Obligatory "Black History" Post
In Which Mark Explores His Roots.
Here we are again. “Black History Month.”
I admit it kind of snuck up on me, which is why I’m racing to get this post out in the nick of time.
Lord knows that once The Shortest Month of the Year™ is over, we will spend the remaining three-hundred and seven days never hearing a single word about Black history, Black people, Black culture, Black struggles, Black voices, Black representation and “Blackness” in general, whatever that’s supposed to mean. All of us honkies will simply forget such melanin-abundance exists, as we cruise about on our yachts and swill champagne.
But I will remember. Because I am one of the good ones, don’cha know.
I’m also someone who usually gives at least a nod to tradition. Granted this one’s still very new, and a particularly difficult one for yours truly to revere. I’m a man of many mottos, one of the oldest being “I Hate A Parade.” Not just parades, mind you, but protests, rallies, riots and the entire tribal esprit de corps they represent. But sometimes you need to just go with the flow.
One mainstay of this newish tradition is to elevate some unsung black hero from the past. Unfortunately, the supply of such invisible champions is drying up these days. Every candidate appears to have been breathlessly celebrated already, if not feted for the umpteenth time in Hollywood films and other media. Worse, the heroes of these narratives tend to conform to the stereotype of the hapless victim. Heracles gunned down by a mob of Thracian bigots isn’t exactly the kind of tale that towering cultures are built upon (and I’m beginning to think that’s the point).
One name that sprang to mind was the free black sailor Crispus Attucks, martyred alongside his white brothers in the streets of Boston as they battled a less obvious form of enslavement.
While his story would rankle progressives for drifting too far off their “Everything is Racist” script, it would likewise please an untenably large number of conservatives. And if I’ve learned anything about our new American tribal ethos, the goal of promoting tales of heroism is to piss off as many people as humanly possible. Besides, the last thing we need is another “black man shot by cops” narrative for our corporate media scumbags to dine out on.
Then it hit me. Like a hammer striking steel, one might say.
In fact, the answer was so glaringly obvious, I couldn’t help but chuckle. In order to offer up the perfect black hero, I needed only to reflect upon my own storied people, and our ancient, sacred heritage.
Granted, the tale of John Henry and his war against the Machine isn’t exactly what you’d call “unsung." Indeed, it’s been sung over and over, in a multitude of forms. But given the supply shortage I mentioned above, I’m guessing I can be forgiven for that.
What I probably won’t be forgiven for is the dearth of historicity. While various candidates for the actual, living man have been proposed over the years, his mythological egregore looms larger than all of them combined. Therefore, most modern historians would dismiss a character like Henry as folklore. Most modern historians are dunces, though, because folklore is more important than history. In a certain sense, an enduring myth is also more “real” than the collection of facts you might find in a history book.
For one thing, such facts are often highly disputable, or massaged by the “winners” to buttress precious theories and flatter egos. Moreover, the format of historical document lends itself to the kind of editing that does not reveal truth but obscures it, usually in service of maintaining authoritarian control. The same could be said of revisionist histories of the sort recently peddled by the New York Times 1619 Project. Like that mechanism we refer to as “the News,” history as we know it is mainly a propaganda weapon. If you doubt this, consider how people will strategically edit even the memories of events from their own lives.
For another thing, folklore is much more than just a story of an event that may or may not have occurred. It’s a spiritual recording that echoes across time, passed down from generation to generation through the divine mediums of art. The folk hero exists not merely on the printed page, but in songs and poems, paintings and sculptures, words spoken dramatically beside a campfire’s glow. He serves not just as the avatar of a people, but of elusive tides and hidden trends that shape them, of the hopes and dreams and nightmares that establish a stable continuity of being. And he achieves immortality because his tale also conveys a central truth about reality itself, and of Mankind’s unique place within a much larger narrative.
For me, the immortal truth that John Henry reveals to us is that Machine will always be inferior to Man. We are simply too determined, too creative, too unruly, too downright stubborn to allow otherwise, though it may come at the cost of our earthly lives. And even on that minor score, John Henry was not beaten. Nobody sings songs about steam drills, after all.
In his contest against the Machine, it’s worth noting that it was not merely the mechanical apparatus he defeated, but the forces who promote a mechanized and atomized view of human life in general. The drill’s inventors and pimps weren’t merely nudging forth the wheels of progress, but threatening a way of life in Appalachia that bound its people to the land and to each other.
