Changes...

Dear Readers,

Thank you so much for following me to this point. It really means more than you know to me. 
Due to certain changes, I will no longer be posting blogs on this site. To continue reading, I will be found at rjaelsrp.wordpress.com. It is under construction; I ask that you please be patient with me.

With much appreciation,
R. Jael AKA Angel G.

I Choose Exile by Richard Wright

Richard Wright (1908-1960) experienced the life of poor black sharecroppers in Mississippi as a child and the life of the urban poor in Chicago and New York as an adult. A novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist, he spent his writing career coming to terms with poverty, violence, and racism. During the 1930’s Wright wrote for communist newspapers and was active in the Communist party; he eventually became disillusioned with communism and severed his ties in 1944. In 1947 Wright moved to Paris and lived there until his death. Wright first gained critical acclaim with his depiction of the dehumanization of blacks in a racist society in his novel Native Son (1940). His autobiography, Black Boy, was published in 1945 and became a national best-seller.

In 1951 Wright submitted “I Choose Exile” to Ebony Magazine. The magazine, despite having commissioned the piece, ultimately rejected it. According to Ben Burns, an Ebony editor who wanted to publish Wright’s essay, the publisher “refused to publish it because he felt it would offend advertisers.” In a letter to Burns that accompanied the manuscript Wright wrote: “You asked me to write about my life in Paris; now, such a subject covers a wide field… I tried to give a general idea of what life in Paris is like, but only in contrast to what Negro life in America is like.”

--

I am a native born American Negro. The first 38 years of my life were spent exclusively on the soil of my native land. But, at the moment of this writing, I live in voluntary exile in France and I like it. There is nothing in the life of America that I miss or yearn for. Barring war or catastrophe, I intend to remain in exile. I shall, of course, keep my American citizenship, my American passport; but I prefer to live out my days among a civilized people.

Why have I decided to live beyond to shores of my native land? It is because I love freedom, and I tell you frankly that there is more freedom in one square block of Paris than there is in the entire United States of America! These words of mine are not designed to provoke dissatisfaction I other whites or Negroes with America; I am not trying to persuade other Negroes to live abroad. My decision is predicated upon this simple fact: I need freedom. Yes, some people need more freedom than others, and I am one of them. Unless I feel free to let my instincts range, free to come and go as I please, free to probe and examine my environment, I languish, I wither, I die. In short, freedom, to me, is equated to concrete reality, to life; it is not something abstract, something to be won or hoped for; it is life itself, each day, each hour, each moment…

Most Frenchmen I’ve met feel as I do about this; they love their personal and civil freedom. Yet, I’ve heard but few Frenchmen speak of freedom during the five years I’ve lived in Paris. People are not prone to speak of that which they already have. It was only in America where so much freedom is lacking that one hears long and impassioned arguments about freedom… It is like listening to a starving man tell of his need for food.

So well do I know white and black Americans that I can almost predict their reactions to my attitude. There are those who will immediately say, “Oh, yes; he is a Negro and he feels better in France where there is no racial segregation.” But I hasten to declare that any such interpretations of my motives are wrong and shallow. True, it was in part the desire to escape the racial pressure of the United States that decided me to flee my native land, but it was not racial reasons alone that decided me to remain. What was it then?

During the years of my life in America I felt that in time my country would settle down to humane living with a code of civilized values. But my sojourn in France made me realize that I had deceived myself. I know now that America has no such future, that it is inescapably different from Europe and that no conceivable stretch of historical time will make it like Europe. Indeed, time will only emphasize the differences between the two value systems which are moving in completely opposed directions. My temperament made me elect to choose the side containing the deepest elements of humanity – France and Europe. On the Continent the individual is placed at the top of a carefully graded scale of values, and most all decisions and actions are based upon those values which are taught rigidly in the schools, reflected in the church, and depicted in art and literature. In the United States, despite its idealistic origins, the desire for materialistic power dominates all. Utilitarian motives claim, to the exclusion of all else, the hearts and minds of its citizens.

My life in America had been spent in fighting for the rights of the Negro people and I knew that that fight was, morally and legally, a correct one; that it was supported by our democratic traditions and our Constitution. Yet, deep down, during all of those years, I felt that there was something organically wrong with a nation that could so cynically violate its own laws in meting out cruelties upon a helpless minority. America’s barbaric treatment of the Negro is not one-half so bad or inhuman as the destructive war which she wages against the concept of the free person, against the Rights of Man, and against herself!

But enough of generalizations; let me glance back and describe the last personal event which resolved me to leave America.

In New York, in the winter of 1946, I was seized by a longing for the countryside, for rolling landscapes. I was, as they say, “fed up” with city living, though city living certainly offers the American Negro his best possible haven from race prejudice, casting him into a vast anonymity which drapes about him a somewhat negative cloak of protection. Now, when an American Negro starts yearning for a landscape, it wisely behooves him to be careful to choose the right one, for most American landscapes have been robbed, for him, of their beauty and innocence by the fact that almost every lynching in America has taken place in such a setting. To go South, then, was unthinkable. The West Coast had never appealed to me, being too fruity and nutty. New England! That was it! Had not the dauntless abolitionists risen in that transcendentalistic atmosphere? And had not Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau sprung from that stubborn but free soil? I was decided.

