The Time Is Now, The Time Is Wright

In some ways, I don’t even know how to verbalize a response to Wright’s portrait because the cruelty and hatred he depicts just leaves me dumbfounded. Particularly, the story he relates about the beating of the black woman is very disturbing. That the white men abused her, not even so much because of her debts, but really just more for the hell of it—simply because they could. I’d like to think we’ve moved beyond that today.

However, I was reading the latest edition of the Flagpole and there was a story about a Hispanic man, Frankey, a legal worker, who speaks perfect English and kind of serves as a protector for other laborers who are not as wise to the dangers of the business. Anyway, several horror stories are described in the article, but this one really stuck out:

“One day, a man pulled up in a van and picked up seven guys, didn’t tell them about the work. Frankey said it didn’t feel right; he looked out the window and saw that they were headed to Atlanta. When he asked the man where they were going, he responded, ‘We’re going to Immigration. I’m dropping y’all off so y’all can go back to y’all's damn country.’ Sure enough, Frankey knew the van’s tag number and called 911 on his cell. The cops pulled the van over and arrested the man for kidnapping.” (for the full article see http://flagpole.com/Weekly/Features/ImmigrantLaborers-27Jan10).

So, I was telling my wife about the above incident, and I posed the question: “who would be so cruel, and ignorant, and hateful as to try something like that?” And that’s when it hit me that maybe we haven’t advanced at all from Richard Wright’s Jim Crow iniquities. People will do whatever they think they can get away with, especially to one perceived as ‘other.’

But it really makes me stop and think about myself. While I’m outraged at such racist behaviors, I think of all the unspoken racisms, sexisms, stereotypes, and cruelties that leap into the mind unbidden.

It makes me think of these lyrics, to a song called ‘Crooked Deep Down’ by Derek Webb:

“My life looks good i do confess,
you can ask anyone
just don’t ask my real good friends
because they will lie to you
or worse, they’ll tell the truth

because there are things you would not believe
that travel into my mind
i swear i try and capture them
but always set ‘em free
it seems bad things comfort me…”

I guess my prayer is just to become a little less crooked each day, a little less Jim Crow on the inside. The time is now, the time is right—every hour on the hour.