Doing the Holocaust Hussle

This is not the original post I promised. It's not ready for prime time yet. See- You just can't count on you Kneegroes to be on time for anything. In my defense though, I am a fool. Anyway, I like this one better.

Let's take a trip in the Way Back machine. We'll be leaving Slavey Time and heading to Germany, circa 1939 or thereabouts. What do you think we'll find there? About now I imagine you're thinking: What's with this fool? And that phrase just about sums it up. I kinda zig zag back and forth in time because, well... we are our history. And because the Big Giant Heads are constantly telling us to forget the past and stop whining, because it doesn't matter what happened back then, because ,THEY WEREN'T there and it was before their time and as we all know by now, if the Big Giant Heads weren't there, it doesn't matter. They are absolved of the sins of the father. Well, that's the current line of bullshit that's making the rounds now.

I did some cogitative reasoning and it seems to stand that if we are the sum total of our experiences and our history and our experiences are constantly coming under attack on a daily basis and our history is something that can be churned down the cosmic garbage disposal with the flick of a switch, then we are nothing. Did I get that right?

So this time around, while zigging around the space time stream, I happened to zag into Germany. A little before World War 2 to be more specific. And guess what I discovered? Black people were doing the Holocaust Hussle along with those of the Jewish persuasion. Now some of you black people already know this and I am late coming to the party, but now that I'm here, we gonna boogie, boogie, boogie til you just can't boogie no more.

Here's a snippet. Professor start the music.

The fate of black people from 1933 to 1945 in Nazi Germany and in German-occupied territories ranged from isolation to persecution, sterilization, medical experimentation, incarceration, brutality, and murder. However, there was no systematic program for their elimination as there was for Jews and other groups. (sounds pretty much like Amerikka in the mid 20th century to me)

After World War I, the Allies stripped Germany of its African colonies. (Yeah, you read that right. Germany had colonies in Africa back then.) The German military stationed in Africa (Schutztruppen), as well as missionaries, colonial bureaucrats, and settlers, returned to Germany and took with them their racist attitudes. Separation of whites and blacks was mandated by the Reichstag (German parliament), which enacted a law against mixed marriages in the African colonies.(bears a striking resemblance to the south, don't you think?)

European and American blacks were also interned in the Nazi concentration camp system. Lionel Romney, a sailor in the U.S. Merchant Marine, was imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp. Jean Marcel Nicolas, a Haitian national, was incarcerated in the Buchenwald and Dora-Mittelbau concentration camps in Germany. Jean Voste, an African Belgian, was incarcerated in the Dachau concentration camp. Bayume Mohamed Hussein from Tanganyika (today Tanzania) died in the Sachsenhausen camp, near Berlin.

Forgive me for jumping around. You can read the article in it's entirety HERE. You can also read about the lovely lady who's picture is at the top of this posting HERE. Her name is Valaida Snow. She was a jazz musician who prospered in the male dominated world of jazz during the 1930's. She was also held in a German internment camp.

The song that we sing as black people is sometimes melodic, sometimes rousing, sometimes somber and just plain in-your-face, whale shit crazy full of deep bass and high crescendos that make you want to shit or go blind. It's the sweet soothing, crooning sounds of the black woman that holds us, comforts us and strokes our egos and calls us "baby" that binds the cloth of our souls to each other. That in the darkness of the night, when everything's right, make us realize that we matter and that as long as we have each other, we are not alone.

Here's a shout out to all you Black men out there who are trying to do the right thing by your woman, courtesy of Solomon Burk.

"If I fall short. If I don't make the grade.

If your expectations aren't met in me today.

There's always tomorrow night. Hang in there baby, I know I'll get it right.

Please don't give up on me. I know it's late in the game. But my true feelings haven't changed.

Herein my heart."

I just had to put that last paragraph in there. Solomon Burk wouldn't leave me alone. When you're a fool, strange shit like that just tends to happen.