I discussed this all-too-normal desire to buy a home in New England with two well-bred and cultured white friends of mine who lived in Hanover, New Hampshire. They urged me to stay in their home and use it as a base from which to scout for a piece of property. I was grateful for their hospitality and I accepted.

Wintry New Hampshire greeted me magnificently. A heavy, gleaming snow carpeted the plunging hills. The eye could see for miles through the sharp, pure, bracing air. A deep quiet hung in the tranquil valleys. Proud pines pointed skywards. Here was what I wanted.

Two days of searching brought me a “dream” house, located in Connecticut just across the New Hampshire state line. The house was empty, sturdy, wooden, roomy, and ready for occupancy, and was half a mile from the nearest neighbor. The mere look of that house, as the salesmen say, “sold” me. The price was six thousand dollars. I’d buy it, cash.

I looked up the real estate agent and found him to be a seemingly friendly man. I told him what I wanted. His eyes became shifty. He smiled and scratched his chin.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll communicate with the owner and let you know.”

“Why is that necessary?” I asked, sensing an air of unquiet in him.

“Oh, it’s simply routine,” he assured me.

“When will you let me know?” I asked. I told myself that I must not leap to premature conclusions.

“In a couple of days,” he said. “I’ll ‘phone you”

In the comfortable home of my host I sat for four days in front of a blazing log fire and waited to hear from the real estate agent. My frequent ‘phone calls merely elicited a polite:

“I’ve no word yet, Mr. Wright.”

Finally I became certain in my own mind as to what was happening. The dreadful issue of “race” was hovering somewhere over those beautiful snow-clad hills of New Hampshire. At last I asked my host to see the real estate agent and get the truth. He made an appointment with the agent and when he returned to the house I saw at once a hurt, stunned look in his brooding eyes. I knew the truth before he spoke. A curious, sensitive scene followed, a scene which has haunted American history for  years: A white man wrestling with his conscience because he has to tell a Negro something which he knows will cause him pain. My host was trying to spare my feelings and the agony in him made me try to spare his feelings! I tried to assure him that this was a “normal thing” in the life of an American Negro and that he should not be too upset about it. The “truth” turned out to be that the white owner did not want to sell his house to a Negro…

I sat the next day in a New York-bound train and felt rather than thought. What was there to think about? A feeling welled up in me, springing from the depths of my life. I’d had enough of this. To hell with it. I would get out of it. I’d go to France at once. I’d try living a spell away from this racial nightmare. I’d leave the land of my birth, my home, my friends, everything. I’d leave the culture that had shaped me. I’d try something different.

I arrived at my New York apartment and announced to my wife:

“This is the first of April. We are leaving America on the first of May. Take the child out of school. Put the furniture in storage. Buy tickets for Paris. We’re through here.”

She was stunned, but she agreed.

To leave America in 1946 was not easy. My application for a passport was rejected by the Department of State on the grounds that the conditions in post-war Europe were so bad that the government feared that United States citizens would become stranded abroad. I assured the government that I had enough money to care for my needs, but the answer was still no. I was packed, ready to leave, but no passport was forthcoming. I discovered, in consulting lawyers, that, as an American citizen, I had no legal right to a passport, that a passport could be given or withheld at the discretion of the government, in this case the government was personified by a distant woman named Miss Shipley whom I’d never seen.

I was determined not to give up. I appealed for help to French friends of mine in New York and they in turn appealed to the French Government. From Paris Gertrude Stein, with whom I was in close contact, wrote that she would do her utmost. On the 15^th of April, 1946, the French Government responded graciously, giving me an official invitation to the Passport Division of the Department of State in Washington and waited for a reply. None came. I ‘phoned them by long distance and was dismayed to learn that the invitation “had been lost.”

I was angry. I appealed again to the French Government for a duplicate invitation! They sent it. Again I ‘phoned Washington long distance and told them that I was flying down with another invitation and that I wanted my passport. A suave voice tried to dissuade me from coming to Washington, but I insisted that I’d be there in person.

I began to pull every political string in sight. Through the good offices of a famous American doctor I got a pipe-line into the set of Evalyn Walsh MacLean, a set which was rumored to be sympathetic to facism. I did not give a damn about their political sympathies; I wanted my passport and I was ready to accept help from the devil himself. I was told to see a “certain man” in Washington. I saw him and told him to “put in the fix.” He did. I got my passport an hour later.

I was not sorry when my ship sailed past the Statue of Liberty!

Irony of ironies! When I descended from the boat-train in Paris in May, 1946, not only was Gertrude Stein on hand to greet me, but the United States Embassy had sent its public relations man with two sleek cars to aid me. I found that abroad the United States Government finds it convenient to admit that even Negroes are Americans! (Read between the lines!)

A swarm of French newsmen crowded about me, asking a thousand questions about the American Negro. I answered their questions and answered them straight. As these men pumped me I became aware of the smooth flow of a ritual politeness that imbued me with a sense of social confidence. I was already beginning to feel the mellow influence of a deeply humane culture.

