DEEP AUTUMN FLOWERS: PROGRAM

Ghosts of Tom Paine: Decadal Review of Bush v. Gore (2000) [Post of Dec. 12, 2010]
INITIAL POSTS (June 2010):
Immoral Maxims of An Unjust Judge: Rhetorical Repartees and Constitutional Arguments Discrediting and Refuting Both the Quips and Substance of Antonin Scalia's Legal Opinions. Several Components: Maxims & Repartees; Appendices; References
ADDITIONAL POSTS
Spiritual Intersections: Nietzsche's Aphorisms and Jesus Words (August 2010)
Henry Clay (Oct 2010)
PLANNED POSTS:
Essays on Distinctions and Tensions between literal, parablefull, metaphorical and mythological religious language



OCCASIONAL POSTS"
Book Reviews (Supreme Court; Friedrich Nietzsche…)




Thursday, September 6, 2018

Kavanaugh, Scalia, Taney: The Original Sin of U.S. Jurisprudence

Full Title: Kavanaugh, Scalia, Taney: Original Sin in the Jurisprudence of our United States as Manifest in (1) Nominee Brett Michael Kavanaugh, (2) Associate Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia, and (3) Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney

"Those who speak can't know;
Those who know can't speak"
A Chinese proverb

According to Friedrich Nietzsche, "Insanity in individuals is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs it is the rule."

There are, of course, perplexities in human behavior that most of us understand quite imperfectly and, all too often, we humans apparently retain only the slitest [sic] glimmer about what is going on in our own personal behavior and, especially, within the groups to which we either proclaim or exhibit our greatest loyalties. I begin by noting that the Book of Genesis, the first book of both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, describes the moral plight of two human prototypes, an "Adam" and an "Eve". When the couple is discovered in doing something that each recognizes as 'wrong', each of them blames a creature other than themselves. The man blames the woman; The woman blames the snake (aka, perhaps, the 'Devil'). Of course, one need not be a "person of religious faith" to believe in self-deception. For example, atheists Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud have presented what are for me trenchant — if incomplete — theories about and observations of the ubiquitous propensity of human beings to lie to ourselves.

While I personally have been influenced by the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, I believe that the prophetic words of Jesus and other Hebrew prophets (Jeremiah, Amos, Isaiah…) are even more pertinent in attempting to understand — and, in understanding, to oppose — the political ills and evils of what is sometimes naively called 'Constitutionally Sound American Justice'. And, in this article when I single out these three justices as paragons of judicial hypocrisy I do so because (1) I believe the old maxim that we should expect more from those who have more than those who have less and (2) I believe that the common and often repeated assertions of these three judges to the effect that they, in their decisions, had striven (Taney, Scalia) or have striven (Kavanaugh) only to 'only' interpreted the law is a terrible and hypocritical moral and judicial falsehood. In their words, written or spoken, Justices Taney and Scalia emphatically asserted that they did not 'make' law. Similarly, today Kavanaugh often cites Scalia as he promulgates this old shibboleth of those who provide legal support for the structural injustices of our society. And, it is precisely those who claim to be personally disinterested who are most blind to their own biases.

Shakespeare's Mark Anthony says of Brutus and his co-conspirators in Julius Caesar, "For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--". And, it is quite true that all judges — like all humans — have worthy inclinations and have performed deeds of decency. And, furthermore, it is true that many judges — but not all — may lead decent 'private' lives. When Roger Taney was a young man he freed 11 of his slaves. Yet, in Dred Scott, Roger B. Taney, wrote, approvingly, that the Constitution and the history of every European nation assumed that:

[Enslaved Africans and their descendants had] "been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Probably, I would assert, the most poisonous words every penned in a U.S. Supreme Court opinion.

Antonin Scalia  — who could make his opponents and even his enemies laugh — defended the right of protestors to burn the flag and defended the right of those accused of sexual depravity to face their accusers. But, even tho he stated many times, that he should not inject his personal predilections into his opinions, he wrote opinions which helped paved the way for the infamous Citizens United (2010) decision which created new rights of "free speech" for corporations. This legal approach has permitted private corporations to diminish, stifle and, at time, drown out the voices of those individuals and groups who have not participated in the plutocratic plundering of the poor, the weak, and the dispossessed.  And this plunder now corrupts our country deep into the inner recesses of our individual and collective souls and hearts. Scalia's theory of original intent was particularly hypocritical for a man who was in so many ways both knowledgable and learned on linguistic matters. All words evolve — words in religious and judicial canons  evolve more slowly than most words—  but all words evolve. They evolve simply because words are used by sentient beings with all manner of physical, social, and spiritual interests — and we humans are always finding out that there are inconsistent implications in what we have learned and, accordingly, we must sometimes take a new look at this or that minor or major matter. Pretending that by following his theory of original intent would create a 'safe' place to avoid being (improperly) overly partisan resulted, quite naturally, in such terribly partisan decisions such as Bush v. Gore.

