As Black as White

In Sussex County, Delaware, the dream visited him again. Demarcus Kenyon's ancestors sang songs of a freer realm on his mobile device, but they didn’t appear to sing them in such a place when he fell asleep. Deep black skin and starch white skin had reversed all history books in the United States. He witnessed whites, not just as indentured servants but actual slaves.

Kenyon observed this curious fact with all the wit that he could muster. It came to him as realization, as a recollection of a past that never was. The foundational black Americans (FBA) all relished the fact that they had become slave owners, slave drivers, slave catchers. He could not wait. When he awoke, he felt a sense that this couldn’t have been right either. America’s Original Sin, something to never be forgotten, was like a blood trail that stained the very essence of this country. He knew that for whatever color, to hold onto humans as property was an egregious offense.

When he returned to his slumber at three o’clock in the morning, he could see the house slaves who were darker. The field slaves had been lilly white due to the master punishing them for their bright skin which burned and blistered something terrible. Kenyon ended up watching darker skin slaves add medicine to the backs of the paler ones. For all the different aspects of slave life, Kenyon witnessed the cruel might of the stinging bull whip against the flesh of some slave for some minor mistake such as eating apples or chewing on corn. He saw the white skin stretch open and leave marks as red as the dawn of a summer sun.

Horrific in nature, Kenyon could do nothing to alter the fates of these people under the oppressive thumb of his forebears. He couldn’t shout or cheer or applaud. He felt disgusted. To see the black men and women go about their business while the whites toiled under an unyielding weight of enslavement incensed him. Kenyon wanted to demonstrate joy. He wanted to leap up for the reversal of fortunes for the people that were born, lived, and died in slavery in the US. He couldn’t, though. It was like a disease infiltrating his circulatory system; their viciousness remained just as potent, just as deadly.

He could do nothing. He smelled the stalls. A wasp stung him but it didn’t register as much as the truth. Horses whinnying only angered him more. He thought of all the technology that this agrarian nightmare would be swept away by the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Once it came time for the slaves to go to their hooches, he noticed their subtle joy, their merriment, their struggle to maintain some sense of humanity. He noticed the dolls, so small and simple made from flour sacks and silk and leather. He noted their dances and their singing. He also noticed the black master come around into the cabins and slam the door. The men had always exited knowing what would happen to them if they challenged the almighty Master. They did their business with wives, sisters, daughters, nieces even infants.

“And you’re not telling a soul about this,” Master said as he zipped up his pants.

Kenyon seethed. He wanted to strike out and lash out as much as he could at such cruelty and injustice. He watched as the men returned to their dwelling places. They found their women weeping and the loudest cries from the little babies. Upon waking up from this nightmare, he sought to clear his mind of all of the nastiness that had taken place during his slumber. In time, he would watch movies, read books, and draft a poem or two about the wickedness of slavery. No matter the color, the slaves in America had to be freed because it was the only rational thing to do.

As he drifted off to sleep again, Kenyon looked about his surroundings. That sense of dread permeated his entire being. He wanted to talk with the Master. He rolled up and tapped his shoulder. The Master smiled and said, “Can I help you, sir?”

“Yes, I was wondering how everything flipped.”

“Flipped? In what way?”

“I was told all my life that blacks from Africa served as slaves in the islands and in the Americas. Especially here, in the United States. How did blacks become the oppressor?”

“I truly don’t know what you’re talking about. We blacks, like you, built ships and collected Europeans and trekked to this continent. There’s going to be slavery for a thousand years. I can promise you that,” Master chuckled.

Kenyon wanted to thrash him with his own bullwhip.

“Enjoy your day and keep the Sabbath holy,” Master said. His grin looked like it dripped with blood, too. Sunday. The white slaves all huddled around another white speaker. Tuckson was the only one of the thirty or so who could perform such a feat.

“In Exodus, Pharaoh's army drowned in the Red Sea!”

“Hallelujah!” One woman shouted. She had one gray eye and one green eye and looked stout in almost every dimension. The leader of the faithful ceased his sermon and focused on giving signals to escape from out of the Bible. In what seemed like a call to worship, Tuckson gave instructions on how to head North. Kenyon’s ears piqued. As an atheist, he felt compelled to see the Bible secularized in this fashion.

“Now, Jesus is like that moss that grows on the North side of the tree. He’ll lead you and guide you. Don’t let snakes and other things underfoot bother you. He will crush their heads. Any clothes or food, He will provide.” Kenyon witnessed the entire thing in his head but it felt like real time. Tuckson continued this kind of talk until the setting sun. That’s when the slaves banded together. A look out had been dispatched, and two others waited until everyone in Master’s home fell silent. The soft braying of the horses in the stall could be heard amongst the crickets and the whip-poor-wills. Other than that, all had hushed.

Tuckson led out some of the inhabitants of the hooches into the treeline and carried them through. Kenyon didn’t interact but he saw that the Master had come out of the room to go to the outhouse. He had not noticed anyone trickling out of the hooches upon going to relieve himself. What he noticed, however, upon returning to the house, a doll had fallen to the ground. Master squinted his eyes and wiped the sweat off his black skin. He picked up the toy.

“I’d say we’ve got some runaways afoot,” his face grimaced. Mistress came to the front door. “It’s late, honey,” she said. “Come on back to bed.”

“Not now, darling. We’ve got some escapees on our hands.”

Kenyon then intruded upon the scene.

“All I’m saying is that you don’t have to strike down with your angry whip upon the backs of these people.”

“And what are you prepared to do?”

“I plan on waking up out of this dream and fighting for individual rights.”

“Is that so? How will that affect the catching of my slaves?”

“You can send out hounds and farmhands but they’re probably close to Dover by now, just in the time of our little chat,” Kenyon pointed out immediately. He smiled.

“If you’re not the–” Master started. It was too late. Kenyon woke up from the night terror. He found a search engine and then typed in all of the current day forms of slavery which affected black, white, red, yellow, and brown. By encouraging himself to be vigilant he looked up traffickers, captors, and predators. It didn’t matter the skin color, he knew he had to find justice.