Crude, Cotton and Killin' Elise Posts from Mississippi Review Fall 04
Crude, Cotton, and Killin’:
The Black and White World of George W. Bush
Elise Collins, Ph.D.
(published in Mississippi Review On Line Fall 04)
George W. Bush has planted our world into a deep hole of black and white – evil versus good, sinner versus saved, them versus us. In his abhorrence of all things gray or nuanced, George has created a narrow-framed world that is both small and dangerous. To catch a glimpse into the roots of his mind view, we must travel back in time to 1952, Midland, Texas, for there we all found ourselves –
George W. with his family and me with mine.
Midland was a flat, dusty landscape with nothing on the surface to recommend it, but harboring a dark underground as promising as any in the world. There, in the barren cotton bowl of West Texas, men flocked to pierce the soil and harvest the black gold that lay beneath. And my Daddy arrived to save their souls and bring them to the Lord. He set out to build a new White congregation in this stronghold of conservative America, rigidly segregated by both race and gender.
And I, a 3 year old female, first encountered the enduring contradiction between the lightness of Texas hospitality and the dark undercurrent of violence that lingered just below the surface – a dangerous brew that simmered between the roots of the above-ground white cotton crops and the black rivers that snaked beneath.
Each morning, as I crunched on Cheerios that floated in a speckled blue bowl, I listened to my preacher Daddy’s rich, low voice reading a daily devotional passage from “The Upper Room.” I trusted my world, feeling assured that “Jesus loves me / This I know / For the Bible tells me so.” George W. no doubt learned the same songs, as his family regularly attended the Episcopal church of Midland’s more affluent class. But while different dollar amounts might have gathered in the collection plates of our two congregations, the rhymes were the same all over Midland, a town not prone to questioning. Ideas and messages of those days were black and white, rarely being allowed to mingle into grey. In fact, the closest most folks ever got to “Black” was the black bottom pie at the local Luby’s where the faithful would convene after church on Sundays to indulge in fried chicken and biscuits. White endured as the color of choice, from the brightness of the sermons of love that lulled us each week to the whiteness of the skin of the men who ran the town with unchallenged power.
In our Midland upbringing, violence was carefully braided with gregarious congeniality and rigorous religiosity, creating an ongoing conundrum. Strict politeness lay as topsoil over the undercurrent of vicious attitudes towards any who were different – in race, lifestyle or belief. And for males, violence was a cultural norm, where “boys play” included bloody Saturday night cock fights and malicious wrestling matches in which “no holds were barred,” meaning, literally, that kicking, gouging and chewing of body parts were allowed, as long as weapons were not used.
Springtime featured enormous rattlesnake hunts with scores of rifle-toting men and boys walking shoulder to shoulder through fields, “picking off the varmints.” The images of tall and short male bodies in dirty blue jeans and well worn cowboy boots pacing through tall grassy cattle ranges with aimed weapons, intermittently firing at small creatures slithering below their feet, captured the disproportionate power inherent in this male-only ritual.
Birds fared little better than snakes in those Texas flatlands. The same folks who faithfully arrived at church on Sunday morning with Bible in hand might be seen shooting birds for sport in the afternoon, and, history tells us, lynching people at night. I never heard the hunters questioned about the paradox between their Sunday morning activities and those that occupied the balance of their weekend. After all, the Bible demanded strength and unfailing courage in its followers. No sissies in the South.
Even killing of human beings did not equate with sin, as long as it was merited. Texan Ross Perot called for the return of “God to our schools” and, in the next sentence pined to return to the more peaceful time when “John Wayne was a good guy shooting bad guys.” The only requirement being that the violence be in the service of honor and “good” – an expressly Christian value.
For as central as Christianity was to the honor of the male members of a Texas clan, so equally was their attachment to their guns. Gun cabinets were a fixed item of furniture in Texas homes, for guns were a necessity of life, along with cowboy gear, rodeos, and pickup trucks with gun racks strapped to the rear window.
Texas boys learned early to swagger, swear and shoot, and the common initiatory gift for a boy of twelve was a rifle of his own. One standard rhyme taught to adolescent boys remains today, “This is my weapon, this (pointing to the penis) is my gun. / This is for fighting, this is for fun.” Aggression using both pistol and penis was sanctioned as boys’ play in a world where bravado wrestled with bravery and most often won out.
George W. Bush, loyal and devoted Texas son, learned his lessons well. The swagger perfected, the ranch secured, connections with the White male power brokers solidified, the black gold of the Texas underground catapulted him and his cronies into the ultimate White House. George W.’s version of hunting has escalated to hunting people who look neither White nor Black, but decidedly Un-American. George W.’s God justifies his actions as Christian and moral, and he remains undeterred by evidence to the contrary.
Texas confident he remains. His retort to threats of retaliation for our recent Middle East invasions -- a typical Texas response, “BRING ‘EM ON!”