Supreme Court Nominee, Brett Michael Kavanaugh, has a number of personal and personable qualities of note. I am, for example, quite impressed by his own efforts to increase minority representation in judicial internships. But I find it deeply troubling that he talks so much about his own 'virtuous' efforts when asked by Senators what his views are on important and difficult issues which face our country — issues which he has discussed at length in more approving private and public venues. In the Christian Bible one Jesus of Nazareth says "Why call me good?" It has been my experience that whether you or me or 'she' or 'he' spend large amounts of time protesting our virtues — something important and, almost always, incriminating has not been said. Mr. Kavanaugh used prolix theory to try to force a young woman in a Texas holding prison to have an unwanted pregnancy against the clear guidelines of Supreme Court precedents he claims to honor. More importantly, he appears to be holding tight to a theory of presidential power which might allow him to cast the deciding vote in keeping a president in office who wittingly became president with the help of a foreign power. And, hiding in his testimony, are clear indications that he colluded with other members of the Bush presidency's legal team in formulating a justification for torture at Guantanamo — and then may well have committed perjury at his 2006 confirmation hearing for Federal Circuit Judge.

Judge Kavanaugh has remarked that his decision on any future decisions about abortion will be guided by the President Trump's mandate to implement his campaign pledge to appoint judges that will overturn Roe v. Wade.  The assertion that Trump's election is a justification for supporting a possible or actual immoral action is a dangerous gambit. Similar statements by Speaker Paul Ryan and my own Senator Marco Rubio in other contexts justifying support for unwise policies or laws — or, silently standing by — are already working their cruelty into our lives. At this very moment young children are held in cages near the U.S. border and elsewhere— in contempt of U.S. law, international law, and God's will. If someone pays you or orders you to drive a load of children over a cliff and you then take the children with you — you have committed a crime against God and Man. Taking children to cages or supporting Presidents, Attorney Generals, and Judges who permit such caging is also a crime. We can all make our choices and our — and, I for one, believe in a merciful God. But whether you — my reader — believe as I do or believe I am a fool (or somewhere 'in between'), the longer we nourish the darker angels in our nation, the closer we will feel the awfull Wrath of God against which none of us can stand. No, I do not believe any of us will go to a literal hell — but when we as a nation ride proudly into unholy battles, we dive into a desolation ("Purgatory") that will wither away the pride of any actual or would be dictator and his supporters. And it will bring permanent dishonor to any 'Religious' person who wants to have a prominent 'Seat at the Table' in sharing the profits of unearned wealth and power so pervasive within our current United States of America.

Lon Clay Hill, Jr. — 6 September 2018

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Omarosa: Donald Trump's Forgotten Soul Sister

Omarosa Manigault-Newman has hit the headlines and talk shows recently with (1) a new book about President Donald John Trump and (2) several interesting and intriguing tapes of conversations between her and Trump-and-other White House personal. There are a number of both salacious and controversial features of Omarosa's latest sally into theatrical politics (aka "reality TV") [as well as Trump's tweetstorm response] which are — I believe — quite interesting. However, there are two more important features of this media skirmish which are frequently overlooked — as I will discuss below.

Trump and Omarosa have had a seemingly long standing relationship which began with her appearances on the Apprentice (2004) and subsequently included her starring role in The Ultimate Merger (produced by Trump in 2010)  and nearly all of 2017 within the Trump White House. This sometimes uneven relationship, however, unceremoniously ended when she was fired in December 2017.

I would like to propose that the relationship was grounded in the deep, usually unspoken, assumption that race has never been about 'race' — but about power. Donald Trump's personal history has been so deeply tinged by racial bigotry and demagoguery that it is easy to forget even that slaveholders and the worst southern segregationist usually had small pockets of social space where slaves and the descendants of slave could operate with some measure of autonomy. Slaves were, for example, usually free from work on Sunday and frequently attended church. Even Judge Roger Taney, author of the infamous Dred Scott decision, freed 11 of his own slaves when a young man. So, if a dark person with African ancestry could approach Donald John Trump in a non-threatening way, it should not be too surprising (in hindsight at least) that some enterprising person (i.e. Omarosa) might be able to wheedle her way into one of his inner circles.

