Perhaps I was age five or six when the older neighborhood kids convinced me that the dark of night harbored the 'boogieman.' I never really spotted the scary beast but he was real in my mind, which caused me to move quickly through dark spooky places. As time elapsed, I gained confidence that no such creature lurked in the shadows, although during my teenage years, I did spot some rather dubious looking characters roaming the East St. Louis streets.
Today, I notice that many adults are still victimized by some 'boogieman.' Most notions of the 'boogieman' are dependent on a coexistence with childlike fear, ignorance and or prejudice attitudes supported by mythical beliefs. In my 1940's neighborhood, I heard that a Gypsy band was camped near the edge of town with intentions to 'steal' babies; whoa, we have identified 'boogieman.' Of course many other would-be boogiemen were advanced during the years: most had different skin color shades, different language accents or unusual sounding names. It was always the same message of casting suspicion and distrust upon anyone who looked, spoke or believed differently.
I was a junior high student who read the weekly current events school-newspaper, which was part of the civics class. It was 1953, when the news leaflet contained a picture of a very angry and menacing looking man; surely, I thought they had captured the boogieman! It was a photo of Senator Joseph McCathy who was holding Senate hearings into allegations of communist subversion and espionage infiltration into the United States government. I suppose we Americans always need on-going boogiemen so we mobilize to follow leaders; this relieves us from 'thinking' for ourself; freeing valuable time to plan for holidays and Super Bowl Parties.
Currently, congresswoman, Michelle Bachmann is trumpeting that the Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating our American government; sound familiar! Actually, this bogus boogieman claim, at least has adult themes, contrary to a few years ago when the far-right-wing Christian coalition led by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, told us that the boogieman was the British cartoons characters known as 'The Teleubbies' with a hidden 'boogieman- agenda' to cause all children to become homosexuals.
The 'boogieman' lives forever!
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