Greetings to all whom may come across this site and
dare to read the articles as well to the friendly inhabitants of the world not
seen in heavenly places. My last
writings were in 2018 and what a most intriguing and volatile year it was
within the earth in terms of weather and other cataclysm, racial incidents and
of course politics. In the next series
of articles I am going to be addressing Biblical Duality and its
relationship to the end of the age. I
will be touching upon certain issues relating to Black Americans that have been
in the news recently and tying them into my thesis. Also, I will touch briefly upon the book
of Revelation. Let us begin.
When
The Ancestors Call: When Being Pinned Down Prevents You From Moving Forward
Last year in October I attended the play When The Ancestors Call by Dr. Elisabeth
Brown Guillory esteemed and renown playwright in academia. It centered around the main character
Caroline who is a young Black American single doctor specializing in cancer
treatment but who was herself a psychiatric patient due to issues stemming from
her childhood. After the play was over,
I later thought about how it not only addressed issues which affected Black Americans
historically but currently as well. The
primary theme of the play was one of being pinned down. Caroline could not move on with her personal
life until she got down to the root of what was pinning her down. At this point it is helpful to give a short
synopsis of the play.
Caroline is struggling in her life where she is fearful
and restless and so she seeks the help of a therapist who hypnotizes her in
order for her to go back in her past and find out what is terrorizing her, but
each time she would get so emotionally worked up he would bring her out of the
hypnosis. In the midst of all this she
is still mourning the death of her grandmother Granny V and is in conflict
with her sister Jackie over the care of her grandfather Pop. It should be noted here that Caroline is
played by a brown skin actress whereas Jackie is extremely light skin with long
hair.
One day when Caroline is talking to
Pop, he talks about seeing Granny V in his dreams and he makes a confession to
Caroline that he didn’t do right by her.
He explains that one day in what was the Jim Crow South maybe Louisiana,
he came upon Granny V being sexually assaulted or pinned down by a white man
but he couldn’t do anything. He was
basically frozen in fear and having flashbacks of slave ships. He tried to run or move but he wasn’t going
anywhere. He was pinned in place. All
these years he felt guilty for his cowardice but once he told Caroline he no
longer felt pinned down.
Caroline and Jackie’s parents were unstable in their
youth so that they somehow ended up being partially raised by granny V and
Pop. It is revealed through Caroline’s
hypnosis that their father was extremely abusive and their mother either abandoned
them or passed away. Also, we learn that
Jackie is an alcoholic just like their father. It would appear they all had
been having dreams or visions of granny V as the character lurked in the
background. Granny V served as the
ancestor urging them to face issues that were keeping them pinned down. Caroline finally has a breakthrough in her
hypnosis as Dr. Bill urges her to look under the covers as child and when she
does she remembers everything and confronts her sister Jackie.
The audience finds out that when they
(Caroline and Jackie) were children their father would leave them with an uncle
who would molest Jackie who is the oldest and Jackie had in turn molested
Caroline. This made Caroline feel dirty
and subsequently affected her relationship with men. Jackie was in denial at first because she had
blocked out what had happened to her, but then remembers and confesses to her
part. She also agrees to seek help and
get treatment for her alcoholism so that she is no longer pinned down.
Once the root cause of Caroline’s fear and
emotional trauma is faced she is no longer pinned down and can finally move on
with her life. The other sub theme in the play was that of colorism and its
relation to beauty. Brown-Guillory
highlighted a duality in the Black Community through granny V when
Granny V is seen praising photos of children with White/Caucasian features even though she was assaulted by
a white man; however, she loved and favored Caroline because she is smart. Brown-Guillory is certainly in tune with the
psychological issues that afflicted some in the Black community both
historically and still to this day.
Recently, there have been incidents in the news involving Black women
and girls that have generated buzz about their worthiness and value in the
Black community when they are attacked and even killed.
It would appear the darker your skin the less
protection and care anyone shows toward you but particularly in the Black
community itself. It seems we thoroughly
subscribe to the skin tone racial hierarchy and caste system of not just
America but the world at large which is why Black people especially men crowing
about White racism is difficult to take seriously. The North Sentinel Islanders
we are not. The other issue which is
highlighted in the play is that of sexual abuse. Brown-Guillory spotlights the vulnerability of
Black women and girls to sexual abuse not only to outside forces represented in
granny V’s assault but also to that in one’s own family and community as
experienced by Caroline.
For a modern
day illustration one can look to some of the female reaction to Surving R
Kelly, which I did not watch, but had heard about from back in the day to see
that from their own personal experience as well as that demonstrated by the women
with allegations against R Kelly that Black women and girls especially if they
are of dark skin tone are not taken seriously or dismissed first by their
families and secondly by society at large when it comes to being victims of
legitimate sexual assault.
There are many issues which keep the Black Community
pinned down, but a lot of it has to do with not focusing in on root causes and
sticking to surface examinations and easy deflections to concepts such as White
Supremacy. It is this same surface
examination and easy deflection within
those who are newly awakened to their Israelite identity which prevents them
from understanding what is needed to fulfill the time of the gentiles.
The whole Black diaspora have in various ways
been pinned down, but just as Pop was afraid to confront his fear and Caroline
her fear we have been afraid to look under the covers and accurately understand
what has been the reason for our ordeal
including the most damaging of all being the loss of identity. I will answer the ancestors call and in the
next articles attempt to pull back the covers through the concept of Biblical duality.
To God always,
The Glory
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