The Nebuchadnezzar magazine

In 2022, I started writing a screenplay.

The screenplay, I entitled “Till.” 

The premise of this screenplay was in regards to the story of Emmett Louis Till – a 14 year-old Mississippi-born African-American native, who was wrongfully convicted of offending a white woman.

Upon researching the topic, and deciding on it being a biopic of Till’s mother, Mamie-Till Mobley, I saw the scope, but the time wasn’t right for it to reach the collective consciousness.

I hit a block. The George Floyd riots began. The reality of outward circumstances slackened my morale. Then the tumult, and the turmoil began. And so I took a pause on this project, in favor of another one. 

I believe that I will revisit this screenplay from my archives…

For those who do not know the subsequent parts of the story, Emmett Louis Till, The Missouri Youth, was wrongfully convicted of assaulting a white woman. To her beck and call, two white men took what they considered “communal justice,” into their own hands, and beat and slaughtered Emmet – lynching and mutilating his body.

They took him by his ankles, and dragged him alive from the back of their truck for several miles, until the flesh chafed from his bones. They abducted, mutilated, and lynched him – setting his body on fire. Then when his body was mutilated, to their sufficiency, they dropped him in a river.

For many African-Americans at this time, this was a catalyst for the Civil Rights movement which outlawed lynching in America, with the Anti-lynching Act. His story also started the Montgomery bus boycott. 

As I was writing, I imagined the story-boarding of this very story. I saw the pictures in a story board draft, in dreams, and pictures. 

I imagined Viola Davis playing his mother, as the introduction leading to ACT 1, after his funeral. Then, it would follow her story of legal process, throughout the law, interviewing her contemporaries, and finally resulting in a mother’s justice to protect her children. 

Ultimately, that is the main drive: a mother protecting her child. There are elements by which a person, may perceive an arbitration that is instinctual, and innate. And now, I see, this must be respected.

However, what I see in the American Judicial system is the state of affairs by which a person with more privilege can be used, and even matriculated against a another– regardless if their testament is true or not. 

The fact that a white woman can matriculate the law in her favor is already an accepted paradigm. However, the level of incarceration, and the penance due for a white person as opposed to a black individual are at severe odds with each other – even to this day. 

Meaning if a person has money, and/ or knows the law, they avoid the process of incarceration.

I do not let the story of Till deter me from action. A person who silences, permeates a culture of silence, and a policing of thought censorship. Enter 1984.

Sometimes you have to infiltrate enemy lines to take down the Bully.

For one, the American Law system favors those with money. A bond is set, which most Whites are able to attain with their agents of socialization: family, acquaintances, friends. With a broader network this system becomes institutionally, infrastructural and systemically prejudicial. 

The fact, that a white man who is incarcerated for a civil offense, is able to be detained, and released on a cash bail, by which the system he is a part of takes favor on him — whereas an African American man may spend years, or months while being incarcerated for having less money, is telling. 

In my previous article, I supposed the notion that America is a business. It is a grind, and you’ve got to use your head. (Being hard-headed might not be a plus: mediation between two realms of thought is best, I’ve found).

In discussing recidivism, namely the rate of retention by which an incarcerated individual re-enters the prison system, this state of affairs is cyclical if it is not individually broken for the person themselves.

There is a concept known as the Law of attrition. In said law, it defines, “the rate at which an object or a person will wear out over time.” This to me means that a person or an ideal is expected to wear out given the state of affairs, or the state by which the stimuli they are surrounded by affects them. This, then, is the manner by which I surmise “wear and tear.”

To enter the sociological discourse, this then means that a person must become the very thing they fear being, ergo Batman (for superhero fans), or a Bruce Banner, as opposed from the Hulk taming, and redirecting anger to one that is conducive for self, and the Other. 

What happens when a hero falters? When he is at the bottom of a well, or is hit with a blast of Gamma radiation? What happens when the quintessential Icarus falls?

From lore, and myth we understand this to mean that they heed a calling. They find another modus operandi; this new one more powerful and thoroughly refined than before. 

To climb out of the very recesses of the hell they were brought in. 

A Man has a choice. He can put his anger out on those around him lest the veil be recognized, or he can choose to put out in the System by which shackles him. Redirected anger, through creation is predominantly my mediation. 

I work out and exercise, and box and have done MMA to release my stress. My propensity for anger is bridled, but suppression is a lack of acknowledgement.

You (meaning the self-reflexive “me” of projection) means acknowledging anger, processing it, eliminating vices, and conducing that into more productive purposes.

I am working on this.

As an African, who is considered African-American in an intersectional society, a person who tells you to calm down can be as aggravating as an abrasion. A person who has said to meditate or be yogically inclined can be infuriating to deal with.

However, it is the way. You must NOT render a stroke for a stroke, an eye for an eye, a blow for a blow – OR even a stone for a stone.

My next article will be concerning how a Democracy can be rebuilt despite being intellectually capsized at the hands of a select few oligarchs.

It’s odd, but in a person’s mission to be unlike the very individuals they despise, a person can become that very person. 

To conclude, if we are to continue diplomacy, and America today in its most preternatural form: one has to become a Robin Hood (underground, transmute forms) and become aware of a slew of health conditions (including: mental health conditions)

It is allegedly understood that Trump, has attested difficulty with these conditions. He has upped taxes, he has denounced immigrants, he has posited a difficulty to the mentally ill, and physically disabled.

Nobody can tell a person otherwise who supports his notions.

It takes a bull to fight a bull. And it takes fire to fight fire.

I already saw that coming.

-Writing from the bunker. Do your best out there.

“When you know better, do better,” Dr. Maya Angelou.