R U Vicarious Shanghai? “Poetic Diagnosis”
“First made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give a name to the nameless so it can be tought. Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives.” Audre Lorde
Back in 2004 while in deep thought, worldwide peering through a windowless wall, I was able to frame a diagnostic term “Vicarious Shanghai.”
This is a compound word. Vicarious meaning: experienced in the Imagination through feelings or actions of another person; or acting or done for another. Shanghai meaning: forcing someone to join a ship lacking a full crew by drugging them or using underhanded means; or coerce or trick someone into a place or position or into doing something. (Oxford Dictionary 2005).
When infused, Vicarious-Shanghai is defined: someone's intellectual and emotional experience and belief in a lie, whom was brought to such position of understanding and behavior by the deceitful or pious influence of another. (L Benson 2004).
For example President Bill Clinton had the black community living Vicarius-Shanghai throughout his term (1992 - 2000), When despite them voting him into office due to his political promises, he signed all the laws that discriminated and massly incarcerated them for nearly two decades after.
In 2014 I got involved musically with the Die Jim Crow movement and project, executively produced by Brooklynite , Fury Young. One of Fury’s agenda with dropping the epic in concept Die Jim Crow album, is to bring awareness to the process that created mass incarceration. In my opinion, part of bringing forth that awareness is to diagnose and cure “vicarious Shanghai” of the masses, in order to solve some of these socio-political issues.
We of the Die Jim Crow elk want you to question your deepest political, religious, cultural, racial, and gender beliefs. Are they your own ideas or assumptions? Or did they derive from someone else's? Are these ideas true or false?
The poetic description descriptive description below will assist you in diagnosing yourself.
Vicarious Shanghai (VS)
is to be made intoxicated
by the lines of Deceit,
then lead to a boat
and cast off to see,
GPS navigated to dock
on a specific shore,
but when you're sober
how you arrive there, you are unsure,
now you’re one of many actors
debuting in a play already in progress
so far gone in the script
that you no longer protest,
blindly accepting the media spin
the director's cut
the video games’ fatalities
the prophets scripture,
the historian's interpretation
and the Photoshopped picture,
internalizing the sound bites of half-truths
and whole lies as reality,
All while building a life, career, and identity
on your now sunk cost fallacy!
VS is a new terminology
For an old concept and invention,
Because a lie is a lie
despite its author’s good or bad intentions,
The beacons of honesty, clarity, truth
are the only antidote,
to sail and escape to enlightenment
like Jim Carrey did
in the movie The Truman Show
VS infects everyone
in one form or another
so wake up,
it's something recurring
there's no complete cure
but it can be controlled
by frequent reality check ups
but in extreme cases
the belief bias VS produces
runs so deep,
That no amount of truth
can wake a person
pretending to be asleep,
caught in the storm
another boat
lost at sea!
Now,are you Vicarious-Shanghai? is Jim Crow still alive in your mind? I bet the root of many psychological pathologies stem from Vicarious-Shanghai.
Free your mind and your ass is sure to follow.
Please leave comments and questions about your experiences of Vicarious Shanghai.
Check out the Die Jim Crow a www.facebook.com/diejimcrow
For more information about how to purchase limited edition books by Leon Benson (Vicarious 1 and 2) contact : vbuford06@yahoo.com