One might argue that those affected should just find other ways of living, and that the long-term benefits of new technologies always outweigh the short-term costs. This theory must be comforting to those who apply it from a distance, but the creeping hand of techno-obsolescence is famously indifferent to theory. “First, they came for the Jews,” and all of that. And as Appalachians have discovered with regards to recent attacks on their coal mining industry, the Machine’s masters can decide to uninvent such technological “progress” on a whim, once more visiting upheaval and chaos upon them as a result. When every decision seems to lead to damaging outcomes for a certain group, it’s hard not to notice a pattern.
Is John Henry an anti-capitalist icon?
For some, yes — a fact which will surely piss off libertarians, conservatives and other Rightish types. If it wasn’t Black History Month, and I therefore wasn’t trying to flood the world with bitterness and rage, I might mention that there exists no story that communists won’t try to co-opt and corrupt, up to and including that of Jesus Christ. Besides, free market capitalism shouldn’t be rendered immune to critique. Like most systems, there are moral and immoral ways to go about it, and its current form of cronyism and capture leaves much to be desired.
But John Henry is also an exemplar of the Rugged Individual who distinguishes himself from the flock, not to mention a hero born with the kind of special gifts that today’s Lefty progs openly decry and abhor. In this case, John’s power is derived less from his muscles, which can be built, than it is from his innate courage and strength of will. This is a major no-no for the postmodern Left; despite their paeans to “diversity,” their neo-Marxist version of human nature is flat and featureless. To them all humans are all 100% products of our environments, clay to be crammed into the molds of social engineers to maximize utility. The very concept of an “innate talent” is the product of structural white supremacy, don’cha know.
So thankfully, almost everyone and their mother can find an axe to grind with Henry’s tale. But only almost. A core feature of our “X History Month” rituals is that the “X” group must be constantly flattered and patronized. And while X’s like LGBT have done a lot of catching up in recent years, “Black” remains the gold standard as an edifice of mawkish adulation. As our corporate and political masters constantly remind us, to be black in 21st century America is to be rendered immune to criticism and the normal rules of debate, and to be showered always with pleas for forgiveness and obsequent praise.
And yet, like a Kentucky mountain yielding to John Henry’s mighty hammer, I see cracks beginning to form.
Like many Americans my age, I grew up watching black race-hustlers ply their trade, sometimes even at close range. Scrambling in the wake of the Civil Rights movement, these men and women learned to play a certain con-game very well, with disastrous effects that spread well beyond the boundaries of “their people.”
When I was younger, the men among them often called themselves “Reverend,” hilariously enough. They came off as living embodiments of those who flout the third commandment, taking the Lord’s name in vain for fun and profit. I’d be fascinated to watch a serpent like Al Sharpton defend such a title before God, spluttering his nonce words like some freaked-out jailhouse lawyer. But I presume such hearings will be closed to the public.
Lately, however, these unholy men are being replaced by a new breed of racial saboteur. They have largely abandoned all religious language for the glib secularism of the laptop class. The con is still largely the same: to sow fear and resentment among black Americans, while employing classic blackmail and protection rackets against the whites to fill their pockets.
But unlike the “Reverend” Jesse Jackson and his ilk, the Ibram X. Kendis of the world don’t even pretend to offer something like redemption in exchange. Like the devil himself, their currency is unending accusation, and pleas to burn the world down for the sake of saving it.
Progress being what it is, this New School offers a way for even some of us honkies to get in on the grift. Take for example the case of Robin D’Angelo, whose IMAX-like projection of her inner bigotry and ugliness gives new meaning to the term “white devil.” She’s got herself a good racket going, preying upon corporate HR meetings and campus struggle sessions.
But without the fig leaf of false gnosis to hide behind, I doubt these grifts will survive for much longer. People want to do not only “well” but “good,” and their secular religion offers scant of the former and none of the latter.
As an aside, I wonder how well D’Angelo’s whole “White Fragility” routine would play in the hardscrabble outposts of Appalachia? Or the illiterate ramblings of Kendi, for that matter, whose tender fingers have never picked cotton nor cracked coal, let alone driven holes through solid rock. I recall an official from the Obama administration once claiming that the region’s biggest problem was “mountain pride,” referring to those impoverished white families who refused to climb on the government dole. Maybe they just intuit what it was the government would be purchasing from them in return.
