Ring Shout

by P. Djèlí Clark

Slaves would Shout when they get some rest on Sundays. Or go off to the woods in secret. They’d come together and carry on like this: the Leader, the Stick Man, and the Basers, singing, clapping, and stamping, while the Shouters move to the song.

See, the Shout ain’t really the song, it’s the movement. He say the Shouts like this one got the most power: about surviving slavery times, praying for freedom, and calling on God to end that wickedness.

“White folk earn something from that hate. Might not be wages. But knowing we on the bottom and they set above us—just as good, maybe better.”

“My people make money and we are ‘greedy capitalists.’ We call for an equitable society, and we are ‘dirty Bolsheviks.’ Those who wish to hate Jews will always find justification. They hung poor Mr. Frank here in Georgia after all, despite reason or the law.” Chef grunts. “Reason and law don’t mean much when white folk want their way.”

She says that as casual as relating the time. But there’s a hitch in her voice that tell me she carrying her hurt deep, the way we all do.

“Thought you was a godless atheist.” “I am. But who’s to say our universe is alone? Maybe there’s others stacked beside us like sheets of paper.

This a juke joint, not no temperance revival!”

“You likely didn’t mean to, baby. They find ways in, through some trouble you might keep deep down inside. Like leaving a door open. There something you can think of like that?”

Relation to demonic possesion

“Girl, every choice we make is a new tomorrow. Whole worlds waiting to be born.”

“You see, the hate they give is senseless. They already got power. Yet they hate those over who they got control, who don’t really pose a threat to them. Their fears aren’t real—just insecurities and inadequacies. Deep down they know that. Makes their hate like … watered-down whiskey. Now your people!”

But … Butcher Clyde’s words are in my head and I can’t shake them out. What they offering me is power. Power to protect. Power to avenge. Power over the life and death of my people. When colored folk ever had anyone offer us so much? When we ever had the power not to be scared no more? Ain’t we been suffering and dying all this time, at the hands of monsters in human form? What difference then if we make a pact with some other monsters? What we owe this world that so despises and brutalizes us? Why lift a hand to save it when it ain’t never done a damn thing to save us?

Songs full of hurt. Songs of sadness and tears. Songs pulsing with pain. A righteous anger and cry for justice. But not hate.