My first week in Paris taught me that the fight I had made back home for Negro rights was right, but somehow futile. The deep contrast between French and American racial attitudes demonstrated that it was barbarousness that incited such militant racism in white Americans. In discussing this matter with André Gide, he told me:

“The more uncivilized a white man, the more he fears and hates all those people who differ from him. With us in France, the different, the variant is prized; our curiosity to know other people is the hallmark of our civilized state. In America it is precisely the variant, the different who is hounded down by mobs and killed. The American is a terribly socially insecure man who feels threatened by the mere existence of men different from himself.”

I was eager to find out how did these Frenchmen “get that way.” I soon realized that the impartiality with which Frenchmen viewed people with dark skins had nothing whatsoever to do with their love of these dark people themselves. It was the love and respect which Frenchmen held toward their own history, culture, and achievements that braced the French to a stance of fairness in racial matters. What restrained a Frenchman from humiliating a Negro was not sentimental idealism, but a deep reverence for French dignity and worth.

One of the most gifted and remarkable men I’ve met in Paris is Jean-Paul Sartre, playwright, novelist, and philosophical spokesman for atheistic existentialism. Sartre is a free man who feels it is his duty, and not on moral or metaphysical grounds, to take a stand against anti-Semitism, against racism, against imperialism. Sartre is not the member of any political party and it cannot be maintained that his motives are dictated by selfish interests. In talking with Sartre I was made to understand that a French writer considers it a vital part of his growth as an artist and a human being to shed infantile prejudices. Albert Camus, Jean Cocteau, Simone de Beavoir, and a host of other French writers share the same passion to defend the dignity of man.

During my years of activity in various writers’ and artists’ organizations in the United States, I’ve had the honor to meet most of the so-called great white American writers of my time, and I do not know of a single white American writer who has felt the humane compulsion to make a public declaration against racism, against anti-Semitism and against imperialism, and to weave such concepts into his work as a part of his artistic creed.

In due time I became tired of my cramped hotel room and decided to look for an apartment. Living space was as scarce in Paris as elsewhere. But, as an American Negro living in Paris, I had an advantage over Negroes living in the United States. There is no Black Belt in which a Negro must confine his domicile. Paris is racially a free city. I state here that as an American Negro I am a highly sensitized person in racial matters. During a period of three months I crossed and recrossed Paris in my car, entering hundreds of French homes to ask about apartments. And not once during my goings and comings did I so much as observe the lift of an eyelid at the color of my skin. There was no anger or surprise when a dark face stood at the doorway of a French home!

Luck was with me and finally I found the apartment of my choice. My prospective landlord, an aristocratic woman of some 80 years, invited me to tea. When tea was over, she gave me her answer. It was yes.

There is one anecdote that I can relate that will illustrate the basic attitudes of the average Frenchmen to racial issues more geographically than a thousand pages of argument. One winter motoring from Zurich to Paris and just over the Swiss border I lost my way in a driving rain. I got out of my car and ran into a little country café and asked a young girl behind the counter the main road to Paris. The girl did not answer; she gaped at me in astonishment. I repeated my request for information about the highways, and then she gasped:

“Attendez!” (Wait.)

She ran out of the café through a back doorway. I was baffled, wondering if I had offended her in some way. But a moment later she returned with another girl, a year or two younger, seemingly her sister. This newcomer gaped at me too, as though I’d been a man from Mars. She whirled and started calling:

“Mama! Mama!”

In another minute a big fat mama, wiping her hands on a dish towel, appeared in the back doorway, smiling, measuring me from my head to my feet. Again I asked for the road to Paris, but no one answered. Then the mother yelled, turning back toward the doorway:

“Vite!” Vite, mon garcon!” (Quick, quick, my boy.)

Another minute passed, and then I could hardly credit my eyes, for there stood in the back doorway a tall brown skin Negro, wearing a stocking cap, sleepily rubbing his eyes. Meanwhile, the oldest girl ran to the Negro and put her arm fondly about his neck and beamed at me. The mother and the other daughter stared at me proudly.

“Regardez, monsieur,” the fat French mother told me, pointing to the Negro.

“Hey, Daddy-O,” the young Negro said, smiling.

“What in hell are you doing way out here?” I asked him.

“Me? Hell, I live here,” he said, kissing the girl who held him.

“This is my wife,” he explained. “Man, I checked outta that army and settled down here to do some living. You see, I gotta garage next door. I own this café too. I work nights in the garage; that’s how come I was sleeping when you came.” He shook his head with indulgent sadness. “Shucks, these people is crazy, man. Every time they see a spook, they go wild and wake me up… They so proud to have a spook in the family, they just wanted to show me off to you.”

“Well, that’s better than what happens back home, isn’t it?” I asked.

“You sure can say that again,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

I left behind me in the rain a smiling French peasant family doting on their colored boy!

To live in Paris is to allow one’s sensibilities to be nourished by physical beauty. To me the most startling things in Paris are its trees which are to be found, not just in rich, residential areas, but in all sections of the city. A Parisian would find it criminal to make a Park Avenue and leave, say, Spanish Harlem to rot in dirt and garbage. Shaped to human ends, Paris is not terrifyingly “big”; there is a monumental grandeur in the uniform heights of its buildings. Two-story houses do not stand next to sixteen-story apartment hotels, an arrangement which gives so ragged an appearance even to New York City.

