Lieutenant Matthias is a Man of Colour

It’s the word can’t that makes you a soul singer. I think that one thing that makes a black man more heavier for soul coming from the States is because of the fact that he’ve had a extra hard knocks…and he lived with the word can’t for so long. So, ever time he can sing about it, it kinda comes out a little bit stronger.

James Brown

Is it hackneyed for a white man to describe his heroes as uniquely men of colour?

No matter.

Cold fact.

When I survey my personal pantheon of the great and the good; Gil Scott-Heron, Curtis Mayfield, Mohandas K G, Martin Luther King, there is nary a white man in sight.

I’m reluctant to generalise about a race, because, you know, that never ends well. Plus people are nuanced. But why then are my 20th century moral Titans uniformly non-white?

One view is to look at what they have in common. All these men were victims of injustice, mostly racial but also socio-economic. All of them were oppressed by white power structures whether they be social, legal or colonial. Whilst millions of oppressed people of colour have died (and still do) as a result of their oppression, in the case of my 4-Heroes above, their suffering squeezed visionary brilliance, courage, self-sacrifice and genius out of them.

Historically, white men have had the whip hand, so as well as deeply undermining their claim to inhabit any moral high ground, the relative ease in which they have lived has mostly failed to produce men who change the course of history in a lasting and meaningful way (sorry Steve Jobs).

Back now to Lieutenant Matthias, it was his dignity as well as the echoes of Randall Pearson that drew me to him. When a man is stripped of his rights, his freedom, of opportunity and justice, as black men have been and continue to be, for generations, what remains within the purview of his control? The way he carries himself. The dignity of his movement, infused by the knowledge that he stands on the right side of history. That, as Martin Luther King may have said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”

Am I in danger of romanticising the legacy of racist oppression and enslavement? You’ll have to let me know. And I want you to let me know because this is how I learn. And I talking to you, Ta-nehisi Coates.

But as a white man, I am touched and affected by dignity and the moral underpinning from which it draws its power. Is this to say that I’ve never met a dignified white man? Of course not. Just less often and with less impact.

Just look at the current President of the United States.

Then look at his predecessor.