| Minutes before I sat down to write this article, I read David Sirota's commentary entitled "Get Busy Living, or Get Busy Dying." Sirota explained how one late night as he prepared a speech, the movie, "The Shawshank Redemption" came on television. Soon, he heard the voice of Morgan Freeman say the "haunting phrase" "Get busy living, or get busy dying." Sirota tried to work, but the phrase kept haunting him: "Get busy living, or get busy dying." For Sirota, the phrase presented him with an image of a grave threat to the fabric of this nation: "class war." The phrase is haunting. Class warfare is increasingly rising to visibility in places thought immune to the problems of racial groups and women. Like Sirota, I am uneasy about the government's bed partners -- multimillion-dollar industries with corporate profits, as Sirota writes, are at an "all-time high" while American workers' "take-home pay" represents "a smaller share of the national income than at any time in the last 40 years." As a Black and a woman, I cannot look on at this partnership between government and corporations without considering what living would look like for Black Americans already in the throes of dying as a result of government indifference. From my vantage point, the situation looks like good old White supremacy -- for everybody without a million dollar yearly income. Workers, especially White workers, feel the insecurities that have historically plagued the Black working class, and they have come to find out how the government responds to folks who take the idea of freedom seriously and attempt to form unions in these Post-Reagan years. This kind of unsettling chaos has always been "home" for Black Americans. There are two areas that signal tribulation for Black Americans that seem to be off the map for discussion by mainstream media. All of a sudden, voter's fraud comes out center-front from the mouths government heads screaming, screaming this fanatical tale of sneaky Black people creeping to voting polls, shoving ballot after ballot in the boxes -- unstoppable horror -- voting you know, for those Democrats! I wonder why we bother since the Democrats have decided that in these days of big business, multibillion-dollar corporations, they need some -- lots -- of that cash to win and win big. Democrats have tossed Black Americans aside long time ago. Just think about the wonderful things Bill Clinton (Black America's favorite contemporary president) did for Black people. We are a people who suffered but fought, died but fought some more to have the right to vote and now we are experiencing an even keener effort at disenfranchisement of Black Americans -- almost alone, almost without the benefit of Hollywood Celebes or White student activists along side of us. "Get busy living, or get busy dying" seems an appropriate phrase here. And our future? What will it look like for Black Americans already forgotten in America's rush toward Empire? There are visible signs of disenfranchisement when I think of education, the second area of tribulation for Black Americans. Young Black children with a history and cultural heritage as old as the world and as old as the founding of this nation are on the frontlines now, encountering the brutality of fearful White teachers and administrators, feeling squeezed out of the partnership between government and mega-corporations. They feel left behind! To feel left behind at anytime since the beginnings of this nation is to feel like a ... Negro! So the mega-corporations' task as partners of government is to control the people who live for the partnership. To control those folks means to direct attention away from the partnership. The media, owned by these mega-corporations, direct their employees to disseminate and instill images of fear. Little Black children at five years old become monstrous apparitions threatening the security of an entire school! Hauled off by the police, children, babies -- are introduced to the criminal justice system, the one place functioning and developing by leaps and bound just for them! What a crime -- but no less criminal that the indifference of government/mega-corporations to the needs of the "average American." The scramble to not be left behind forces educational institutions (average American workers) to participate in the disenfranchisement of children. Moving forward is moving back to the underbelly of American life. Government/mega-corporations progress while the average American scrambles for the "crumbs," change trickling down from the partnership that could wipe out living with a CEO signature or another presidential directive. This partnership and its engagement in the battle for oil/empire sap life from Black Americans as well as from the "average American" taxpayer. The Republicans are running amok; most do not care about this country or its people. Democrats can think to save only themselves and their interests. They have to align themselves with the partnership or die. Class warfare distracts us from living and prepares us, instead, for our impending deaths. The coffins will not be marked "white" or "black" this time. Living requires reaching out beyond the fear. It means saying "no" to all service that is not in the interest of all Americans. It means grassroots awakening against the partnership of government and multimillion- dollar corporations. |
| Voices/Dr. Jean Daniels Get busy living ... or dying |
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