I love my adopted city. Its sunsets, its teeming boulevards, its slow and humane tempo of life have entered deeply into my heart. Yet, make no mistake, there is grim reality here. There is the danger of war and the Parisians have no illusions about it. But they refuse to become hysterical. From somewhere out of their 2,000-year-old history, Frenchmen have found a way to take the grim along with the beautiful.

France is, above all, a land of refuge. Even when there is a shortage of food, Frenchmen will share their crusts of bread with strangers. Yet, nowhere do you see so much gaiety as in Paris, nowhere can you hear so much spirited talk. Each contemporary event is tasted, chewed, digested. There is no first-rate French novelist specializing in creating unreal, romantic historical novels! The present is to be understood and they find it exciting enough. “The problems of philosophy,” says Jean-Paul Sartre, “are to be found in the streets.”

I have encountered among the French no social snobbery. The more individualistic a man is, the more acceptable he is. The spirit of the mob, whether intellectual, racial, or moral, is the very opposite of the spirit of French life. SOIT RAISONNABLE, (be reasonable) is their motto.  

Blinded by My Pain

I'm not gonna lie, I am not in my right mind. I hope this makes sense...

All I can see is my pain, and my passion. My passion is great enough to distract me from my pain. Yet, my passion is to blame for the source of my pain. 

So unfortunate. 

As my light shines brighter, my heart is stabbed deeper.

When does something become not worth fighting for? When does one give up? Maybe, if I try a little longer, something will change. Or maybe the time after that. 

I've given up before. When it doesn't change. 

How can there be no growth or transformation? Evolution of any kind? That's when I see the cover up. Something is not right. Bring on all the performances you can put on, you can only cover up something for so long before it springs up again. Continue to point all the fingers at me. The lack of responsibility becomes transparent. 

Wanna tell on yourself? Tell a lie. 

I believe that all things come to light in due time; when you know what to look for, it can be much sooner than later. No matter what it is: relationships, work, associations, religion... encounter a lie, dig it up, and you'll find it. What exactly? Depends on the lie. Relationships, it may possibly be insecurities, or selfishness. Religion, it may be motivations for control or power... 

Lying is a symptom. Follow it, and you'll find the disease.

Identify the disease, discover the solution.

My passion provoked the source of my pain. My pain now becomes the strength behind my passion.

What Is Your Story?

What is your truth? 

Everyone has a story. 

Within the last year, I've been focusing on what that means to me: 

What IS my story? What IS my truth? 

Though it is something as simple as just your experiences, what have I to offer? Nothing in my life seems interesting. Nothing in my life seems to hold any treasures of truth... Or does it?

The more and more I meditate on this, the more I confront that of which I do not wish to share. I am by nature a very reserved and private person so at first this didn't surprise me. But as time continues to pass, I find it alarming. That's where it is!! So uncomfortable.

The first thing that comes to mind are those people fanatical about the convictions of their hearts. Whether rational or otherwise. The ones who declare you have to go against the grain even if it shames you; even if you personally don't understand. Those that force their will on others and lose all understanding and compassion for them. = ) I guess, who comes to mind is my grandmother. 

I lived my life going against my own trail of grains. Down my own trail, things have gotten a bit more interesting. There are definitely stories I can tell. Stupidity I can warn against. But, to tell you the truth, the core "story" and "truth" of my life has not changed much. As though written into my DNA before my time even started. As though through the passing of time and generations, I am meant to be here with these words transferring from mind, to paper, to screen. Is this a set up?! (*I look around suspiciously.)  

All this just confirms to me that everything we need in life truly is there right in front of you. You just need to pull the veil from your eyes to see it. The things that don't matter in life are distracting us, both within and around us. Childish emotions, petty fighting, stress of bills, insecurities, etc. They all have their place, though. Their place is showing us where we need to work on in our own characters. Grow in character and remain resilient. From there, the path will open up. 

Give and Take

Being a compassionate and generous person, I didn't understand why people would say that someone who doesn't love themselves couldn't love others. I did love others. Often times even more than myself... But the root of the issue is: those who don't love themselves, don't allow others to love them either. This was not revealed to me until my husband displayed a love so deep and strong, his love refused to be rejected by my sub-conscious attempts. 

It is said that your sub-conscious works for your best interest, and will build defenses to protect you from being hurt in a particular way. I am not exactly sure where my walls originated from. I did recognize that I felt it would hurt less if I cut myself off rather than be cut off. My mind would bring up reasons why he would not love me, not accept me. But this had nothing to do with him... 

This is how I realized I truly did not love myself. It astounded me. And I did not like it. With great effort, persistence, and heartache, I battled against myself, to love myself. 

My husband is just as stubborn as me, if not more. = ) No matter what I did to convince myself it could not be possible for anyone to love me to such an extent, he refused to give in. At times I allowed myself to be vulnerable, it surprised me how love can take you to a whole new level when it is reciprocated and accepted.  

Now, some can relate to this, and some may relate to the opposite. Some find it easy to love, and some find it easier to accept love. But in extremes, both cases are only half complete. I find it amazing to consider. Like a tree. A tree gives life to the world, but unless it receives nourishment, it will dry out and die. And when a tree requires water, yet doesn't produce anything in return, it is chopped down. 