EC
The Black and White World of George W. Bush
Elise Collins, Ph.D.
(published in Mississippi Review On Line Fall 04)
George W. Bush has planted our world into a deep hole of black and white – evil versus good, sinner versus saved, them versus us. In his abhorrence of all things gray or nuanced, George has created a narrow-framed world that is both small and dangerous. To catch a glimpse into the roots of his mind view, we must travel back in time to 1952, Midland, Texas, for there we all found ourselves –
George W. with his family and me with mine.
Midland was a flat, dusty landscape with nothing on the surface to recommend it, but harboring a dark underground as promising as any in the world. There, in the barren cotton bowl of West Texas, men flocked to pierce the soil and harvest the black gold that lay beneath. And my Daddy arrived to save their souls and bring them to the Lord. He set out to build a new White congregation in this stronghold of conservative America, rigidly segregated by both race and gender.
And I, a 3 year old female, first encountered the enduring contradiction between the lightness of Texas hospitality and the dark undercurrent of violence that lingered just below the surface – a dangerous brew that simmered between the roots of the above-ground white cotton crops and the black rivers that snaked beneath.
Each morning, as I crunched on Cheerios that floated in a speckled blue bowl, I listened to my preacher Daddy’s rich, low voice reading a daily devotional passage from “The Upper Room.” I trusted my world, feeling assured that “Jesus loves me / This I know / For the Bible tells me so.” George W. no doubt learned the same songs, as his family regularly attended the Episcopal church of Midland’s more affluent class. But while different dollar amounts might have gathered in the collection plates of our two congregations, the rhymes were the same all over Midland, a town not prone to questioning. Ideas and messages of those days were black and white, rarely being allowed to mingle into grey. In fact, the closest most folks ever got to “Black” was the black bottom pie at the local Luby’s where the faithful would convene after church on Sundays to indulge in fried chicken and biscuits. White endured as the color of choice, from the brightness of the sermons of love that lulled us each week to the whiteness of the skin of the men who ran the town with unchallenged power.
In our Midland upbringing, violence was carefully braided with gregarious congeniality and rigorous religiosity, creating an ongoing conundrum. Strict politeness lay as topsoil over the undercurrent of vicious attitudes towards any who were different – in race, lifestyle or belief. And for males, violence was a cultural norm, where “boys play” included bloody Saturday night cock fights and malicious wrestling matches in which “no holds were barred,” meaning, literally, that kicking, gouging and chewing of body parts were allowed, as long as weapons were not used.
Springtime featured enormous rattlesnake hunts with scores of rifle-toting men and boys walking shoulder to shoulder through fields, “picking off the varmints.” The images of tall and short male bodies in dirty blue jeans and well worn cowboy boots pacing through tall grassy cattle ranges with aimed weapons, intermittently firing at small creatures slithering below their feet, captured the disproportionate power inherent in this male-only ritual.
Birds fared little better than snakes in those Texas flatlands. The same folks who faithfully arrived at church on Sunday morning with Bible in hand might be seen shooting birds for sport in the afternoon, and, history tells us, lynching people at night. I never heard the hunters questioned about the paradox between their Sunday morning activities and those that occupied the balance of their weekend. After all, the Bible demanded strength and unfailing courage in its followers. No sissies in the South.
Even killing of human beings did not equate with sin, as long as it was merited. Texan Ross Perot called for the return of “God to our schools” and, in the next sentence pined to return to the more peaceful time when “John Wayne was a good guy shooting bad guys.” The only requirement being that the violence be in the service of honor and “good” – an expressly Christian value.
For as central as Christianity was to the honor of the male members of a Texas clan, so equally was their attachment to their guns. Gun cabinets were a fixed item of furniture in Texas homes, for guns were a necessity of life, along with cowboy gear, rodeos, and pickup trucks with gun racks strapped to the rear window.
Texas boys learned early to swagger, swear and shoot, and the common initiatory gift for a boy of twelve was a rifle of his own. One standard rhyme taught to adolescent boys remains today, “This is my weapon, this (pointing to the penis) is my gun. / This is for fighting, this is for fun.” Aggression using both pistol and penis was sanctioned as boys’ play in a world where bravado wrestled with bravery and most often won out.
George W. Bush, loyal and devoted Texas son, learned his lessons well. The swagger perfected, the ranch secured, connections with the White male power brokers solidified, the black gold of the Texas underground catapulted him and his cronies into the ultimate White House. George W.’s version of hunting has escalated to hunting people who look neither White nor Black, but decidedly Un-American. George W.’s God justifies his actions as Christian and moral, and he remains undeterred by evidence to the contrary.
Texas confident he remains. His retort to threats of retaliation for our recent Middle East invasions -- a typical Texas response, “BRING ‘EM ON!”
EC
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