Decode Yourself
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
By VeTalle Fusilier
You must see yourself in order to free yourself
More than one of us has been overwhelmed, has hit “tilt” in an attempt to interpret the complexities of our presidential campaigns this year. Barrack has been called “too black”, and not black enough”. McCain is calling for change, promising to run off the very party he represents. Lieberman spoke at the Republican National Convention; a Rockefeller spoke at the Democratic Convention. The clear lines are disappearing in the sand. And we all listen intently to what everyone is saying that this means to you. But what do you mean to this? We have to decode ourselves, to decipher all this newness. Bless us to see our conditioning, our perception of language, and image, the meaning and the intent.
Let me go first: if someone told me I had to write an article about a woman vice presidential candidate who had five kids, an unmarried pregnant daughter, and a doctored picture of her floating around in a bikini with a gun, I would assume she was black. See, I got to decode my conditioning. We all have been acculturated to see a thing, hear a thing and react. When often, it is many things recognized as one by our spirits, sometimes before our brains can get to it. Drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson has been challenging our notions of music for decades. His Decoding Society urges us to see and free our ears. And that’s a great place to start. Somebody tell the hip-hop nation to check Ronald Shannon Jackson on Youtube and give him some work.
Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society
There is information out there to discover. Search engine quotes, phrases and follow the threads to sources, motivations. A key to one of the doors of understanding is realizing that this political thing is a system. As much as we would like it to be a church, is a state and we have to be mindful of images, especially the image of a woman.
The matrix is a system
‘Nuff said. While I am positive that not all the sleeping minds are our enemies, I am sure that we have to be especially sensitive to images and how and why they are used. Remember Willie Horton, Whitney and Bobby. Think thru the parallels of Viet Nam and today’s undeclared wars, and observe the pictures as they are broadcast, e mailed, and printed. Most of all identify your reaction to them and trace it to its roots. You may find some code you want to re-write, or a code you can stand by. Either way, be mindful, versus mindless.
It’s not “us” versus “them always. Some of us are creating images, and language that say as much about the accuser as it does about accused.
Palin’s baby daddy
Can’t trust color. Maybe somebody ought to get the Drop Squad to holla at dude. Both how much you want to believe my man and how much you question him, reveal code. And your love of drama or disdain for it are vessels for transmission. If one stands for valor and black manhood, then what does this stand for if it is fraudulent? Images are being used as self-serving tools. Welcome to a hot mess: Motherhood, Iraqi military service, sick babies, guns and women’s empowerment. Now baby’s daddy, Who knew? Who knows? Decode yourself.
Probably the most subtle and insidious is the use and abuse of language. “Lipstick on a pig”, how old is that saying? Wikipedia it and see.
Barack on the pig quote
We all react to words consciously and in a place well below the surface. “”N” word… please! And thankfully we have many guides along this journey of interpretation. Some of the most sincere and revelatory are staging a virtual decoding decathalon right here at ebonyjet. Hopefully, they will spark a fuse and explode the camouflage. If you still got a decoder ring from the cereal box, better grab it now.
VeTalle Fusilier is a writer and producer living in Washington, D.C. It’s pronounced VEE-tal few-suh-LEER.