My point in putting light on this subject is to inspire self-reflection. Though it is embarrassing for me to admit, I think many may have a similar issue and may not even realize it. I didn't. After realizing my problem and working on it, walls within our relationship tumbled down. 

It is very possible to go on addressing symptoms that arise in your relationship rather than the root of it when you are not honest and courageous enough to look at it for what it is. It's easy to look at someone else and know how to fix them, but it takes great courage to fix something you can only fix yourself. Don't shy away from what you don't want to see. What you don't want to see is usually what stands between you and what you really want.

Healing Is Possible

The earth supplies all our essential needs. It is really quite an amazing thing to dwell on. Not only are there resources for restoration and rehabilitation, our bodies have a remarkable way of doing its own work in the process. I sincerely believe that wholeness is available; healing is available. I do believe in natural cures.

I have heard many cases of healing and restoration. Few I have actually seen for myself. From what I have seen, much discipline and support is required. To make a significant impact on your health demands a total lifestyle change. You change what you consume, how you consume it, and when you consume it. It is definitely not easy, especially when the world around you has no problem indulging in empty yet highly satisfying diets.  Physical activity is a major component. Exercise, fresh air, sunlight, etc., all play their part as well.  

A lie is being sold that implies we can do whatever we want, and a regimen is available to remedy the consequential situation. Juxtapose to natural remedies, pharmaceutical drugs are just band-aids. Many times they are even worse considering they sacrifice other components of your body to attend to the initial ailment.  

Considering this, I thought of societal issues. Because it is easy to want to attack or remedy what we feel is hurting us as a community. As much as I, as well as many of you, would like to make this world a better place, it seems it will take a lot of discipline, support, determination, and perseverance, just as it does to turn one's health around. A shock and tough climb up hill to start, being consistent and forming habits, and then enjoying the vigor and energy and results of having your body in top shape. 

Above all, one has to be willing. You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. Forcing it is equivalent of taking a pharmaceutical drug. It may seem like it's helping, but it is only being subsided temporarily. 

What I think makes a difference is our "discipline and support." I think that is all that is really asked of us to begin with. The discipline and integrity in our own lives by default creates a form of support for those who need it and accept it.

Battle of the Mind

Life is experience. Everything that happens to us, either directly or indirectly, leaves an impression on our character. Inevitably, our experiences are our own. No one, not even twins, experience life the same way. Differences that arise, when the diverse element of our environment is added, vary greatly as well. Grasping this concept, and then looking out our window, why is it that we tend to categorize and stereotype groups of people? What defines these preconceived assumptions? This apparent contradiction emphasizes how deep this influence is. Our dominating form of entertainment, the broad aspect of the media, has a drastic influence on our society. Reading between the lines should give us some insight to this influence induced on the American people. We all believe in relative truths, whatever they may be, in which our culture demonstrates to us how we enjoy lies and how that causes us to willingly believe lies, resulting in a distorted view of reality with detrimental effects on society, such as racism.            

            The extent to which the media is exposed to the audience, ultimately determines the extent of its influence. Technology has assisted the media in reaching more people, more of the time, and apparently will increasingly continue to do so. The initial intent of the media is to “inform and educate, as well as entertain (Culture, p4, ¶1).” Therefore, this is where we go to attain various types of information, education and entertainment. Consequently, entertainment has encompassed the intent of the media, and has reached beyond a point where it is now an important factor when it comes to reaching the audience with education and information. In order to reach the masses and maintain the audience’s attention requires elements of entertainment, which in turn, endangers the information of bias.

The definition of entertainment is “amusement or diversion provided esp. by performers; also: something or someone diverting or engaging (Merriam, 2007).” The definition of divert is “to turn from a course or purpose: deflect 2: distract 3: to give pleasure to esp. by distracting the attention from what burdens or distresses (Merriam, 2007).” Some definitions for engage is “to bind by pledge… 3: to attract and hold esp. by interesting; also: to cause to participate… 5: to bring or enter into conflict (Merriam, 2007).” The definitions clarify what entertainment is, and as you read along, the connections will be more apparent. The fact being that on the most part, entertainment is experienced, not often conceptualized.         

Based on research “work of Conway and Rubin… established the following gratification factors in TV use:  passing-time, entertainment, information, escape, relaxation, and status enhancement (Oliver, 2010).” From these fundamental factors derives a wide range of determinants that leads one to seek to be entertained, which results in added exposure to the media. Emotional factors such as stress, boredom, loneliness leads some to seek “information that may ultimately help the mournful viewers ‘work through’ (Oliver, 2010)” a negative state. Other motivators are “means of experiencing beauty and raising morale (Oliver, 2010).” In other words, entertainment has the ability to manipulate our emotions and allows us the freedom to select media to feel how we would like to feel.

            Due to our desire to ultimately “escape,” leads us into an area in which we are susceptible to be mislead and deceived on many levels. Green explains:

“To compensate for the difficulties in their lives, people spend a lot of their time daydreaming, imagining a future full of adventure, success, and romance… The perfect illusion is one that does not depart too much from reality, but has a touch of the unreal to it, like a waking dream. Lead the seduced to a point of confusion in which they can no longer tell the difference between illusion and reality (2001, p. 251).”

