Xavier Jackson

“Elvis was a hero to most … but he never meant shit to me you see. Straight up racist … that sucker was simple and plain.”

That lyric from the Public Enemy classic, “Fight the Power” shaped my opinion of an American icon. Elvis Presley has been a punchline my entire life. The song’s assessment of Elvis fit the image I already held of white southerners. It fit the stories my mother told about growing up in the Mississippi Delta in the 1950s. I mocked his songs, his movies and all those who persisted in idolizing this simple, plain, racist.

Americans suffer from a delusional perception of one another that fuels division.

It is easy to wrap people up in a package and ship them to an emotional place within ourselves from which they can never escape. We all do it. The people in A.A. call it “contempt prior to investigation.” It never occurred to me to question what I had been told thousands of times by that legendary poet of the streets, Chuck D.

The 2022 Baz Luhrmann film starring Tom Hanks and the underrated two-part HBO documentary, “Elvis Presley: The Searcher” shook up what I thought I knew about the life of The King. I learned Elvis was a gentle soul who grew up among Black people and truly loved their music and style. His music injected Black culture into a society desperately in need of it.

Many of my people do not know that.

Pop music featured lots of ballads by guys like Pat Boone, Andy Williams and Perry Como back then. These can best be described as auditory Ativan, producing a feeling similar to being hypnotized, anesthetized or perhaps lobotomized. Americana needed a White ambassador for the rhythm and blues Black people had been perfecting in the juke joints of the South.

Chuck’s jab is even more unfair when in truth Elvis was the catalyst that exponentially increased the influence of Black culture on the world of pop music internationally and in perpetuity. He put Black style and rhythm on display. The emotion in his songs can only be described as concentrated soul. He hung around the Black blues clubs in Memphis even though segregation was the law of the land. Crushing poverty had bound him with these people as a boy. Black culture organically became a part of him.

Being the first White to walk in a Black man’s shoes (to a lesser degree of course) was hard on Elvis. The citizens of the Jim Crow South were not about to allow their children to be corrupted by this white boy dancing like a you-know-what. He lost gigs and was harassed by the police but remained true to the music he loved. Most Black people only saw him gain financial security by looking and sounding like them. Meanwhile they remained flat broke. This generated lots of lingering resentment. He stole our style.

Black people value style because for generations style was all they had.

It is comfortable for Americans to channel one another into the stereotypes that are incessantly being reinforced in the media, films, etc. I have been dead wrong about Elvis my entire life because of one message mixed in with the flood of false information we are constantly being given about one another. Truth is we need each other. When we come together we are more powerful than we know.

The question then becomes, “Who are we?”

I pray the predicted “red wave” during the past midterms did not materialize simply because more Americans are starting to understand that politicians who foment conflict, refuse to compromise and agitate the rabble of each political party are not worthy of a great nation. It seems hard to ignore the huge challenges we all face unless you are a politician. Then not giving a damn suddenly becomes your entire raison d’être. The nudge we gave them to the ribs during the midterms will not be enough to bring this apathetic pack of greedy wolves to heel.

Challenge yourself to look past your initial assessment of others. Be reluctant to ascribe a sinister motive to someone else and their actions because it is convenient for your worldview. I have had mixed results. My huge ego gets in my way when I force myself to at least try to do this, but my soul is more at peace when I do. Empathy and resentment cannot live in the same place. Allow all the possibilities about others and especially about others who are different from you a chance to grow in your heart.

Think of America as one of the Houses on the popular series Game of Thrones. Our Sigil is the Bald Eagle and our words would be E Pluribus Unum — From Many One. Prejudice and racism have always been weapons the few use to control the many. Forgive little slights. Be kind to others even when they do not deserve it. Challenge any belief system that only offers conflict and separateness.

When we speak with one voice we are more powerful than we know … and we are more powerful than they know, too.