Omarosa and Donald John are both more ambitious and more cynical than most of us — and in their own individual ways are both more proficient at lying and more inured to dishonesty than more 'normal' human being who are more comfortable with small lies and/or culturally sanctioned hypocrisy. And, in this context, it must be remembered that men such as Donald Trump who self-identify as "white" have always been more threatened by 'black' men than by 'black' women. (Historically, it has been a truism among southern segregated Afroamericans that "the white man and the black women" are the 'most free' southerners (e.g. within patriarchal caucasians and matriarchal afroamericans). I forgo the case of D.J. Trump for the moment. The case of Omarosa Manigault-Newman, however, appears to need some immediate attention. {Several commentators have been quick to announce that they will not 'buy' the new Omarosa book. As several of these 'commentators' make much of their current salaries from their frequent 'informed' opinions on D.J. Trump and his lies, I conclude that they 'have a problem.' […as in "Houston, we have a problem." from the Apollo 13 spacecraft.]}

Historically, slaves and the descendants of slaves (more accurately, usually, descendants of slaves-and-masters) have had to make some very difficult choices between open rebellion, occasional resistance, general accommodation, and/or abject surrender. There is an entire literature on this continual tension within the descendants and partial descendants of slaves. [Historically, these tensions are perhaps best illustrated in the work of William E. Dubois and Booker T. Washington in the late 19th Century or that of Martin Luther King and Malcomb Shabazz ("Malcomb X") in the 1960's.]  And, historically, women have — usually, and in many civilizations other than our own— been more accommodating than men in 'adjusting' to slavery and other forms of injustice. [Of course, Harriet Tubman and Joan of Arc are two of many, many counter examples which belie the completeness of any simple generalization such as the above comment. Furthermore, in terms of our own narrative, we need to keep in mind the old adage that 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…]. Still, overall, I think that is quite fair to say that on numerous occasions that Omarosa Manigault-Newman has been more accommodating to Donald J. Trump than say, Booker T. Washington, who met with Teddy Roosevelt on several occasions. Washington, taking the segregation of his day as a given, worked to educate "the Negro" for 'practical' work at his Tuskegee Institute. As Omarosa has taken this quite 'accommodating' approach towards Trump it is not surprising that a number of black and liberal parties have referred to Omarosa as, in effect, a 'witch' and other epithets — both cruder and more refined — which express their displeasure, disgust, and anger at her sometimes sycophantic and frequently dishonest — and thoroughly ambitious 'accommodation'.

But our story is not over. Omarosa spent several months in getting D.J. Trump to hold a March 2017 White House meeting involving a large number presidents of Historically Black Colleges. While we are all free to debate how important this particular meeting and some of the attendant particulars were within the overall scope of today's racialized politics, we must — I believe — recognize the shard of honor in Omarosa's 'faithfulness' to her actual roots embedded, as it were, within her ambition. And, this gets us to the main point, Donald and Omarosa, soul sibling in their dishonest ambitions would eventually have to part because — as is always the case — their lies to the public-and-to-themselves are-and-were always inconsistent. Whether you hold the Queen or Ace of Spades when you play the race card — neither card can trump the truth. And, now it's out, the slop for the hogs has spilled on the floor — and the would-be king is as unhinged as ever.

And, if you want to bring down our would-be godfather, take heed! If you want to attack Donald John Trump, attack him directly. Don't be distracted by his lies. Ignore them when that is best. Laughter is sometimes unavoidable, but don't gloat. However, politics is not a TV show. TV itself is an important, but often poor reflection of reality. It is ubiquitous, however, and when you use it — don't pussyfoot around. Donald is a demagogue first and a racist second. Omarosa has been driven by reality out of a few of her own lies to herself, but she has more courage than much of the press and much of the democratic opposition in that she knows that untruth is essential and assumed within the Trump narrative. Jesus did not need to respond to all of the charges trumped up by the high priests and various Pharisees of his day. It is not possible for most of us to know when Donald J. Trump is consciously lying, when he is simply fantasizing, and when the inertia of age works its inexorable will. Presumably all of these are factors in his sometimes demonic untruthfulness. Our task, however, is to face those untruths where they meet us in our lives — in our personal lives, in our trump friendly neighbors, in our economics, in the bloated public and private prisons of the disunited United States, and in the children torn from their mothers by the corporate will of the USA. The "Shining City on a Hill" — which has occasionally been an important beacon to others — is collapsing from its own institutionalized greed and pride. Unlike Jor-El of the Planet "Krypton" we do not have a private spacecraft that can save our son, our friends, country, or our world.

