CAT Tracks for October 8, 2016

CAT Tracks for October 8, 2016

Former Cairoite, Peter Jones, reacts after seeing the movie...

From Facebook

Peter P. Jones
Washington D.C.
October 7, 2016
LIFE LESSONS:
In watching #birthofanation a lot of things could come to mind. Clearly white folks and black folks and other people of color of different ages will have different reactions. Different things will resonate, or not, with any given group. Clearly few people of ANY color or age will find empathy with the slave owning whites of that time, as the required mindset to accept slave ownership as morally defensible has largely been formally abolished in most parts of the world. On the other hand, only a few black Americans will be able to fully empathize with the enslaved blacks. We can't imagine what it took to live a life without hope.

One point of empathy for me was in the cotton field imagery, however. Being "of a certain age" I have clear childhood memory of the Jim Crow south. Cairo, IL was for all intents and purposes a country cousin of Birmingham, AL. My father's side of the family was first generation "up North" out of Mississippi. And as Nina Simone so correctly characterized that state at that time ..."Mississippi...God Damn!". (If you haven't heard the song, YouTube it!) My mother's side of the family was 2nd generation "up North" and lived in Philadelphia. So, when my mother married my father and unfortunately ended up in Cairo, the yassir-ing, and shuffling and head down/no eye contact, and Mr. Boss Man thing was just a part of life. Although they had to do it, both my parents would have none of that for their children. I remember one of the things other local families would let their children do during growing seasons was work in the local fields picking cotton and berries and other agricultural things. Since my mother popped out five boys and only one girl in the first six children, we had all of these healthy, strapping, tough boys hanging about the house. My grandmother on my father's side wanted my parents to put us to work picking cotton. To earn a little extra money for the family. Now, bear in mind we lived in a house that was only slightly bigger than my bedroom is today. Feeding and clothing two adults and 6 kids on one salary (women didn't work much) must have been a constant struggle. And frankly for me, I can vaguely recall wanting to be given permission to work the fields, thinking that it would be nice if I could make a few extra coins to buy candy with! But, Eloise Jones would have none of it! None of her children were going to work in any field...not then...not next summer...not ever. She wasn't raising any field hand negros. As she put it, she did not want us settling for a little money and a subservient mindset or life style when we had a world to win. She was raising smart kids and she wanted our future earnings to come from our brains, not our backs. And as always....Eloise Jones was right...