Friday, May 13, 2016

Robert Smalls, A Walking Action Movie Who Makes Indiana Jones Look like a Campfire Girl

Telling you what Robert Smalls did may result in incredulity because how can this guy possibly be so immensely amazing (WIKI:  Robert Smalls)

Let's go with bullet points but the story is so amazingly amazing you probably won't believe it anyway unless you read the WIKI.

  • Robert Smalls is a slave
  • He escapes by stealing a Confederate ship
  • He cracks the Confederate code to get past Confederate shore armaments
  • He wants to free more slaves so he does
  • He gets away with it
  • Smalls lives on as a free man
  • He winds up as a Member of Congress

See, you didn't believe it, right?  So read the article and find out it's true!


Salute to the sky!

There were some thoughts about him this morning and those went elsewhere so here they're cloned back to the source.

This man was a walking un-made action movie of the finest kind with every kind of human goodness you could possibly want to see.  He's the kind of guy in whom maybe you even wonder, man, I didn't even know it was possible for people to be this good ... and the outcome.  Straight out of a movie.

This is an area in which my own racism comes into it as I do have the thinking it's not appropriate for a white guy to shoot the movie, direct it, etc ... but that's obviously racist so I'm stuck.  None of us knew him so we all operate from history books but my thinking is how can I possibly have the same simpatico with him when my whiteness has no idea of the actual experience except second-hand.

Yes, I see it's racist thinking in me just like thinking a black musician may have some edge in reaching things musically.  Maybe it's even true, who knows, but what should I do with it.  Answer: not much just shut up and play.  Don't suck.

Don't think for a millisecond I avoided black musicians on that account or any as the first major jam for me was with some black guys down off Vine Street and everyone said they're going to steal your shit.  Listening to everyone is hardly ever a good idea (larfs).  I went and found major coolness.  Gasp, no-one wanted to steal my shit.



There's further racism in me as wondering whether white racists see me as some kind of 'black symp' but what does that even mean and what difference would it make to anyone if I were.  I'm hungry for knowledge and have been all my life.  I see this guy and think, man, who needs Indiana Jones so then the further thinking comes ... dayum, someone needs to make his life story into a movie so is it appropriate for a white guy to do it.  Frankly, I don't have a good answer.

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