We can, however, look at lies in the face with both courage and compassion.  Omarosa has had and still has her failings, but nevertheless she has a little more spunk than most of us in seeing how Donald's private demon works its spell.

He/she who has ears to hear, let hem [him or her] hear.

The Book & some background.

Omarosa Manigault-Newman (2018) Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House. Barnes and Noble.

The Ultimate Merger

Trump, Omarosa, Trump
 

Unhinged

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Between Slavery and the Freedom Movement (~1950–1970)

W.E.B. Du Bois (1903; 1990) The Souls of Black Folks. Introduction, John Edgar Wideman. Vintage Books/The Library of America: New York. 227 pages.

A Brief Review:

After the rise of the abolition movement, the Great American Civil War, and the adoption of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the attention of the general public of the United States shifted and — with some very important exceptions — the issue of deeply entrenched racial injustice did not become a pressing political and cultural national problem until the Brown v. Board of Education (1955), the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1957), the rise of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the student-led Movement for Peace and Justice eventually produced the political/social/cultural changes of the sixties. Today, many high school and college students and numerous adults have at least a passing familiarity with some of the heroes of the Civil War era (Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison…) and of the modern Freedom Movement (Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Malcomb X, John Lewis, Stokely Carmichael…). [Different readers will, of course, have other choices for the most central actors.] However, except for those whose particular interests or specialized skills make them better informed than the average educated U.S. American, familiarity with principle Afroamerican actors in the period between 1870 and 1940 is usually quite skimpy in the general population and — even among the politically conscious members of all ethnic groups — uneven at best.

The Souls of Black Folks, first published in 1903 by W.E.B. Du Bois is perhaps the best book length introduction to the long hiatus between the U.S. Civil War-and-the abolition of chattel slavery and mid/late 20th Century movement to abolish legal segregation in the United States. Written with a rare combination of overall knowledge and personally witnessed details from the author's life, the author also combines his deep passion for justice with an unusually fair and often nuanced description of the partisan interests of the segregationist South, the commercialized North, and the uncourageous Negroes of his day. Du Bois is frequently remembered as the driving force behind the creation of the NAACP, but the merits of this book are well described in John Edgar Wideman's introduction to the Library of America's 1990 reprint.  He begins with "If I could put one and only one book into the hands of students to whom I was teaching post-Civil War America, I would choose with out hesitation The Souls of Black Folks." Later he expands and says "Souls is a beacon" … [which validated my experience asI realized that it wasn't simply my imagination that created the ambivalence and alienation (abbreviating here)] … "as I negotiated the unspoken, unwritten iron rules of racial etiquette with their violent sanctions always simmering just below the surface."  And later "I've read and taught Souls many times. And each time when I close the book, beauty and pain linger."

Wideman's 6 page introduction speaks of itself. I myself was not able to attend the August 1963 March on Washington. I was serving a 10 day sentence in a Baltimore jail for holding a sign in a public park that said "Be gentle, honest and fearless." I did, however, hear the next morning about King's "I have a Dream" speech from a jailhouse guard. And, soon afterwards, I heard that a quietness had spread over the crowd when it was announced that Du Bois had died the night before. And, in time, I understood that Du Bois had been one of those terribly important witnesses to the Power that endures even when lies are promulgated for decades, centuries and even longer.

Thursday, June 21, 2018

A mislabeled Leader's 'small' Dictatorial Heart: Days of Infamy in the United States


Query: Does the 'dear leader' lack empathy (the problem of the 'small heart' within the cranial networks) or is there a deeper problem??

A. Personal Reflections (1940-1974, mostly)

While writing a college freshman essay (about the day I was born) I discovered that the Battle of Dunkirk was in full swing during the late spring of 1940. Several of my much older cousins on both my father's and mother's side fought in World War II and — while War War II had ended by the time I entered elementary school — the events of World War II formed part of the cultural backdrop of my early years, my adolescence, and my early manhood. In 1959 a college professor provided me with my first introduction to what we now refer to as the 'Holocaust'. During the next few years while involved as a minor actor within the political and cultural Movement for Peace and Justice within the United States I had time to develop my own perspective about the German holocaust and its origins (as well as perspectives about such issues as U.S. slavery, the Civil War, and its legacy). I make no claim about the importance of my own views on German fascism. I simply state that I had time over ~3 decades to develop those views. For what it is worth, it strikes me that the rise of German Nazi fascism (spearheaded, as it were, by Adolf Hitler) was — among other things — (1) the culmination of some very specific failures rooted in the relationship between the German (Military) State and the German Church as well as (2) a consequence of festering European-wide anti-Semiticism that had roots that that reached back to the emergence of very early Christian churches. My own studies have been especially influenced (1) by the work of the martyred German pastor (Dietrich Bonhoeffer) murdered in 1945 just before the final downfall of the Nazi Regime and (2) by Rolf Hochhuth's seminal play, The Deputy, which considers the complicity of European religion, populations, and religious leaders [specifically, Pope] with the Nazi-lead genocide. Today, other persons — many of them better informed than I — have both similar and very different views, but my primary point is that these views have normally been formed over several years or several decades.

