject the possibility that faith and prayer are helpful, but we must also admit that faith has never repaired a broken sewer-line and prayer has not eradicated violence, crime, and blatant racism, nor has it precluded the widening gap between poverty and wealth (between privilege and cycles of disadvantage) that is the hallmark of post-Katrina New Orleans .  Dedicated action in local politics is as necessary as breathing.  Spread the word.



In the Age of Trump, we shall have productive revolution and the slow growth of equity in our city or the benign genocide of the least empowered among us.  We are existentially condemned to make a choice.









Jerry W. Ward, Jr.                            October 7, 2018






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Christmas, Kwanzaa, 2018

Blog 12.19.2017 CHRISTMAS I have a reason for not being anxious to celebrate Advent and Christmas Day.   Sixty years ago, my father died on December 25.   Fifty-nine years ago, my favorite uncle died a few days before Christmas.   I do want other people to be happy, but I am most at peace when Christmas has gone with the snow, the sunshine or rain, the wind.   I still say "Merry Christmas."   The only genuine happiness I experience, however, is listening to Handel's "The Messiah" and a few songs I've treasured since childhood,   attending Midnight Mass, having home-made fruitcake   after Mass, and eating a special meal with relatives on the excessively commercialized holiday. KWANZAA Umoja ---Decide with whom you should seek unity. Kujichagulia --Expand the terms of engagement for 2018. Ujima ---Cooperate on a project with people you can trust. Ujamaa --Be frugal.   Shop selectively. Nia ---Remember ou...
Read more

implacable violence, part one

Implacable Violence, Part One The death of Senator John McCain quickens our   interest in how to deal with contemporary   narratives of life history.   McCain's touchstone story pertains to American conservative values, the consequences of trauma,   military and public service, violence, and   a sense of honor.   Barack Obama's differently remarkable narratives direct attention to the absence of military service, class and caste violence, the audacity of hope, centralist values, and diversity in the history of "race."   Narratives about McCain and Obama stand in noteworthy contrast to future narratives about Donald Trump, stories that may place ego in the foreground as they unfold tales of sexism, constipated values,     inadvertent racism, the violence of capitalism, sleight of mouth, and avoidance of military service.   Ego, self-fashioning, and boldness are apparent in the three sets of narrative, but excess lynches the Trump set...
Read more

Poem9.16.2019

THE POEM UNDONE To be addressed at a beach she thought most square. To be called to a window to see what ought to be heard. What might sting like a mosquito infecting one with knowledge. She thought of Yeats, of Leda, of time, the coming of a terrifying swan. Did he say the sea's calm, tamed by moonbeams, when sound visualized is turbulent? Is music's allegory of war no more than conceits of violence gathering to clash in the death of light? How violated can a body be? What's put in pain by a mosquito's ignorant gift, by its eternal tweet of sadness, by retarded misery's ebb and flow and slow torture of climate changing? Such faith, such hope, such charity did Antigone, imitating Isis,   sprinkle on a corpse. Honi   soit qui mal y pense and mea culpa invades the heart. Tragedy has gone with the breeze somewhere to fall apart in another country, t o alarm with ...
Read more