Tag Archives: cotton

Cotton

Cotton: (n) a plant with soft, white, downy hairs

It’s not cotton’s fault.

Cotton is not to blame.

But honestly, I can’t hear the word “cotton” without thinking about slavery.

I know—I’m weird.

It doesn’t keep me from wearing a cotton t-shirt or cotton socks. But cotton was a crop that was so difficult to pick, and grew in such a hot climate, that a funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
bunch of white people who couldn’t withstand the process, decided to abandon their entire moral code and respect for humanity and bring in black folks from Africa, convincing themselves that these souls were little more than apes—so that the damn stuff could be gathered and turned into a profit.

The world wanted cotton and the South didn’t want to pick it. So rather than finding a better way to do it or creating a living wage for those unemployed white Southerners who might be willing to consider pursuing the occupation, it seemed logical in the minds of those from that era to enslave a race of people to promote a crop.

Black people picking cotton.

The activity was the origin the racist statement, “You must be out of your cotton-pickin’ mind.”

That would have been considered a double insult: first, that you were relegated to picking cotton, and second, that you were as hapless as they insisted Africans were.

Even in the South today, when driving along, seeing these strange fields full of the white blooms, it crosses my mind: who’s picking this stuff now?

And then, to my horror, I drive a little piece up the road and see black brothers and sisters wearing loose-fitting clothes and head scarves, still plucking the crop from the field. Even though they now receive a wage for doing so, the sight is almost too frightening to perceive.

Like it or not, certain things become tainted.

I’ll never be able to see an old movie that shows the Twin Towers of New York in the background without tearing up.

I’ll never be able to view a Confederate flag without remembering the arrogance and ignorance that punished a race of people and imprisoned them into forced labor.

And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at a cotton field without being reminded of the atrocity that was brought about in our country by white people picking a white crop to undergird their white privilege while subjugating black hands to do so.


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Abreast

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abreast: (adv.): 1. side by side and facing the same way: the path was wide enough for two people to walk abreast 2. alongside or even with something: the car came abreast of the idling motorcycle.

I am taking a moment here to get all of my fourth-grade male giggles out of my system so I can talk rationally about the word “abreast.” I don’t need to bore you or cause you to lose respect for me by sharing some of the jokes that came to my mind when I first encountered today’s word. Let us just say that there is a small child who lives within me, and even though I try to starve him, he scrounges for scraps and survives.

But the word “abreast” struck me today–from a more mature place in my soul–as the description of the equality we desire in our human family and relationships.

But the teeter-totter approach to gaining equality, where for a brief season we extol one group of people as better than others, to try to even the playground, only to rush over and put more weight on the other side in an attempt to keep the game going,  seems not only to be ridiculous, but counter-intuitive with being abreast–side by side.

I don’t know–maybe black people who had been snatched from Africa might have found the experience tolerable if every day their white counterparts were sweating in the field right next to them, picking cotton, instead of sitting in the big house sipping mint juleps.

Is it possible that men and women would discover more similarities in their character if they actually did more things together?

It is going to be difficult to achieve equality in our world until we come to the conclusion that we were meant to be abreast–right next to each other, involved in the same projects without discrimination.

The same spirit that is deemed repugnant when a man says, “The little woman needs to be in the kitchen rattling the pots and pans…” is equally as nasty when the overwrought female on the situation comedy informs her husband, “You’d be a helluva lot happier if you’d just do what I told you.”

One is viewed as misogyny and the other as comedy. Why can’t they both just be stupid?

I am not interested in anyone being inferior to me, nor will I tolerate their superiority.

Come abreast–if you can stop your fourth-grade brain from giggling.