Considering the extent of the reach of the media, “Heavy television viewers tend to internalize the media’s messages… Media representations that are consistent and intense become mentally available for influencing real-world perceptions, beliefs, and values…(Ramasubramanan, 2010).” This proves that the media is a very effective, yet acceptable tool for manipulation.

The art of persuasion and the art of seduction can be blueprints for the techniques used by the media to reach the means to their end. Straight to the point, the media is overall, in it for the money. Entertainment and advertisements in particular, are directed to motivate and persuade, in other words, seduce you to their proposed instruction.

“The trick to making them listen is to say what they want to hear, to fill their ears with whatever is pleasant to them… Inflame people’s emotions with loaded phrases, flatter them, comfort their insecurities, envelop them in fantasies, sweet words, and promises, and not only will they listen to you, they will lose their will to resist you (Green, 2001).”

Not only do they persuade one to do things or buy things, they will stimulate particular emotions in order to affect behaviors. Take for example the use of fear and shock appeals. “Fear appeals attempt to frighten target audience members in order to motivate them to take appropriate precautionary, self-protective action (Jones, 2010).” Motives for shock appeals have been suggested to capture the attention of the audience, the interest that results in free publicity, to raise awareness, to affect attitudes, to enhance recall, to influence behaviors, to increase sales and profits, or to achieve other mission-related goals (Jones, 2010). For example, “advertisers invest time understanding the human spirit to shape it into a consumer mentality (Touzard, 2007).”

Going back to our window, does the media affect perspectives on diverse groups of people? “Television can teach us many things, can tell us many stories, can make us laugh, but it can also make us angry, and it can take us to a number of different worlds and force us to establish our position towards them (Mitu, 2010).” The media allows the world to open up to us and, accompanied with a false sense of freedom, determine for ourselves what is right and wrong in these simulations, and therefore other similar situations. “Individuals experience the greatest level of enjoyment when the portrayed outcomes in media entertainment are perceived as ‘just’ or ‘correct’ (Oliver, 2010).” But, whatever the media has displayed up to this point has been “in accordance with the intentions and desires of people (Mitu, 2010).” This then insinuates that one particular perspective of reality is predominantly acceptable, but that is another topic altogether, although it is inevitably unavoidable and will be present.

In 1946, William Tymous, an African American, World War II veteran, wrote a letter to Federal Communication Commissioner, Clifford Durr, in which William stated he worried to what extent they had nailed “down in the minds of millions of listeners derogatory and false judgments of fellow citizens…conditioned by these anti-racial stereotypes that they placidly accept them and can see no wrong in such disguised fostering of race hatred (Pickard, 2008).” This letter resulted in the creation of the “Public Service Responsibility of Broadcast Licensees,” also known as the “Blue Book,” as a guideline that is hardly recognized, even today.  Due to the universal fact that money is power, money can safely be assumed to be the motive for any established set of rules that are ignored, not to exclude rules they allow to be enforced. Follow the money trail, you will find “who” is at the end of it, another topic for another time.

The manipulating hand behind the media is characterized as insidious. Green explains in Appendix B entitled “Soft Seduction: How to Sell Anything to the Masses” how, through a few key factors. The most apparent factors present in our media are very interesting. “Design your words and images to stir basic emotions – lust, patriotism, family values… they feel stirred, uplifted. Now you have their attention and the space to insinuate your true message.” Another aspect is to use visuals, images to hypnotize, to make them feel, to your design. Also, that the “most seductive way to sell” is through trends. The most astonishing key factor is “Tell people who they are.”

“Making them unhappy with themselves gives you room to suggest a new life-style, a new identity. Only by listening to you can they find out who they are. At the same time, you want to change their perception of the world outside them by controlling what they look at. Use as many media as possible to create a kind of total environment for their perceptions. Your image should be seen not as an advertisement but as part of the atmosphere (2001, p.447).”

These points are apparently familiar. Yet we are so blind to it, including those who are negatively affected. Perhaps due to the fact that it is easier to identify issues for others than it is to identify of ourselves.

            “His love of justice often became a blind and furious passion, and whenever he deemed his own or the public safety endangered, he disregarded the rules of evidence and the proportion of punishments (Gibbon, 2003).” Aurelian, a Roman general was also described as desensitized and unsympathetic to tortures and death. This is just one of the innumerous personages who abused power to their standards of justice. Rome, once being a dominating power in the world, is a paralleled, “safely acceptable” example to use. Can anyone honestly say they are not blinded by their own rationalizations in their own standards of justice?

 Evidence of a governing standard that poses as just, proves to be a real possibility in our society as a nation. An experiment conducted on White Americans that consider themselves unprejudiced, demonstrates where rationalization plays a major role. “Because maintaining an unprejudiced self-image is so important to most individuals…any event that casts doubt on their unprejudiced self-image…then respond to this threat by seeking out an opportunity for comparison with more prejudiced individuals (O’Brien, 2010).” The media is readily available to provide these comparisons, which accounts for how it is possible that a particular perspective of reality is commonly accepted. When you follow the trail of oppression, it will become evident “who” determines what is commonly accepted, another topic altogether.

