The Pharaoh Within

The Migration of the Negro by Gwendolyn Knight (wife of Jacob Lawrence) 1940-41

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In his bestselling book Outliers, Malcom Gladwell notes that of the seventy-five richest people in human history, “an astonishing fourteen are Americans born within nine years of one another in the mid-nineteenth century.” He goes on to say: 

Think about that for a moment. Historians start with Cleopatra and the pharaohs and comb through every year in human history ever since, looking in every corner of the world for evidence of extraordinary wealth, and almost 20 percent of the names they end up with come from a single generation in a single country.

The fact of the matter is that as citizens of a first-world nation, though we may not be as wealthy as the Pharaoh of Exodus, we have just as many—if not more—privileges. Believe me, I would love to say, “No! I’m one of the oppressed and pledge my allegiance to justice.” But the truth is much more difficult to swallow: I am often unconsciously aligned with the oppressor because the system was built to make us all complicit. 

Unfortunately, exploitation, demoralization and subjugation are so routine that we rarely notice our participation. Don’t believe me? Consider your last five consumer purchases and trace their sources. If you’re anything like me, the method of their delivery alone exploited, demoralized and subjugated the planet. 

Each and every one of us has been more like Pharaoh than Moses. Even Moses is more like Pharaoh than his idealized self—a fact of which he was painfully aware. The reason he fled from the palace to the desert was because he knew he was just as murderous.

Each and every one of us has defied the will of God. Any defiance of divine will inadvertently oppresses either a corner of creation, another human’s experience, or our own selves. Fascists do not set out to become tyrannical authoritarians. They set out to be right. The only reason reasonable people support a fascist dictator is that they’re convinced there’s a common enemy who is more evil, ruthless and threatening than the dictatorship itself. 

The ones who don’t go along with the status quo of such an evil empire are usually no better. They cower as Moses did, listing all the reasons that they cannot go, cannot speak, or cannot do because, like Pharaoh, they too have blood on their hands. So they remain as they are, saying and doing nothing at all. Evil is as evil does, and before long, everyone is held prisoner. It’s just as Frederick Douglass said:

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.