John Henry plays a role in that wordless understanding: the gut feeling that not only is “progress” not always what it’s cracked up to be, but that its purveyors have hidden motives that don’t include your best interests. But that isn’t the reason I chose to write about him today. In keeping with the spirit of Black History Month, my reasons are purely tribal.
He and I are brothers-at-arms, you see, in a war so long and cold that most people don’t even realize it’s being fought. That will change soon enough; the Enemy, in their hubris, is deploying ever more obvious and horrific assets to the battlefield.
Our shared lineage contains multitudes that transcend not only biology, but the bounds of time and space. It includes among its members nightmare-weavers like Shelley and Orwell, and dreamers like Whitman and Thoreau. It includes warrior-kings like Vlad “Dracula” Tepes, who held the bloody line against the Machine’s Muhammedan form; Ntshingwayo Khoza, who battled Britannia’s version; Geronimo, who defied the American Domestication Engine; Chiang Kai-shek, who dueled Mao’s Red Mech. Even the boundaries of fiction don’t preclude membership. Ned Ludd, Sarah Connor and Magnus Robot-Fighter are as intimate as J.R.R. Tolkien or James O’Keefe.
Our people aren’t without controversy, including those listed above. And like all tribes, we must continually police our happy hunting grounds for frauds and monsters. The rōnin Saigō Takamori failed in his attempted restoration, but his own privileges and pocketbook were mainly what he wanted to restore. The Unabomber talked a good game, but his murderous deeds have condemned him to an eternity in Hell. As with others who claim to fight the Machine, their greed, rage and fear turned them into its unwitting thralls.
Like John Henry, I do not hate or fear the Machine and its minions. Those who misinterpret his story will take this for a different kind of hubris. But in all the versions that I know of, a key node is that John foresaw his own fate. He knew he would die with “his hammer in his hand,” and knew why his tale must end that way.
John Henry said to his captain,
"A man is nothing but a man,
But before I let your steam drill beat me down,
I'd die with a hammer in my hand, Lord, Lord,
I'd die with a hammer in my hand."
The man that invented the steam drill,
He figured he was mighty high and fine,
But John Henry sunk the steel down fourteen feet
While the steam drill only made nine, Lord, Lord,
The steam drill only made nine.
John Henry hammered on the right-hand side.
Steam drill kept driving on the left.
John Henry beat that steam drill down.
But he hammered his poor heart to death, Lord, Lord,
He hammered his poor heart to death.I only pray that I can die as well as he did.
In the meantime, let it be known to all you racial grifters and arsonists out there, who collaborate with the Machine to turn us all into its slaves in this month or any other:
John Henry is more than a hero to me.
He is my kind.
So keep his name out ya fuckin’ mouth.
P.S. If you found any of this valuable (and can spare any change), consider dropping a tip in the cup for ya boy. I’ll try to figure out something I can give you back. Thanks in advance.
I actually had no idea John Henry was black. A CRT enthusiast would say something like, that's because Henry's blackness was erased by the presumption of a default whiteness, which is sort of a half truth. Really though, it's that the John Henry tale has nothing whatsoever to do with his being black. He wasn't being oppressed because of his skin color. He wasn't the victim of slavery or racism. There's nothing in his story for race hustlers to latch onto.
And so they ignore it.
Despite the obvious heroism of the tale.
Which says a very great deal about their motivations.
Great article. My mother taught in the inner city of Chicago for the Archdiocese for 53 years and marched with MLK through the Marquette Park neighborhood. She took a group of her students, by basically stealing a school bus, to the march and when things went south for the marchers she tried to escape into a nearby church with her students only to have one Jesse Jackson refuse to open the doors as he was too scared of the counterprotestors, show's the complete lack of honor that scumbag has. Everything my mother stood for is being destroyed by these CRT spouting lunatics and it makes me sick, she taught in crime ridden black neighborhoods her entire career, making ludicrously low amounts of money to do so, her last year of teaching she made 29k, all because she believed in what she did but somehow these asshats would say she's a white supremacist, fucking scoundrels the lot of them! Also, great start to a Monday morning by listening to some Steve Earle!