However, while one can certainly argue that various persons have 'seen' the coming and/or development of U.S. fascism, I must confess that the depth of foolhardy hatred-and-fear captured by one Donald J. Trump has surprised me in more ways than I had suspected possible. I offer these sentiments simply as a contribution to our understanding of the darker angels now loosened upon the U.S. people and their institutions while we rub our eyes as deeds that will live in infamy transpire both in broad daylite pronouncements and in secret midnite kidnappings of children. These events are forcing us into defending our lives, our neighbors [near-&-far, known-&-unknown], and our sacred honor…

B. Reflections on the primary executive of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
(period 2015-2018, mostly). [This period includes the secret kidnapping of children by U.S. personnel under the direct guidance of D. J. Trump, Jeff Sessions, Kirsten Nielsen, and multiple co-conspirators.]

Mr. D.J. Trump, the present Godfather of the Republican party, has sometimes been described as a man of unusually small empathetic capacity — "even for a politician" according to those who tend to distrust politicians. Of course, Donald Trump's American variety of fascism was not created by Donald Trump alone. Even if we were to talk only about the last Presidential election — culpable errors by Hilary Clinton, James Comey, and the fascinated press were needed for the Trump Campaign to successfully employ their Russian helpers in their search for the Presidency. Authoritarian movements and impulses are a constant — if fluctuating component of the lives of a ll nations. Furthermore, the United State's most recent strong turn towards vindictive authoritarianism does not exist in a vacuum — the world as a whole has been overwhelmed — at times by the new powers and temptations of the digital age. These are  — it seems — both the best of times and the worst of times. At the very moment that miracles of individual health, social communication, and cosmological distant galaxies are discovered to — new cyber crimes, localized slavery, and genocidal acts are seemingly perpetrated at will in various parts of our brave new world.

A Deeper View!!?

I would like to suggest that Mr. Trump is not accurately described as 'low" on empathy. I would like to say that the coupling of his zeal for private vengeance coupled to his deep sense of many people's fears — his knack, as it were, for ferreting out the darker angels in many voters and politicians — bespeak a very large, but unusually dark heart. Mr. Trump has a rotten heart — it is not a 'small' heart. Rather, it is a diseased heart which 'expands' as his 'victories' fail to satisfy his unobtainable narcissistic fantasies. There are clearly age-related issues of rigidity as well as a psychological obsessive inability to respect the truth. However, these understandable weaknesses are magnified by the rot and poison at the core of his soul. While I believe that we must remembered that 'There but for the grace of God go I' — we must also remember that when any of us make our private or public deals with the devil we will in time fall into the awful purgatory and fire of God's cleansing grace. The 'devil' is not the 'friend' of Donald Trump and his followers … or of any one of us.

Lon Clay Hill, Jr.

35 minutes after the beginning of the Northern Hemisphere Summer of 2018

3 Books:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1951; 1953) Letters and Papers from Prison. Reginald H. Fuller, translator. Macmillan.
Rolf Hochhuth (1961; 1964) The Deputy.  Richard Winston & Clara Winston, translators. Grove: New York.
Hannah Arendt (1963) Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Viking Press: New York. 312 pages.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

PITHY BOOK REVIEWS (Lon Clay Hill, Jr.)
{2018}

"I, who cannot fly, would reach the distant mountains…"
(lchj)

For the past seven decades or so, I have been a bibliophile — and have shared the results of my readings in various venues as both a teacher and as a private citizen. However, as time's long shadow is cast more obviously upon both my strength and my always poor typing skills — it is clear that I cannot render the horde of thoughts that continually cross my mind while I am reading into any semblance of their actual complexity and occasional nuance. And, yet, like many others, I believe that I have thoughts that are still worth saying…

My philosophical hero, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) — the passionate atheist who in spite of himself was more prophetic than most Christians and Jews of his time — says somewhere words to the effect that he aspires to say:

"More in a sentence than many writers say in a book — more even than can be said in a book."

Aphorisms are dangerous because are necessarily incomplete. They invariably encapsulate assumptions — often unspoken — that are impossible to put into linear prose. But they can be very useful because they suggest the boundaries and limits of our understanding and also because they at least hint of the directions we might travel to extend that understanding.

