Why Memory is Critical

Joshua 4

1 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua,

2 “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe,

3 and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”

4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe,

5 and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites,

6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’

7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

The concept of memory is critical because it is a deliberate attempt to focus on ideas and identities to nurture survival in the heart of the struggle. Memory can be considered the bullets that attack the amnesia of the truth. Memory helps foster a sense of history and pride in oneself. Memory is the root of one’s foundation, while the present cultivates the new growth of that memory.

The United States in particular is very critical of the history it chooses to promote and actively stimulate to the masses, while simultaneously deciding what needs to be forgotten, or brushed under the rug. A fecundity of books are released yearly about the founding fathers of this nation, presidents, and war heroes, but when it comes to acts such as Americans original sin that is just looked at as the past. America believes that the ushering of those indigenous people into lands that are impossible to cultivate is a form of adequate restorative justice, but by being cognizant of how America treats history is important to understanding why the upkeep of black history is important to the growth of black memory.

When it comes to telling the painful narrative of the bloodshed, rape, brutality, and commodification of black cultural identity we are told to just simply get over that and are expected to adopt a philosophy of benign neglect. America loves to teach its rich history of triumph, but wants to ignore blacks in America when we stand up and attempt to tell ours.

Black people didn’t just get great because America became a powerful nation. We as a people had to fight, walk upright, protest, confront oppression, and die by surrendering blood and limbs. Instead the country wants to tell half-truths and edify the idea that people marched and Lyndon B Johnson recognized America’s fought by signing a Civil Rights Bill. We are made to believe that affirmative action, the disembodiment of Jim Crow, and the integration of blacks into American tradition propelled us, but due to America’s amnesia they forget that we had preexisting civilizations of greatness before slavery.

This is why memory is critical, not just in the paradigm of an American context, but the global troposphere. We don’t have to romanticize about ancient Kemet (modern day Egypt), but it’s important to talk about its greatness. We shouldn’t be covered under the candid view of slavery, AIDS, poverty, and cultural deprivation, instead we should be conscious of everything. Through anthropological research and findings, we now know that everybody was birthed out of Africa. So when we are depicted as less than equal and unmolested of intellectual virtue the world has to notice that thinking started with us. While other civilizations were running around in caves we were birthing logistics, mathematics, and welding the fabric of the world.

Just as the scripture that predicated this essay stated, we must get those stones (memory) and show them, the children, so that they are familiar with the context of where they came from. We must refuse to accept the notion that we started in docile positions of suffering and failure, we must understand that we come from a long lineage of astronomical achievement.

Whenever we attempt to actively attempt to change the white supremacist narrative that they are great for no other reason other than the color of their skin, it is met with controversy. When we challenge this idea of sub-categorical social Darwinism we are made to look inferior or as reverse racist. We must begin to realize that we come from a great people and that we’ve been doing more things than dominant society is willing to give us credit for.

However, when credit is administrated to us an asterisk is always followed by it. Affirmative action, minority scholarships, and political correctness are always the headlines. Again, this is while memory is critical, these social systematic initiatives don’t give us a leg up against others, it does nothing but provide the opportunity for people like Cornel West, LeBron James, Ben Carson, and many others to have a shot at exhibiting their skills and abilities in a wider global kaleidoscope.

We can’t get caught in these petty racial and patriotism games. Being cognizant of these experiences isn’t anti-white, black, brown, red, or yellow, and it doesn’t make you divisive of America, instead it makes you pro-human. The truth can be discomforting, but it must be told so that when we tell our children about these stones they were understand the significance of their purpose in the collective imagination.

When our children are confronted with a culture that thinks less of them, even before they can speak, they will know to take these stones with them to help them navigate those hindrances of mazes that they will encounter. That memory of preexisting greatness can used as a countervailing weapon to counterattack obstacles on their road towards success.

Also, we can’t romanticize just our greatness, but we must also not forget the struggle as well. We can’t be absent minded of the institutionalized discrimination and racism that still exist. We have many that are still struggling and fighting for equal seats at the dominant society’s table and for the ability to create their own.

We don’t want to create a dichotomy of black elitism and underrepresented blacks, we must all stand as one. We can’t be ashamed to know that our grandmothers slaved away in someone’s kitchen or that our father was some white family’s driver. We must understand the struggle that occurred so that we can enjoy some of the limited privileges that we benefit from today. Those people were looked at as even less than how we are today, once we remember that then we won’t be so stuck up on ourselves.

We must resurrect the memory that has been stolen and bastardized because we have a responsibility to control the narrative of our story. If we lose control of the narrative other people who come along probably won’t tell the story from a factual point of reference that disputes the whitewashed narrative that they try to attribute to us. It is up to us to protect our memory and take those stones to create monuments.

Our job is to provide to those coming behind a biography of where they came from, why they are here, and how they can achieve. We must not challenge the verdict of suffering with re-trials, but we must fight against those cases against us from the historical context of landmark victories and achievements that is in our collective memory.

 

 

The Relative Deprivation of Ferguson

“Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win,” Karl Marx (Marx 1848).

Marx believed that the people at the bottom would rise because of absolute deprivation many would oppose that idea and would be more inclined to deal with relative deprivation, especially in social oppression that don’t solely focus on economical oppression.  Marx believed that once those at the bottom (proletariat) were to the point of receiving the maximum amount of oppression from the bourgeoisie possible only then would they ban together to rise up. We can’t really blame Marx for not taking into account his thoughts on absolute deprivation when his Communist Manifesto dealt with mainly economics instead of social movements.

