Photo: Photo of Slave Children–New York Public Library: Digital Collections
“In Louisiana, black women were put in cells with male prisoners and some became pregnant. In 1848, legislators passed a new law declaring that all children born in the penitentiary of African American parents serving life sentences would be property of the state. The women would raise the kids until the age of ten, at which point the penitentiary would place an ad in the newspaper. Thirty days later, the children would be auctioned off on the courthouse steps ‘cash on delivery. The proceeds were used to fund schools for white children.” – Shane Bauer
During the pandemic, I started an essay series, Writing in the Time of Peril, to chronicle the passage of how Covid altered our lives, changed how we cared for each other when grievously ill, and transformed how we died. I wanted each and every death to be counted. I wanted every death to be honored as a sacred passage. I wanted the suffering and waste of our precious lives accounted for. I wanted to make ways for my family and community to gather, if only online, on the phone or by mail, to support each other and create together.
During the most disastrous American presidency since Rutherford B. Hayes and Woodrow Wilson. DJT, the rapist in chief’s reign and campaign revived, re-established, and normalized extreme Christian white nationalism, white supremacy, misogyny, racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia. In addition, Republican seditionists in state legislatures, the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Senate, state and federal courts, and the U. S. supreme court created a militant pall of domestic terrorism, sedition, the destruction of long held norms and progressive ratifications, and the aggressive suppression of civil and human rights.
As Covid deaths surged and the menace of white terrorism mushroomed against all those deemed other, I remembered that this American democracy and freedom for whites only was not new. Overthrowing the government was not new. Terrorizing, torturing and killing Black people, people of color, immigrants, Asians, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ+ people, women, children, the poor, anyone other than those lead by and funded by white-wealthy-men, was not new. I remembered that terror, violence, and historical and cultural exploitation, appropriation, and erasure are foundational to whiteness and capitalism in America.
As Covid deaths neared one million and the heirs to America’s historical and foundational power for whites only cried supremacy in one breath and victimhood in the other. I began to cover my ears, my eyes, and my heart to prevent being crushed by rage and grief. As DJP, the grifter in chief’s popularity and campaign contributions increased, even as rape convictions, defamation suits, impeachments, and impending indictments multiplied, I stopped writing the essays as soul exhaustion overwhelmed me, and put me into a disturbed sleep.
I decided to restart chronicling these times of peril when I read in a Facebook post about how U.S. prisoners were used for profit in, “5 ways prisoners were used for profit throughout U. S. History, by Shaun Bauer published by The PBS News Hour on February 26, 2020. The photo and the words of the quote assaulted me. They shook me wake. I knew these women. I was these women. I knew these children. I was these children. I knew these men. I was these men. I knew these guards, overseers, and administrators, white and black. I knew the people who arrived in America and claimed whiteness as their primary power and privilege. I knew these same people who grew generations of wealth out of the forced rape of my foremothers by men, Black and White, slave and free.
I remembered the rapes. I remembered screaming and fighting with all my strength. I remembered trying to please, so I would not be hurt worse. I remembered being still and taking it. I remembered the blows , broken bone, split flesh no matter what I did. I remembered going away, farther and farther away. I remembered using the herbs to stop the seed from taking root, to expel the root. I remembered going mad to make men unwilling to mount me. I remembered insisting on laughter and pleasure and sex with whomever I chose, even if it meant my death. I remembered the children that quickened within me. I remembered loving the children that came out of me. I remembered longing for them when they were taken to the auction block or bequeathed in wills. I remembered hating them. I remembered killing that came out of me.
I remembered killing my rapists and torturers. I remembered killing myself.
I have decided to practice self-query in order to resource my own sacred memory retrieval. I am completely committed to the continual replenishment of my joy to fuel my creative genius for my liberation. I have become zealously devoted to remembering, surviving, resisting, thriving, and supporting the full expression of my own, and others’, creative genius in these times of great peril.
My monthly practices of self-query, meditation and prayer –
What are my creative responses to the weaponized othering and erasures of my voice, my body, my gender, my cultures, my ethnicities, my age, my knowing, my color, my pasts and futures, and those of my beloveds, my neighbors, and my world?
How am I in my creative genius and living? How am I in my exquisite self- appreciations & self-care?
My daily practices:
I go down my to-do list of self-care: Avoid contact with police. Meditate. Eat well. Rest well. Continue optimum health and safety practices. Read more. Watch less T.V. and stay informed. Go out to concerts, readings and the theatre. Go to the sea. Go into the woods. Stay connected with family, friends, beloved ones. Support and participate in creative and activist communities. Laugh. Dance. Love. Move. Write. Speak and sing my fear, grief, rage, remembering, honoring, and loving compassion into full expression, art and action. Continue to chronicle these times.
Sources:
FBI and Homeland Security Strategic Intelligence Assessment and Data on Domestic …
American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment, Shane Bauer, Penguin Books, 2014
A ground-breaking and brave inside reckoning with the nexus of prison and profit in America: in one Louisiana prison and over the course of our country’s history.
Resources:
The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry by Constance Sublette and Ned Sublette, Lawrence Hill Books, 2010
The American Slave Coast illustrates how enslaved women’s bodies served as the engine of the slave breeding industry and powered a global economy for cotton consumption. This book ties the violent experiences of enslaved women directly to capital markets of with the “capitalized wombs” of African women.
Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America, by Cameron McWhirter, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012
Red Summer is the first narrative history written about this epic encounter. Focusing on the worst riots and lynchings — including those in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Charleston, Omaha, and Knoxville — Cameron McWhirter chronicles the mayhem, while also exploring the first stirrings of a civil rights movement that would transform American society forty years later.
Music:
Sweet Honey in the Rock: Breaths https://open.spotify.com/track/49xyH3nYLh4PMH30iYZIg4?si=fa22bc1b7f3d44ce
Holly Near: I am Open https://open.spotify.com/track/0iB0WyuKie9NE1W0S8OocW?si=c306f845711b415a
In Joy,
A
© Andrea Canaan, MSW, MFA
andreacanaan.blog
https://www.facebook.com/Andrea-Canaan-Author-456010704809232/
A Writer's Life 