I, of course, was not given the linguistic gifts of my favorite authors of aphorisms (Nietzsche and Pascal), but each of us from time to time may have an opportunity to live our kites into the winds…

THE REVIEWS:

Review#1 (20 May 2018)


Tayari Jones (2018) An American Marriage: A Novel. HarperCollins Publishers. 306 pages.

This novel explores a very painful love triangle involving a marriage between a young 'black' Afroamerican man (Roy) and a young 'brown', upper class Afroamerican woman (Celestial) whose marriage falls apart after Roy is imprisoned during their honeymoon for a crime which Celestial knows he did not commit. Celestial, however, becomes impatient — after all she is also suffering from a crime that she also 'did not commit' — and gradually drifts into an affair with her longtime childhood friend (Andre). The book has received critical acclaim and was chosen as an Oprah Winfrey book and has, in my mind at least, both very sensitive and dramatic contours which have made it a book remarkably worthy of note. However, in spite of all these merits it appears to me that Ms. Jones blurs a critical ethical boundary. At the most fundamental level I do not believe that we humans get to choose our responsibilities — rather our most fundamental responsibility is to choose our response to those responsibilities inherent in the realities which we face and experience. It is true, that 'Celestial', the strongest voice in the book is not to be equated with the author's perspective. When ignorant Roy returns to the scene several years ahead of the original 12 year sentence it does suggest that Celestial has not taken the long look. But, on the whole it seems to me that Celestial's self-consciousness dominates the narrative to such an extent that it elides the actual responsibilities-and-lives of both males.

All of this is not to say that our understanding of our responsibilities does not change with time — of course it does. Likewise the choices that we make influence subsequent responsibilities that emerge with time. I also congratulate the author on her bold assertion that her novel — which in so many ways transpires within an Afroamerican self-consciousness — is truly an 'American' novel. [Indeed, much of her novel reminds me of the self-consciousness that I encountered over 50 years ago within the 'black' and 'tan' community/communities of New Orleans.] Still, like James Baldwin, she is fundamentally right — the color lines and racial injustices which she describes in her characters are truly 'American' inventions which continue to beset a 'Nation' still at war with the Declaration of Independence and those Christian principles which both politicians and their supporters all-too-often overlook with ignorance, smugness, and pride.

Miramar,FL (20 May 2018)

Friday, February 2, 2018

The Closed Ebony Circle: Refections upon Toni Morrison's Work

"Two lost souls on the highway of life.
Now ain't it just great,
 and ain't it just grand,
we got each other."



Morrison's Literary Work

Somewhere I read, almost certainly in a passage written by James Baldwin, an account of a young Afroamerican couple, deeply in love with each other, who were stopped while driving by the police in either South Carolina or North Carolina. After the young man showed his driving license, he was briefly searched. Then at least one of the policemen 'searched' the young woman — and during the 'search' slowly put his hands under her brassiere and felt her breasts and then placed his hand or hands under her panties and felt her private parts. Finding no contraband, the officers then released the couple and returned to their duties of protecting the public. After this very painful episode, the two young people were unable to discuss the event in any meaningful way. The erstwhile lovers gradually drifted apart and did not get married as might otherwise have been expected. It goes without saying among those familiar with the mores of U.S. Southern segregation that the young man would have reasonably expected that if he had done anything to protect the honor of his lover that he would have been beaten, most likely have been arrested, and might — indeed — even been murdered. And, the young woman would most likely had very similar expectations. Still, this particular twosome were decisively separated by their experience. 

Different people, of course, respond to such situations in different ways. The very strong ethos among 'black Muslims' to protect their women with force (as needed) is one obvious response. And one occasionally hears stories of various Afroamerican women who have said — whether they acted upon their words or not — that a real man, even a real 'white' man would be preferable to a man who would not be a 'man' when his wife, his lover, his children, or his mother were dishonored by a white man (or anyone else for that matter). Below, I will consider how Toni Morrison has addressed aspects of this issue.

In Toni Morrison's work, one sees instances of couples choosing (both during the epochs of slavery and segregation, with excursions into the present epoch) to cleave to each other even when one or both of them have been 'branded' by willing and/or unwilling deeds of sexual behavior that have occurred under enormous duress and these deeds have left their physical and psychological marks (memories, dreams, violence…). These stories are told with great detail and elaborate craft. Two examples of this approach are found in the novels, Jazz (1992)  and Beloved (1987). For a Morrison novel (!), the story in Jazz is relatively straightforward. We discuss it first.

