Eddie Jackson //
Everyone is dead.
The ringing of the monastery bell
A cool breeze caresses your face and you’re awakened
A manuscript awaits you at your table,
Its unfinished husk gleaming with what it could be
Deep reds, bile yellows, muted evergreen, powdered blues
Lines of the Yarlung Tsangpo flow across the pages
Inviting the reader to trace its form and learn it’s secrets [1]
We play a cat and mouse game
A jousting of sorts
How do you speak up against the colonizer
Is it soft and delicate or boistrius and cutting like a surgeon’s blade.
So you’ve accepted their ideology and their way of being,
Now what?
Accept the paradox of your intelligence; or fire back with
the flames of your soul that tell you who you are
A flaming pile of dogshit from the West can never[2]
Compare to our craft.
We have our medical institutions
We have our museums
We have our pride
We are Bengali[3]
Toiling away
But I am not alone
I come from centuries of replicators
Panel by panel we learn and learn
Line by line we heal and heal
Bhaiṣajyaguru guides our hands
His energies enriched our palettes
A concerto of healing pierced the veil of our consciousness
My name is Franz Joseph Gall
I am Phrenology
I made it; why can’t you see it
NOTICE ME
I am made from death?
Oh, this is actually something relevant
(We can use it to our advantage)
I’ve never seen something this accurate
(We have cause we have reason we are guilt free)
You know what? We have to share this with the world
(We have more resources to shape our narrative)
Put it in every language and dialect
(Colonize them with literature!)
What do you mean you don’t agree?
(Maybe they know the truth?)
What we say are facts and can’t be disputed
(Bury it so no one hears it)
A divine manuscript
79 vibrant, detailed, masterfulful panels have been created
Each one etched in my mind
A divine transaction with Buddha
And the many practitioners who have come before me
I do not treat my patients by myself
Buddha guides my hands and my judgment
And heals through me
Our practices will never die
This is the ultimate healing
You dare tell me, a proud Negro
That I am inferior
You dare open those white lips
To spew hatred
Your science is fallacy[4]
Admit it
You employ a doctrine to serve a need
A self serving bias that you are the victor of[5]
You have a desire to wipe away your sins
Because the truth of your actions is too much to bear
You hate me because of who I am
I exist in direct opposition to your wellbeing
I am your downfall.
How do we know the body
What meaning can you assign a history with no words
Is it possible?
The need to assign meaning is as important as our need to breathe
Assignment is pressured to crystalize[6]
Meaning is but a slave to our wish
Work Cited
Poskett, James. Materials of the Mind: Phrenology, Race, and the Global History of Science, 1815-1920. First edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019.
Anderson, Warwick. “Disease, Race, and Empire.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 70, no. 1 (1996): 62–67.
Goodman, Sam. “‘A Great Beneficial Disease’: Colonial Medicine and Imperial Authority in J.G. Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur.” Journal of Medical Humanities 36, no. 2 (June 1, 2015): 141–56. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-014-9313-5.
Schlag, Pierre. “Law and Phrenology.” Harvard Law Review 110, no. 4 (February 1997): 877. https://doi.org/10.2307/1342231.
NOTES
[1] According to Luiggi The Blue Beryl was used as a way to educate medical students in Tibet. They were required to make their own copy of the manuscript see Luiggi C. (2011) Ancient Anatomy, circa 1687
[2] Historian Goodman discusses the complexity of Brtish colonialism in India and the spread of phrenology. Goodman challenges the importance of British medicine and even mentions how it was incredibly detrimental to India see Goodman, “‘A Great Beneficial Disease.’”
[3] Bengali phrenologists were often ridiculed for their version of phrenology. They lacked the resources necessary to disperse their teachings globally. They concentrated their efforts locally and began to create medical schools and museums dedicated to their version of Phrenology see Poskett, J. (2018). Materials of the mind. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
[4] Phrenology is now widely considered to be a pseudoscience. Shlag discusses the numerous limitations of Phrenology and explains in detail how it is a failed science see Schlag, “Law and Phrenology.”
[5] Poskett quotes Frederick Douglass, “By making the enslaved a character fit only for slavery, they excuse themselves for refusing to make the slave a freeman”. Douglass attacked phrenology and its usage because it didn’t represent actual science and it was merely used to justify slavery see Poskett, J. (2018). Materials of the mind. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
[6] The need to assign meaning to body parts is almost innate. According to Poskett, social influences can shape how the body is perceived so that it can fit a narrative see Poskett, J. (2018). Materials of the mind. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
