Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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6 UCW AUGUST 2 - 8, 2023 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM PITT DICKEY, Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweek- ly.com. 910-484-6200. Right now, you are probably asking yourself what do Ron DeSantis and Jimi Hendrix have in common? Allow me to explain. Ponder the current debate on whether slav- ery was beneficial for Black people in America. Some may have thought that issue was resolved long ago in favor of no benefit of slavery for slaves. Don't be silly or Woke as the case may be. Ron, who is still mysteriously running for the Republican nomination for president, would beg to differ. "Au contraire" Ron might say, if speaking French did not make him sound like an effete Wokeist. Ron is a lot of bizarre things, but Woke ain't one of them. Ron is the reverse Rip Van Winkle of American politics. He goes to sleep and time goes backwards 200 years. He can sleep through anything that might cause his sliver of the elec- torate to wake up and smell the injustice. e state of Florida produced a new school curriculum for teaching African American history to middle schoolers with the curious contention that : "Slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit." Ron supported this concept saying: "ey're probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life." Or they may teach slavery was a bed of roses for the enslaved. Any skills developed by slaves were applied for the personal benefits of their owners. at is the concept of slavery. I own you. You work for me. Do what I say or you may not be alive much longer. Few people would choose to be taken from their homes, shipped across an ocean under grim conditions, have their families sold off, be whipped, killed, maimed, or raped in order to enjoy the benefits of slavery. Said benefits must have seemed pretty obscure to enslaved people. Ron just wants to educate folks that not all aspects of slavery were bad. Like Sisyphus pushing that big rock up the hill, Ron's efforts to put lipstick on the pig of slavery may be a pretty tough slog. Ron may not be ready for prime time. Many Republicans have come out against slavery. Being anti-slavery is not an extreme position. Ron's theory about the inherent positives of slavery presupposes Black people are ungrate- ful for the benefits of slavery. Ron believes this, as apparently many of his supporters do or they would not be supporting him for President. It reminds me of an old Frosty Morn Ham commercial in which a trio of pigs sing about how much they want to be turned into Frost Morn hams. ese pigs have obviously been pork brain washed. ey sing rapturously about the joy of being killed and eaten as hams. ey are grateful for the benefits of Pigacide. e pigs sing: "e height of a piggy's ambi- tion from the day he is born/ Is hope that he'll be good enough to be a Frosty Morn/ For meat that's wonderfully different they tenderize each ham." e pigs who are grateful for being killed and eaten are a credit to their species. White people who are sympathetic with Black people who are not grateful for being enslaved are dismissed as Woke. Ron's campaign slogan is "Make America Florida." As a thought experiment, suppose Ron is elected Grand Exalted President of America. He gets to impose Florida's curriculum on the rest of the country. Using the Slavery Is Benefi- cial Model for other courses, Ron's Alternative Facts would change things around a bit. In Geometry students would be taught that up is down, left is right. Ron's math would teach the controversy: Not the stale old theory that 2+2= 4 but it might be 2 + 2 = 6. In physics, Einstein's theory would be changed to E equals MC Hammer. Jimi Hendrix in his song "If 6 Was 9", cap- tured Ron's belief that if it doesn't affect him, he doesn't care. Ron's ancestors did not go through the horrors of slavery, so it doesn't bother Ron. Just look on the bright side of slav- ery. As Jimi sang: "If the mountains fell in the sea/ Let it be, it ain't me (alright)/ Got my own world to look through/ and I ain't gonna copy you/ Now if a six, turned out to be nine/ Oh, I don't mind, oh I don't mind/ If all the hippies cut off all their hair, oh, I don't care/ oh, I don't care." Ron has his own cheery world view. You bet- ter belly up to the bar and drink Ron's Kool-Aid if he gets elected President. Ron's history book might teach that the Hin- denburg blimp disaster was really a good thing as it taught bystanders that blimp technology could stand more study. e recent implosion of the Titan Submers- ible could be spun that the billionaires who died benefited by learning that swimming at 13,000 feet below the ocean's surface was a bad idea. Gentle Reader, when I ponder Ron's position that slavery was beneficial for the slaves, I throw up a little bit in my mouth. Lipsticking the pig by PITT DICKEY OPINION In an old commercial, brain washed pigs sing about becoming dinner hams. e same ridiculous concept can be applied to recent comments about slavery. (Hand-drawn illustration by Pitt Dickey)