Old Man Europe: An Allegory

Once upon a time, there was a man named Europe and a woman named Africa.

Europe was a beastly man with youthful strength, a conniving mind and a lust for power. He stole the woman Africa from her home, took her to his New World (which wasn’t actually new and certainly wasn’t his) and abused her in every way.

As beastly as Europe was, he believed himself to be civilized and called himself ‘Christian.’ This felt and sounded a little strange, so Europe called himself White, and called Africa Black: being ‘white’ felt more pure and righteous, and it now seemed as though strength and beauty and intellect were inherent within him. His imagined superiority made it easier to abuse this woman Black, to shut his ears to her cries of lament, to rage against her protests and to turn his jealous eyes from her steely inner strength.

In time, Black’s inner strength expressed itself outwardly. She had built resilience and personal power by not losing her knowledge of right and wrong in spite of so much abuse. She broke free from White’s hold on her and sought to reconstruct a peaceful, free existence for herself. The man White was furious of course; he fought Black with his waning strength and made up many ridiculous rules to keep what he had for himself, and to keep Black at a distance.

Black never sought vengeance. She knew she would be betraying herself if she did. But she also refused to settle for a stoic, distant silence: she continued to pursue peace and equality, walking in the righteousness and strength that White had always imagined himself to have.

Old man White could see that Black’s persistent pursuit of equality would expose not only his lack of strength but also his lack of righteousness. So he created new rules of equality, congratulating himself repeatedly for what a good person he was. He was not at all racist, he said, for he could not see color. He mocked Black for talking about their history, telling her to move on from the past. He shamed Black when she spoke of their different backgrounds, telling her that it was unnecessarily divisive.

But Black could see through all of this. Despite all the years and all the trouble she had seen, Black had not lost her vitality because she knew how foolish all the trickery was that old man White had tried on her. The truth was, White had only been playing tricks on himself. He had been young and foolish, now he was old and stubborn.

It did not have to be this way: all he had to do was give up the tricks and games and acknowledge all that he had done wrong. Black knew that she could not make him do this. He had to see it for himself.

He had to stop fighting his own history.

He had to stop seeking righteousness without repentance.

He had to stop hiding the truth.