As in other Morrison novels, there are flashbacks, ruminations, different 'voices' (perspectives) and dreams so that it takes some time for the main story to emerge. The story itself, however, is rather straightforward. A married woman, Violet, defaces and desecrates the corpse of a young woman (Dorcas) who had an affair with her husband, Joe. Joe is in fact the murder of the young woman. [The author's artifice (special circumstances) prevents legal punishments, but allow the local Afroamerican community to know the main details of the events.] After various twists and turns the novel finally culminates with this now older couple 'keeping on' at 'keeping on.' And as the disparate strands of the story finally come together the ending of Jazz is - to me - quite beautiful. She renders — as it were — a final triumphant verbal paean to the people of Harlem that reads like the final trills of a trumpeter.  As I read the last few pages I was reminded of my first trip to New York City in 1958 when my guides were taking me through a few streets of Harlem where I saw more people living and crowded together than I had ever seen and I was struck by the pulsing energy that came up and our of these brick apartment buildings, concrete sidewalks and asphalt streets. [I had grown up in a very small Eastern Kentucky town with only a few visits to smaller cities.] Also, on a personal note, the very difficult reconciliation of Joe and Violet Trace  — amplified, of course, by the hyperbolic plot that is Morrison's sui generis trademark — struck a chord within me. I haven't had such dramatic incidents in my own life — but having recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of my wife's and my own marriage I am conscious that any marriage is to some extent a closed circle that has its own ups and downs. And, apparently for the great majority of couples, some of those strains are quiet severe even in the 50% of those marriages that do not end up in divorce.

Morrison's renown Beloved  is a much more complex novel which highlites the after effects of a runaway slave (Sethe) who murdered her own child to prevent the child from being enslaved. The starting point in Morrison's mind for the book was the actual murder of a child by a runaway slave mother, Margaret Garner, who did not want her child to grow up in slavery. This book, too, has its flashbacks, different voices, historical underpinnings along with it haunting dreams and ghosts — and one might even say — some 'black magic'. Extended commentary about the book in various literature venues suggest that this was the primary work in her literature portfolio leading to her 1993 Nobel Prize in literature. Morrison later commented that she left 'Beloved' — the chimera, ghost, and presence of Sethe's murdered baby  — to be the one that might  judge Sethe. Morrison's comment strikes me as an extraordinary raw and honest comment by an author about her own work. Following our own theme, however, the subplot involving the sometimes tortured relationship between Sethe and Paul D. exemplifies another example of Morrison's working thru the closed circle of the enslaved. (Paul D. is another runaway from the original Kentucky plantation where Sethe had been married and borne her children.) Morrison's novel ends with Sethe, Paul D. and Sethe's daughter Denver proceeding forward as a small family, again, as it were, under the injunction "to keep on keeping on." She portrays in exquisite detail the haunting ghosts of slavery. And her stated intention has been to describe those the forgotten black women and black communities who have lived through slavery, segregation, and have endured up until the present. Her unique rendering of blackworld, blacktalk, and blacksong serves those ends quite well.

More General Thematics by the Commentator (LCHj)

However, one need not — indeed one must not — subscribe to everything that an author says about her work in order to appreciate it. Authors' words about their works can be illuminating — but in generally they are quite incomplete about both the strengths and weaknesses of such work. Morrison is no exception. And, in that spirit, I want to look at a several comments she has made and place them in a wider context.

In the dedication to Beloved Morrison mentions the "Sixty Million and more" who perished during the African Slave trade. The dedication, of course, evokes the words "Many Thousands gone" in the old Spiritual, "No more auction block for Me." Now, in actual fact, I would think that she is, indeed, historically correct in suggesting that the number '60,000,000' is a probable understatement of the damage done by the slave trade and its implementation. Now, being explicit about my own commentator's presupposition as a fair-colored human being who has lived ~93% of my life within the continental United States, I believe that the Holocaust (1933-1945) and the Institution of Chattel slavery within the United States from ~1700—1865 constitute the two of the most egregious acts — if not the two most egregious acts of communal evil within modern Western (Euroamerican) civilization. Others, of course, may have different views. The post-1492 appropriation of American lands accompanied by malice and murders of the native people could be viewed as a 'single' communal act. However, I wish to single out the period from 1700-1865 in the United States for special attention.