Racial prejudice is the best example to show what is happening “behind the scenes,” and reveals the detrimental effects of a distorted view of reality. Discrimination against Black people is the most extreme and most prevalent, yet the most disguised. It shows where our standards originate from and the source of many inconsistencies in our society. It does not exclude the discrimination of other races, or disparage them.

Assata Shakur is a Black revolutionary woman who was charged with being an accomplice to a murder of a White state trooper in the 1970’s. Her autobiography illustrates her experience throughout the trial which reflects how “they [judicial system] had used the law to abuse the law (Shakur, 1987).”

Through her upbringing, she reflects on how racism affected her perspective of her environment and the part media played to frame her mindset growing up. She watched shows such as, “Ozzie and Harriet” and “Lassie” and wanted to be like them because it was thought that was how it was supposed to be. Commercials had caused her to act as a puppet, “and I didn’t even know who was pulling the strings,” by wanting what they told her she wanted, believing that’s what she should want.          

Personally and socially, the experiences of Assata testify to a force in the world that manipulates the masses to a dominant, governing point of view. The distortion of reality is not solely limited to the media and the “fantasy world,” but extends it influence into reality. As mentioned earlier, it leads “the seduced to a point of confusion in which they can no longer tell the difference between illusion and reality (Green, 2001).” As a child growing up in a segregated environment, external pressures were felt to want something influenced. As an adult, an external force laid claim on her life because she interfered with their interests.

“Meanwhile, we in this society must remind ourselves again how we threaten our own interests and rights when we condone by our silence the government’s use of surveillance, attacks on the legitimacy of political activists, and the use of the criminal law to suppress and punish political dissent (Shakur, 1987).”

The media, in relation to how it portrays our reality in society, shows how the “puppeteer” wants, or allows issues to be portrayed. No matter what race, I believe we are all in danger of, and susceptible to, the self-righteous control of the judicial system. Ultimately, this shows how we are all living under a false sense of freedom. The media is always there to confirm that for us. Though, it must be stated that the media is referred to in general. There is media that is valuable, relevant, and beneficial in existence. Even when the media is corrupted, there is a fundamental truth that deceptions are derived from. The main point is identifying underlining “lies” in the media in order to avoid their influence.

We are not qualified to judge when we possess preconceived notions in viewing the “world,” how much more so when we interact with it? Racial prejudice is just one of the many aspects of conditioned thinking existent in our American culture. Others include; materialism, religion, aging, class, etc.  

Common knowledge is that we can change the world by the relatively small things we can do as an individual. A place that we all can start is by realizing what we don’t want to realize. Wishful thinking, especially when money, also known as the root of all kinds of evil, is involved. “Seduction is the ultimate form of power. Those who give in to it do so willingly and happily (Green, 2001).”

References

Gibbon, E. (2003). The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Toronto: Random House Publishing Group.

Green, R. (2001). The Art of Seduction. New York, New York: Penguin Group.

Jones, T., Cunningham, P.H., &Gallagher, K. (2010). VIOLENCE IN ADVERTISING. Journal of Advertising, 39(4), 11-36. Doi:10.2753/JOA0091-3367390402

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus. (2007). Library of Congress Cataloging –in-Publication Data.

Mitu, B. (2010). “CULTURE AND TELEVISION AFTER 20 YEARS. THE TELEVISUAL GLOBALIZATION.” Annals of Spiru Haret University, Journalism Studies, 11237-244. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

O'Brien, L. T., Crandall, C. S., Horstman-Reser, A., Warner, R., Alsbrooks, A., & Blodorn, A. (2010). But I'm No Bigot: How Prejudiced White Americans Maintain Unprejudiced Self-Images. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40(4), 917-946. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2010.00604.x

Oliver, M., & Bartsch, A. (2010). Appreciation as Audience Response: Exploring Entertainment Gratifications Beyond Hedonism. Human Communication Research, 36(1), 53-81. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2009.01368.x

Pickard, V. (2008). A Postwar Settlement for U.S. Broadcasting: Conference Papers-International Communication Association, 1-30. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Ramasubramanian, S. (2010). Television Viewing, Racial Attitudes, and Policy Preferences: Exploring the Role of Social Identity and Intergroup Emotions in Influencing Support for Affirmative Action. Communication Monographs, 77(1), 102-120. doi:10.1080/03637750903514300

Shakur, A. (1987). Assata. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books.

Touzard, G. (2007). Destructive advertisements: The relationship between advertisements and the environment. Conference Papers -- American Sociological Association, 1. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Something to Consider.

Lately, love has generally been on my mind. The issues of the world that we are exposed to seem so complicated and intense. Honestly, it is really that simple. It is just not the easiest thing to do. Genuine love requires sacrifice, and not many are willing. Those who confess to believe in Jesus Christ should understand, this is the true cross to bear; agape. 

Whether or not you believe in the Bible or in Jesus Christ, take a look at the person depicted. Love, expressed through a filter of wisdom. A revolutionary. He brought truth, and depending on where the heart was, the person was either freed, confounded, or slapped in the face.

I think another aspect to address would be that His people were expecting freedom from Roman dominance. Consider that He freed people from something greater than that. He freed them mentally and spiritually, which in turn also freed them physically. Consider that! And not even primarily from the Romans, but from their own people, their own government, their own religion. 

