Moon Dust and Black Disgust
by Booker Griffin
1. America’s landing on the moon is one of the miracles of the ages. Few instances in the chronicles of man, at their time, were as significant. It is a truly remarkable feat and for that success I congratulate this country.
2. Taken at face value, it would seem that all Americans would rejoice at such a monumental occurrence. I do not.
3. The high priority that this country has put on landing on the moon and exploring outer space in the face of deplorable human suffering in this nation and throughout the world again asserts the fact that mechanical values supersede human values in this country.
Not Elated
4. Since I was a small boy and read the Buck Rogers comic strips, I have always hoped to be alive when man landed on the moon and explored outer space. Now that this has happened and will continue to happen, I am not elated, but alienated. As I watched the historic event on TV and thought of how proud Americans must be, inclusive of people like Mississippians, Sam Yorty and others, I experienced the urge to vomit.
5. As I peered into the TV screen, I asked myself, can’t these people see just how unhuman, how unjust, how criminal it is to spend $24 billion dollars for space exploration and to dribble out sparse thousands to improve the human predicament “down here on the ground.”
6. Life to every single human being on this earth was granted without consent. The actions of our mothers and our fathers gifted us with life by proxy. We did not choose to gain life and say I want to live. Uncontrollable consequences gave us life and at some point in our consciousness we realized the value of life and wished to sustain it.
7. Once the umbilical cord was cut and the breath of life flowed into us, the forces of creating granted us the ability to feel and want and need and desire and suffer and wish and all the other things that being human means. As long as we have life these factors encompass us. When we die or if we were never born these sensate sensibilities are not realized.
Responsibility Place
8. All societies that sanction birth, and they all do, and grant the right to bear children, must by necessity also assume the responsibility of using the fruits of the labors of that society to enhance the human sensibilities of the persons it permits to be born without consent of the persons born. To fail to do this is a civic crime.
9. America’s insensitivity to human life is a human disgrace. Beyond humanism, when we consider the black condition in our own country, the space program soundly tells black people that we are still considered less than human by this country.
10. Here is a country that cannot pass a rat control bill to protect black babies from rats, but can spend billions to explore rocks, craters and dust thousands of miles away.
Thing of Value?
11. These strange, faraway places with no ability to feel, see or touch are more valuable in America than black humans who can feel the anguish of denial, degradation and oppression.
12. America’s space appropriations make part demands for 40 acres and a mule and almost any form of reparation that blacks demand currently reasonable, feasible and fair. Space has received special treatment, why shouldn’t blacks?
13. We are as underexplored by this country as space was before we spent $24 billion. If the space agency has been nickled and dimed by this country like black people have been, we wouldn’t be able to rocket to the top of the Empire State Bldg., let alone the moon.
14. America has proven that she will pay for what she honors and believes in. Look at space; look at Vietnam; look at the South and then face the facts: we ain’t in the “in crowd” yet.
15. America does not honor and believe in the dignity and rights of black people. While some brothers and sisters will rejoice with scoops of dead moon dust, I feel live human disgust.
Note: The phrase “40 acres and a mule” refers to the land that was promised to freed slaves after the Civil War that was never given.
Glossary
alienated: caused to become unfriendly; separated
anguish: terrible suffering
appropriations: money given for a specific use
consent: permission; approval
degradation: humiliation
deplorable: very bad; shameful
disgrace: shame; pity
dribble: drip; trickle
elated: extremely happy or proud
encompass: include all of
feasible: possible; practical
feat: accomplishment
monumental: having great significance
reparation: compensation; something given to make up for a wrongdoing
sanction: to approve of; to support
sparse: small amounts; meager
supersede: to come before or replace
sustain: support; care for
How do paragraphs 11, 12 and 13 develop a central claim of the article?
Which quotation best expresses a central idea in the article?
