I clicked on Facebook, sleep still filling the corners of my eyes as I squinted to read a “friend’s” Facebook post: “Marching for justice and marching to your keyboard to talk about people marching for justice are not the same … ”
As a writer, I take offense.
As a writer who recently chronicled Father Michael L. Pfleger and the Faith Community of St. Sabina’s anti-violence march on the Dan Ryan Expy., I take particular offense. As a journalist who for nearly 30 years has written faithfully and passionately about the plight, murder and disenfranchisement of black folks, I take those words personally. Even on behalf of those who march to their keyboards to partake in the modern-day grapevine to help spread the word and show their support for causes.
So let me clear my throat … Ahem …
Only the ignorant marginalize the matchless power of the pen. Only the foolish dismiss the scribe who records the history, hopes and dreams of a people.
Only a dullard does not understand that words and ideas are the purest seeds of revolutions and movements. That words and ideas in the form of stories and commentary have the potential to settle like a morning dew over the souls of men and bring forth life, empowerment, change.
That as writers we chronicle and contextualize, preserve and also capture the spirit, essence and authentic truth of social movements ± for now and for our posterity.
Are writers somehow less committed? Do we have nothing at stake when we speak uncompromised truth to power? Do journalistic writers not face peril in doing their jobs?
Only a fool believes that marching alone is enough to effect change, or does not recognize the symbiotic relationship between story-makers and storytellers. In the words of Mr. T: “I pity the fool.”
Seriously, Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells penned the soul song of the enslaved and the lynched. Baldwin and DuBois captured the souls of black folks. Many black — and white — journalists chronicled the Civil Rights movement and the continued fight for human rights. They marched alongside “marchers” — or else in front of and behind, with pen and camera in hand — so they could then march to their typewriters, computer keyboards and newsrooms to tell the story.
For what good is a march if there is no scribe to announce that it happened, to stain blank pages with detail and fact by the ink of permanence as the first draft of history?
Indeed the Holy Bible itself stands as God’s word written by inspired men. The scripture says: … My tongue is the pen of a ready writer (Psalm 45:1); “Write the vision … ” (Habakkuk 2:2); “In the beginning was the Word … ” (John 1:1).
So no, marching for justice and marching to your keyboard are not the same. As a writer, I have often found myself in the midst of protests, walking beside my brothers and sisters with the same heart but with the purpose of telling “our” story.
And as a writer, I understand that writing is not a negligible thing. That it is indeed as critical as marching. And for anyone who can’t see that, maybe it isn’t worth spending the ink to try and help them see otherwise. If not, then let them be ignorant still. But at least I tried.
I have little time for fools or naysayers these days, only time for covering more marches for justice and other stories before marching to my keyboard.
So I clicked on Facebook again … Then I clicked again.
Poof … Another “friend” gone. And enough time spent on this issue.
Time to march — and write — on.
Email: Author@Johnwfountain.com
