Exterminate All the Brutes

I was watching the first episode of the four part series Exterminate All the Brutes (on HBO Max) and had to stop about fifteen minutes before the end when it became clear that a man was about to be dismembered. My daughter was walking around the house and I didn't want her to see that image. The image of a man's hand being cut off...because he hadn't supplied a white man with a sufficient quantity of rubber for the day.

Earlier on in the program, Jacqueline had paused in her walking because there was a scene with some Swedish children celebrating the feast of St. Lucy (Sankta Lucia). There was one little girl, blonde haired and blue-eyed, who walked with a crown of lit candles atop her head. 

One year, they replaced the little White girl with a Black kid. They got vicious hate mail.

Later on, there was a scene where White soldiers were massacring Seminoles in Florida. Jacqueline wasn't in the room, so I didn't hit the stop button. But she came back as the White soldiers were walking through the scene of their carnage, and the bodies of the slain Seminoles were lying on the ground. Jacqueline stopped and said, "Look at all those Indians died. Oh, those poor Indians." Then when the camera cut to one of the soldiers, she asked, "Is that a bad guy?" 

The fact that she immediately got it...and the simplicity of her statement...catalyzed the horror. 

Jacqueline left the room, and I continued to watch. 

Most of what I saw and heard was not new to me, but it still hurt. 

Some of what I saw and heard connected with some of my recent readings, especially in Fernand Braudel (Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century and The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II) and a book I was inspired to read because of Braudel, This Happened in My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611. 

But those were words.

It hurt more to see the images.

The living room is about to be overtaken by Zoom therapy sessions and Day Program meetings, and I probably won't be able to get back to Exterminate All the Brutes until this evening. But I will get back to it, for certain.

Even though there is a part of me that doesn't want to see this horror show, that wants to say, "That's enough, I get it. I'm not part of the problem, I'm part of the solution."

To be continued....