Category: Essay

Aunt Jemima Controversy Explained

The new name for Aunt Jemima is Pearl Milling Company. They are starting to switch everything over now, but the old label is still on some products for sale. The picture of the black woman character will be retired.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Jemima?wprov=sfti1

The brand basically exploited the blackface Mammy character of the motherly house slave that was popular in vaudeville. Not the best symbol. Have you ever read the autobiography of Malcolm X? Or seen the Spike Lee movie starring Denzel Washington? It’s really about a subconscious denigration of black women linked to their social position in slavery and later as housekeepers. White people used their power to institutionalize their social, economic and sexual position in society at the loss of black women. It may not offend most people because it’s so ingrained in our culture for black people, and especially black women, to be uneducated servants. It is a long history and there are still parts of the underbelly of our society in which it still rings true.

The history serves as an excuse and strength of argument and social attraction of black social and political groups like the Nation of Islam, which was in its heyday in the 1960s under Malcolm X. You should see the movie. It’s very entertaining, not to mention educating. The book is great too, written with Alex Haley, who wrote Roots. The controversy is not about who buys the product. It’s about the fact that a certain part of the population has been exploited and abused and a negative stereotype was used at their expense. It’s just wrong to use a name and likeness of a figure like “Aunt Jemima” to make money. It’s a part of the past that is shameful to all races and should be discouraged and put away to only learn from.

Paratactic Verse and the Poem as Object

Here is an excerpt from Disjunctive Poetics, by Peter Quartermain:

“…Williams and Zukofsky both write paratactic verse — in their syntax there is no subordination, there is rather a stringing out of beads on a string, as Aristotle complained, where everything is of equal importance…

“…the poem is an object…in her 1909 essay on Picasso, Gertrude Stein distinguished between things, things seen, and things known, a distinction that reminds us of the ineluctable and intransigent quality of things: unknown, probably unknowable. The poem as a thing is resistant, and must baffle us, leave us shall we say at a loss?”

Life is Relative

And it’s not just an alienation from language, or communication. It’s rejection of the individual, lack of acceptance, judgment. Words are empty when trying to express the grief and sorrow that results from this situation, a hopeless condition.

Lack of connection. No community. No friends. No religion. No god. Just a meaningless existence with no purpose, no focus, no hope. Everything social is either scripted or random. There is nothing real out there, or in here.

And there is only the chance to connect based on a common existence or perceived state of loneliness, ennui, loss of meaning, relativity. Everything depends on everything else. Nothing is certain. Life is one absurd action, thought or event after another.

“Disjunctive Poetics“ and Objectivist Poetry

Another update with current reflections on unpoetry from 2022. This results from research into “Disjunctive Poetics: From Gertrude Stein and Louis Zukofsky to Susan Howe” by Peter Quartermain, and several works on the objectivist poets.

This meditation concerns itself with “language as object.” Alienation from the English language, or, in my opinion, any language at all, creates a certain relationship between the poet and the words in his or her poetry. Syntax can become difficult, and meaning, impossible.

Words are used like pigments in an abstract expressionist or cubist painting, in which a bunch of objects are juxtaposed together in a seemingly random (though sometimes, but sometimes not, with carefully chosen placement) and detached manner. Whether it is a flick of the brush, a dumping of a can of paint, or just a very barbaric collection of images that shocks or confuses.

This is unpoetry, folks! It’s the same thing, just done with language. Word as object, in a collage, or maybe a series of nonsensical statements. Absurdity abounds. An alienation from reality that results in an alienation from society, and an alienation in a failed attempt, over and over again, to communicate.

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Miracles: Yes or No

The central belief that all of Christianity hinges on, that of the resurrection from death of Jesus of Nazareth, is a slippery slope, at least. If one chooses to believe that miracle happened, it isn’t too far a stretch to believe in the feeding of the five thousand, or in the healing of the sight of the blind man, or the other miracles that Jesus was supposed to have performed in the Gospels. If you can believe in the resurrection, everything else is on the table.

And there is no shortage of miracles in the Old Testament either. The production of the stone tablets on the mountain after witnessing a burning bush that is not consumed by the fire, the plagues of Egypt before Pharaoh sets free the Israelites, the parting of the sea for the Israelites as they flee Egypt, the production of mammon in the desert to feed the Israelites, and so many more.

So if one believes in all the wonders of the Old Testament, is it such a stretch to believe in the resurrection? Not really. Or if one believes in the resurrection, why not believe in all the miracles of the Old Testament? It is a leap of faith on both counts, no matter how you look at it.

Can one be a Christian without believing in miracles? Well, if you don’t believe in the resurrection, it’s hard to claim that label. But if you do believe in the resurrection, you have no case against the miracles in the rest of the Bible. One can believe in Jesus’ moral teachings, and so be a follower of Jesus in a way, but some of the things Jesus is quoted saying, and the wonders he is recorded as performing, would have to be overlooked.

Fraud or False Accusation?

My point of view on the matter is only a microscopic blip in the political universe. But I’m going to state my case for the record. There was no fraud according to every person that should know, except for the president, who should know better. The election was the most transparent and secure election ever, and Trump lost, fair and square. The few discrepancies that existed have been considered, calculated and declared irrelevant. The margin that Biden won the election by leaves no room for doubt. Nothing was stolen.

So, how is it that Trump, a pathological liar, is able to convince so many people that the election results were fraudulent? Why are members of Congress being targeted with hate, when they had nothing to do with it? It’s this big smoke screen of distraction that is created by Trump in his messages, anything but to accept defeat and admit false communication,

History has split apart into many pieces, and like many pivotal crises in our nation’s past, we may never know the truth about Trump. After the inauguration, he won’t really matter anymore. Whether he goes to jail, or loses billions in court, his time on the national stage is mostly over, and it is time for the country to move on to the next era.

So, let’s just move on…

My Day (in little blurbs)

Today I woke up and ate a pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip cookie then I went to Walmart then I ate Mexican food then I came home and laid on the couch with my cat, Zeeb.

Today I ate a chocolate chip cookie then I laid on the couch with my cat.

Today I went to Walmart.

Today I ate lunch at La Fiesta Mexican restaurant. Then I laid on the couch.

What did you do?

Back to Zeeb

Today I woke up then I got dressed then I brushed my hair then I went out to the kitchen and ate a banana. Then I made some coffee and filled a glass with water and took my medicine then I ate a pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Nothing like nutrition, right? Later I went to Walmart with Jackie and Bonnie then we went to La Fiesta for lunch then we came home. Later I made some decaf coffee and laid on the couch with my cat, Zeeb.