America. A country that was founded on a Christian foundation. So transparent to see through that facade. Everything that was done, was done in hypocrisy. All men are created equal, but not all men are equal. This is a country that professes "freedom" and "democracy," yet many citizens find themselves enslaved to this very day. 

Divide and conquer to such a great extent, we are even divided within our own selves! We are divided within and hate ourselves, we are divided within our family and hate our family, we are divided within our neighborhood and hate our neighbor. Not knowing, not understanding what or who the real enemy is. Division and hatred so trivial that people destroy due to sports rivalry. Come on now, it ain't even that serious.

To change the world, it takes planning and action motivated by love and the desire to truly see the world as a better place, as opposed to hate and destruction. Yet, we can't even do that within our own realm of influence.  

Why Hate?

"Hate. It has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet." 
-Maya Angelou

Has hate ever solved a problem for you in your personal life? 
Reflecting on this question, I have to answer no. I can't think of any problem hate has solved for me personally. In fact, I can remember it having the exact opposite reaction. Hate has either enlarged the problem, prolonged it, or allowed the emotional pain to continue for a long time after anything can even be done about it. 

I've heard love is where the answer lies. Love, and compassion, and understanding. 
Why does love tend to be hard to give? Why does love tend to be hard to find?

I spent most of my life very naive. I gave a lot of love to a lot of people who didn't appreciate it. I've been hurt too many times to count, and I can't lie, I ultimately became very bitter. I became very angry and on edge. The majority walk around as predators, just searching for prey. How can you love in a world like that? 

Hating comes out easily. We know what we like, and what we don't like. We know what we believe, and what we don't believe. We understand our own worlds. Then, we are confronted with something different... 

Love doesn't seem so easy for many to express. I believe it is because love has become selfish. Love is easy to give when it is beneficial, as opposed to sacrificial. To top it off, why would you show love for someone you don't understand?  

With this lack of understanding, combined with the choice not to love, there is a self-imposed illusion of separation. Yes, illusion! If there really is a separation, there would be no room or reason to hate to begin with. We all affect each other. We are even affecting others on the other side of the world. (If you don't believe that, I invite you to comment.) 

An essential element that must come from each one of us is self-responsibility. Many may think that they live in a bubble, but fact is, our actions and thoughts have a ripple effect throughout our world. So much suffering is going on all over the world, we each need to acknowledge our part, and what we can do about it. 

Every day carries enough worries of its own. We all have our own struggles and obligations. It takes many of us all we have not to go insane. I experience the same. But just as we all contributed to the madness, we can just as easily contribute to the solution. We do what we can. 

Blood On Our Hands

In the last couple of weeks, I've seen numerous videos of murder and violence done in the name of "religion." I have to be honest with you, what comes vividly to mind are the conquests done under the Christian Bible. Although Christianity wants to play the innocent and judge at this time in our earth's history, it cannot hide what it holds behind the scenes when evil is too intent on showing its true colors.

I am an adamant believer in free will. If God refuses to force me to love Him, no force on earth is going to force me to serve anything against my conscience. Though my beliefs are rooted in Christianity, I believe there is truth and wisdom in other religions. I believe religions are started with pure intent, but become over-ridden by tradition and human ambition over time. Persecution does not come from God. It just makes no kind of sense!

Watching American History X, I realized something that sharpened my perception of all "division" in general. Behind the main character was another character instigating violence and hate. The goal was to gain control of the area and put people of color under submission. What I came to realize is, just as the instigator sent out the main character, someone up that line must have sent the instigator. The story line may be fiction, but I feel, holds a lot of truth to it. 

Violence and hate can be summed up by burning crosses. Burning crosses may not have originated in religion, but has been professed to be a symbol of faith in Christianity. I had to throw this out there because this is recent history, if "history" at all.

Looking back at history, it can be seen that the church used religion as a form of control over a vast area, even over oceans. The objective of the missions in California was to convert the Native Americans in order to ensure their loyalty. Devout men and women may have gone out with sincere heart to do the will of "God," but by the order of men, fueled by men's ambitions. 

Throughout the dark ages, anyone who spoke out against the church was persecuted against. The reformers are testimonies to that, and what it shows is that the Catholic church acquired and maintained its control in the name of religion, but against God. Catholic means universal in extent; involving all; of interest to all. Seems very ambitious. Tens of thousands were massacred during these centuries. 

Now that Muslims are killing Christians and Buddhists, I can't help but wonder what the force behind it is, and why. There is, no doubt, a chain of command. Why is this action being taken and for what purpose? I do not take this at face value. Besides that, I have to be careful the role I play as a pawn in "their" whole game.  

  

Dark Corners

Not knowing, ever wondering.

I fear what I don’t know.

I am always aware there is more than what I am limited to.

I am always aware there is variety inexhaustible.

Nothing stays hidden forever.

I’ve illuminated some dark hidden corners.

I am always aware I could not have found them all.

A charade always follows. But in time another corner is found.

Until the charade is so redundant it’s predictable.

I am always aware of what comes next.

Keep them all. Your secrets. Your charades.

All of this is unnecessary.

I am always aware you will always have your way.