The Stigma of Roaches; Poverty; Racism & Living with All Three

I had a very funny conversation last night with an extremely good friend about a number of things.  Since this friend grew up in the state of Florida, U.S., and is thinking about possibly returning there, our discussion moved to talking about Palmetto bugs, or roaches.  Her experiences and mine are different.  In Florida these Palmetto bugs as they call them (to me that's just a title to permit you to avoid saying you have roaches) are huge and often fly.  For me, growing up in inner-city California, my experience with roaches stems from the so-called German roaches.  Much smaller than the Palmetto variety, but much more numerous.  I joked with my friend that there were so many roaches where I grew up that I recall at one point, we essentially lost the ground game against them, meaning there was no movement to confront them after a certain point because there were just too many of them.  You leave a damp towel somewhere for one hour.  When you come back there are 30 roaches scattering underneath it when you lift it up.  I told my friend that although we lost that battle against the ground troop roaches, I was still not prepared for the roach air-force in the presence of these Palmetto bugs, once I started visiting the Southern U.S.  

As I reflected on our conversation today, I thought back to statements I made to my friend admitting my childhood trauma at having roaches.  When I was growing up, living with roaches was just something you didn't discuss publicly.  This was the case because roaches were automatically connected to poverty and dirty living conditions.  Although we were without question poor and the unit I grew up in had its share of clutter, it was definitely not an unclean environment.  Yet, I recall clearly that roaches, inner-city poverty, and racism were as interconnected as weed stench at a George Clinton P-Funk concert.  And, the racism manifested itself clearly as well.  I recall European students ribbing me for living in a unit they just knew (how I never understood since they certainly would never have physically inhabited the space I grew up in) I had roaches where I lived.  I remember some of them using the n word against me and laughing up at my roach infested existence.  I also remember infuriating them by responding that if roaches were ghetto and connected to African people, how the hell were they German roaches then?  I mean, wouldn't they have be Nigerian or Ethiopian roaches?  Angolan roaches?  Rwandan roaches?  Clearly, if they are German, they come from Europe and I told those people that meant they brought the roaches with them.

I couldn't explain how they ended up with me or how they knew that to be the case.  I've also just come to the point of being able to psychologically grasp how traumatic and intertwined roaches are to my entire life.  I was so distressed about them as a child that I peed in the bed rather than get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night where, without question, they would be gangster organized, ready to pounce on me and kill me.  My parents were furious at me, at 12 years old, peeing in the bed.  And the worst part about it to me was I could never tell them the truth about why.  I truly believed roaches (and rats/mice) would kill me or at least do me serious harm.  So much so that I preferred to stay in my own urine other than take that risk.  Typical dysfunction during my childhood.

In later years, during periods of time when I used therapy to help me balance myself in this life, I revealed during a session that I'd been having dreams of roaches and rats/mice since my childhood.  Regular dreams.  The therapist helped me figure out that the rodents and insects in my dreams represented my fear of not having control of my life.  Being powerless.  That made perfect sense to me because during my youth, if I felt anything, it was that I had no control over anything at all.  To me the police had control.  The teachers had control.  The telephone company had control.  And, to the lessor extent, my parents and grandmother, but I didn't see myself as having any agency in my life and I continued to feel that way, strongly, until well into my adult years.

Today I recognize where that trauma originated from.  The lack of control was really about the constant uncertainty of whether the electricity could be kept on.  Whether I would be able to play sports at school if any money at all was required.  Whether I would be enough as a human being for anyone to take even a cursory interest in me.  All of this derives from the mechanisms of white supremacy that work overtime to destabilize our confidence in ourselves while enacting things to prevent those of us who find ways to overcome the dysfunction to try and address the issues we face.  White supremacy of course is simply an appendage of capitalism e.g. capitalism is the brain and white supremacy is the arm and fingers.  The appendages don't work without the brain and white supremacy doesn't work without capitalism.

None of the above is to say with socialist revolution we immediately eliminate the ability of roaches to exist.  What it does say is that the conditions under which roaches exist, where they exist, how they exist, and what impact they have on the people living among them, is a clear statement about the class and white supremacy oppression that millions of people suffer under.  Socialism eliminates the systemic obstacles that hold back colonized and poor people.  You know, those same types of obstacles ala having your resume dismissed because of your name.  Or, receiving a longer prison sentence than your European partner for committing the same indiscretion.  Or, being denied opportunities in ways the overwhelming majority of Europeans who professionally deny white supremacy would absolutely flip out on if they just suspect a single instance of the type of  discrimination against them that we experience as standard rule.  Those types of obstacles would be consciously battled against by socialism by creating society that invests in people first and foremost.  Not giving anyone any handouts.  Nobody wants handouts.  For those of us who actually talk to people living on the streets, not pass judgment on them as we drive past them on off ramps, we know even people with nothing have dignity and want opportunities, not handouts.  A society that produces these opportunities eliminates the stigmas that live and breathe in capitalism.  Maybe once we do that we also eliminate the traumas that come from that oppression.  To me, that's what my lifelong connection to roaches illustrates.  Much like the rat in the beginning of the novel Native Son, the roaches are in a war for their survival, like we are.  Killing them symbolizes the system killing us.  And, their resilience symbolizes our determination to be free.  For me that all makes perfect sense.  Still, I can't lie.  Although I interact much differently with roaches now than I did as a child e.g. I don't freak out at them and I try to move them out peacefully if I can, even the the largest ones I've ever seen in my life like the one in the bathroom in a hotel in Texas, or the ones who almost daily found themselves in the bathroom in the house we stayed in Ghana, I still have trauma when I see them.  The difference is now I understand it much better.  They represent for me the fears I had about being able to live.  Today, I have no fear of living.  I actively claim my right to live.  I actively claim the right of all creatures to live and I am prepared to defend that right to my fullest capacity.  

As we move forward, we change the narrative.  As we seek justice we learn to dismantle the stigmas and in doing so we can see roaches and all creatures, as beings struggling like we are to exist.  Now that I understand this, I don't dream about them any longer.  When I encounter them, I try and treat them with the respect they deserve.  My brief time interacting with MOVE's Ramona Africa helped me rise to that as she educated me about their position that all living things deserve respect.  Roaches aren't my enemy.  They never have been.  We have just been historically forced together by social circumstances of the most backward and oppressive society known to our existence.