Poetry Nights in Ekenäs Presents Supertonic

My, you look lovely....

Yesterday I came across a short articles in THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE (NGM). They are stocked in the local library where I live. The subject of the article was #metoo. I read almost everything I come across that bears that hashtag. It has become a signal. It suggests..nay it demands men to stay up/stay abreast... the world is changing. As I read, I noticed the author used the term perpetrator when referencing the proverbial accused. Hmm, I thought, is that an acceptable for a writer to use in such a prestigious publication as this? You see from where I come, one is innocent until proven guilty. I am familiar with the term “to be tied in the press”. But not here. Leave that for gossip rags. Not in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

I continued to read and the term popped up again. OK so I flipped the entire issue over, I was looking to see if this were the cover story Perhaps this were an editorial. Nope.. then I flipped back to the first page of the article to see who had penned it- I was not surprised to see a woman’s name. Ok so I thought perhaps times have changed. If so I though perhaps I am in not as wrong as I was lead to believe.

Let me explain, about 7 years ago, I shared with a friend that I had come to began to re-think my feelings about famous authors whom I (and a great number of the professors who exposed me to them) had become canons in literature. To name a few Edgar Allen Poe Nathaniel Hawthorn, Ralph Emerson and Willa Cather. All indeed early American writers. I mean these were the greats who fellow students and I argued over. Poured out ink writing essays over. Granted Poe was alcoholic and probable smoked opium. But withstanding those time honored traditions of their era, how about racism? You see, as I told my good friend, I had admired these literary giants. They represented to all things literary. But what if I learned one of them or all held and shard to the then known belief that Negros where less than human. That they considered my forefathers held in bondage, were not “...born with certain inalienable rights...” Should not I then rush home and remove their books from my shelves and call them racist? Would it be fair to myself to never allow their names to utter from my lips as highly respectable literary giants? Could I then feel a fool and come to speak of them only in negative terms? My friend thought not.

He said I would be in err. That these men were only products of their respective eras. So I packed away those thoughts I had. I did not want to give way to moral persuasion. Times change and while mankind's’ morale change, do they necessarily evolve toward a greater good? I valued my friends opinion. I thought he the wiser. I thought again as I read that article. How should we think of those who have utilized their power over subordinates in the work places of the world. Are they too not merely “PRODUCTS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE ERA”? Indeed we are correct to despise them. But only if charged, dismissed from their jobs, then tired in a court of law and convicted. Must we wait? I wonder what all the new standards of behavior over #metoo will be. Will men learn that women too are born with certain inalienable rights and these include withstanding a shared patriarchal right to make advances, whisper naughty things in ears.. gossip at water coolers.

While the American chattel slavery has been long abolished, mankind in many corners of the globe still think those from African decent are less than.... I grow tied of looking back in time and finding white men I admire never looking forward out of their era . Passing by, I wonder will I some day see perpetrators hanging like strange fruit from the poplar trees.

My you look lovely hanging from the gallows read his epitaph in the morning paper .

WORDS AND PHOTO BY JKSTEWARTCREATIVE