We exist in a world of so much quiet. We exist within quiet hierarchies and quiet wars and quiet systems of power. Each quiet is not only sanctioned, but outright encouraged by the state. To disrupt the quiet is to disrupt the state.
We do not disrupt the state here.
Our personal quiet can signal many things, such as our complicity with the system or our neutrality toward the system.
(Note 1: Neutrality is the other face complicity wears sometimes.)
Our quiet can also, at times, signal our resistance to the system or our refusal to participate in our own oppression.
Our quiet can signal our acceptance of the way-things-are which differs slightly from a complicity with the way-things-are, though both are decidedly destructive.
One's acceptance of the way-things-are signals an acceptance of discomfort which also signals an acceptance of one's oppression. To accept one's oppression is a violent act. It is an act full of screaming. The screaming might as well be black noise. The screaming is black noise.
(Note 2: Black noise is the opposite of white noise, referring to complete silence or mostly silence with random noise.)
(Note 3: Even noise has color.)
One's acceptance, however, does not necessarily equal one's complicity. One can accept an inferior status without forcing another to bow down to America's king as well.
In contrast, one who is complicit cannot simply bow down to America's king. One who is complicit must force an entire people to their knees alongside them. Or, alternatively, one who is complicit will project onto their mirror every horrible thing one has been taught to believe about themselves. This learned cruelty may begin as early as five or six years old after one has been introduced to another man's dream.
In the empire of quiet, it is not enough to participate in one's own degradation. One must participate in the degradation of an entire people, including one's self. One must do so quietly. One must not disrupt America's king as he dreams.
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BORN IN BABYLON
Non-FictionMy school of indifference opened and never closed; I remained its only student. BORN IN BABYLON is a collection of short essays, fragments, prose, creative nonfiction, and other miscellany regarding Blackness, womanhood, memory, identity, and Americ...
