PEANUT BUTTER AND THE HANDSOME GHOSTS: BLACK HISTORY REVISITED
George Washington Carver was the only other Black man I remember learning about in Primary School, other than MLK Lite™ of course.
Not Malcolm X, too militant. Not Nat Turner, too violent. Not Emmett Till, too tragic. Not Booker T., too careful. Not Du Bois, too cogent. Not Baldwin, too honest.
But Dr. George was just right. Quiet, assiduous, safe. His magic spread went on smooth over otherwise dry slices. Why smother the childlike simplicity of a PB sandwich with blood-hued jam? Strange Fruit can wait until Secondary, the educators’ seemed to say.
But peanut butter’s scent sticks in the cuticle grout. After one develops a penchant, true history is always served with blood-hued jam and set to a syncopated tune. Afterward, one can’t help but see red mingled with that familiar smell of Dr. G’s famous spread.
One can’t help but reframe his solitary, sublime genius, along with Martin Luther King Jr’s defiant faith, Malcolm X’s fury, Turner’s uprising, Du Bois’s elegance, the unflinching veracity of Baldwin’s music, and even Booker T’s deference. One can’t help but reframe all Black history as wonderous efforts to survive over which preside the handsome ghosts of murdered sons like Emmett, Medgar, Trayvon, and Ahmaud.
My son doesn’t care much yet for peanut butter, jam, facts, or names, but loves colors of all kinds. But when teaching him the tunes and tastes of history, I aim to teach him first awe and love second to immolate hate and fear of the other and of ourselves.
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