Many people around the world are watching what is and has unfolded in Ferguson, Missouri regarding the death of a young man by the name of Michael Brown. All life is precious, but he's just like Eric Garner, Ezell Ford, and countless others whose life were ended by law enforcement. Even though these men were unarmed, they were killed, not because individually they may have posed a threat, but because black humanity is not valued in a country that initially brought them here as commodities.

People in Ferguson are not just protesting and rioting over the death of one child, but over decades of frustration with the local police department in St. Louis County. When you have a group that has been eviscerated from traditional American experienceand made to look at themselves as subhuman not worthy of social equality.  

Even though the city is compromised up of mainly African American residents (66%), the mayor and 5/6 of the city council members are white. Even though the population figures give off the notion of a strong black structure within the city, which is simply not true. The city still retains a white power structure, even though it isn’t reflected of the citizens that it governs. When incidents like this occur elected officials are not in tuned with the concerns of their citizens. The police force is also not reflected of the people. The force has 53 individuals on their roster, only three are black.

People in black communities, males especially are already have a disdain for law enforcement, which can be attributed to their legacy of brutality and racial profiling amongst blacks. Even though we can pinpoint “good” officers, the institution of law enforcement is rooted in the oppression of persons of color.

The killing of Michael Brown is the straw that broke the camel’s back, a sentiment that many black residents in the area might allude to. A community that has been deprived from a dream that they bought from the country they reside in finally became fed up and stood together in solidarity with more than hope, they raised up and demanded justice, not just for Mike Brown, but for the racial tension that the county has been plagued with over the years. These leading events brought on the protest and the revolution that we are witnessing now. Which can be explained by the theory of Relative Deprivation

James C Davies thought of social movements when it came to revolutions. He created the J Curve, this deals with rising expectations that explains why Marx’s theory didn’t support the reasons for why the oppressed would get involved in social protest and movements, instead of positioning themselves into roles of social and political activist. Davies argues with his J Curve model that people will rise up to join social causes after periods of gradual improvement in the economy start to slow down. 

Even though economic prosperity is slowing down or decreasing the people’s expectations for where they should be at in life isn’t, those hopes and aspirations continue to escalate (Davies 1962). This curve shows how we get into the theory of relative deprivation.

Relative Deprivation in hindsight is the understanding that you are being deprived of something that you believe wholeheartedly that you should be entitled to. 

People will start to look at those around them who have considerably more than them and will soon become discontent with where their lives are (Walker & Smith 2001). 

Relative Deprivation doesn’t only deal economics, but it also includes political and social deprivation. The perception relative deprivation has dire consequences for behavior and attitudes, including feelings of stress, political attitudes, and participation in collective action. The theory was founded upon by Robert Merton, but one of the first formal and widely used definitions came from Walter Runciman who used four points to argue his interruption of Merton’s theory. 

His four points were

1.​Person A does not have X

2.​Person A knows of other persons that have X

3.​Person A wants to have X

4.​Person A believes obtaining X is realistic (Runciman1966).

Those citizens Ferguson don’t have the law on their side like other residents so they understand the feeling of disenfranchisement in regards to what they believe they deserve.  People will feel outraged and will have the sense of urgency to come together as a collective once they feel they are being denied justice, upward mobility to a higher status, or even a privilege.  That is what happened to those residing in Ferguson and others who can understand the rage of the over policing of a community who feel racially harassed by the police. These people live in a nation where every 28 hours a black is killed by the police or a vigilante. Marx argued about absolute deprivation which states that people react merely off of just negative conditions instead of what they relatively have in place of what they feel they should have.

Political scientist Ted Robert Gurr gave three values in his book “Why Men Rebel,” arguing his point on different values that a man needs to be content and what happens when he is placed at a disadvantage in obtaining and/or maintaining those values. The included welfare values, interpersonal values, and power values. Welfare values included those that make physical contributions to life, interpersonal included those that directly correlated with satisfaction that we received from non-authoritative interactions, and lastly power values spoke of our environment influenced our behavior (Gurr 1970). Gurr wrote on page 58, “"Men are quick to aspire beyond their social means and quick to anger when those means prove inadequate, but slow to accept their limitations.” When a man see that he isn’t achieving the same level of affluence in society Gurr argues that biological he gets to a where he needs justification for this. This justification usually leads to blame of different organizations whether it’s a school system, government institution, or business. In most instances those who are doing this will place blame on prominent individuals within those organizations. Once you place this blame on others you are essentially becoming a victim of decremental deprivation, which basically states that you are placing the fault on other things that are taking away from your own opportunity of equality. 

Gurr’s last value which was interpersonal, which called for status, communality, and ideational coherence. Which is important so that people can have a sense of identity, those in Ferguson and across America are denied that opportunity because black has become synonymous with bad. Gurr also writes in, “Why Men Rebel,” the notions of aspiration, progressive, and detrimental deprivation and how each can result in the gathering of frustrated people to help form a social movement.

When people assert the claim that we shouldn’t make this a racial issue, but a human rights issue we must not take that half-truth for face value. Of course anthropological research shows that there isn’t any biological difference between black or white people, but socially it does exist. Idealistically we should all be considered as equal and this should be a case of the over militarization of the police, but we must be conscious of why it happened here, in a predominantly black, low income suburb of Saint Louis, and not Beverly Hills, California.

We can’t not look past this a race issue, because we live in a country that doesn’t look past minority races. Black and brown cultural identity has been eviscerated to a level of extinctness in the terms of being embraced to the dominant society’s imagination, unless they can use it as a commodity.  

Ferguson isn’t a unique place, many are spread out throughout the nation, we must now decide how do we stop another Ferguson from being sick and tired, of being sick and tired.