From the beginning of the 18th Century until the end of the U.S. Civil War, the novel legal and religious fiction was developed and empowered which held that, in particular, the children of a union between a father of European ancestry and a mother of African ancestry was of the 'same race' as the mother. This novel fiction had arisen, especially in the Southern British Colonies, to meet two particular challenge for slaveholders. First, the native Americans did not 'cotton' to slavery and, furthermore, were able to escape more easily than the imported African slaves. Secondly, the tenuous boundaries between indentured servants from Europe and slaves from Africa (indentured servants were sometimes kept in bondage for 2-3 decades, a significant number of slaves either bought their freedom or were freed by their masters) created additional practical difficulties. Fair skinned runaway indentured servants could often disappear into the general mix of fair-skinned European colonists. It was much easier for the slave master and his hired minions to find a 'runaway' with African physical features than to find and identify one with European or native American features. The most immediate practical consequence of this new doctrine was that a slave-owning father could sell his own son or daughter.

I have used the term 'fiction' to describe this new doctrine — whether expressed in enforced laws or in theological doctrine — but this 'doctrine' was, in fact, both a historical lie and a deep dive into collective moral depravity. On the other hand, once this doctrine became the 'norm' within the slaveholding states, individuals growing up within these environments had to face these norms in one way or another. And, over time, new developments occurred. Soon a child of the union between parents of European and African ancestry was termed a 'mulatto' — whether the union was one of love, mutual desire, or violent rape. Then, a child of a European parent and a 'mulatto' was termed a 'quadroon.' In Louisiana, especially, this terminology became quite developed as 'white' men would have 'quadroon' mistresses with 'octaroon' children who could be sold or freed as the white father decided. In most of the slaveholding South, however, a 'simpler' perspective held sway — any trace of African ancestry tainted the offspring as members of a race that were or could be legally treated as chattel. This fundamentally dishonest classification system has always had its practical as well as moral difficulties, but its effects — a century and a half after the 15th Amendment abolished slavery — have been and continue to be readily seen. Our language has been buffeted about as well — 'African','colored', 'negro', 'black' and 'Afroamerican' — are 4 of the more prominent terms that have been used at different times and by different groups to refer to those people living within the United States who have visible features (skin tint, hair textures, lips, hip structure) that provide immediate evidence of probable or definite African ancestry within the past century or so. The fundamental problem, of course, is that it is a lie — as a general rule peoples who live near the equator are quite dark and people who live far from the equator are lighter. And, peoples who live in or around the Arctic Circle are quite fair in complexion. Of course, all human beings who live today outside of Africa are descendants of people who left Africa sometime between 300,000 years ago and yesterday.

I spend some time on this issue because such facts matter. From my own perspective, the combination of the 'dark passage' of the transatlantic slave ships with their terrible death-&-murder rates and the subsequent legal empowerment of fathers to sell their own children and of any slaveowner to separate spouses and children constitute a very, very dark episode in the history of human kind…

However, it is necessary to put even the most terrible deeds into their human context. The Holocaust was not simply a collective crime against humankind by the German nation under the leadership of Hitler and his fellow Nazis. The Holocaust was the product of centuries of occasional pogroms, creation of Jewish ghettos, and other forms of festering anti-semitism within Christianity that have roots reaching back to the resentments of early Christians against persecutions by Jewish authorities in the first century (CE).

Likewise, chattel slavery is but one of the forms of slavery that have plagued the human species. Most slaves brought to the Americas were bought from Africans. Slaves are mentioned as a fact of life in Jewish, Christians, and Muslim scriptures. In many instances, slaves were able to eventually earn their own freedom. Separation of families has sometimes been restricted by law — in recent centuries Roman Catholic venues prohibited some of the horrific excursions legally permitted in U.S. protestant venues. But, I am not adding all these excesses up or making strict comparisons.  I once read of an old African man who stated that one should not 'count' one's children. In a similar manner I hazard that counting the dead with only half an eye can sometimes be even worse than looking away. There are some very unhealthy ways of remembering real facts. I am certain that the Turks committed terrible atrocities in Serbia 500 years ago, but there are some very unhealthy ways of remembering real facts. These atrocities against the Serbs and the Turks more recent atrocities against the Serbs, Kurds and Armenians do not excuse the siege of Sarajevo or the mass graves of Srebrenica. Likewise, the murders of the Holocaust do not excuse the current Israeli practice of killing 10 Palestinians for every Israeli citizen killed. There have been, are, and — presumably — will continue to be far too many society sanctioned misdeeds and murders. An extraordinarily large proportion of them are inspired and committed by nations, ethnic groups, and religious institutions who are only able to count their own dead.

Some Morrison Comments

Toni Morrison has sometimes said that her work is explicitly 'political'. And, indeed it is — just as Hemingway and Faulkner were  'political.' Human beings are indeed political, sexual, societal, and physical beings. And, I would certainly agree with her that non-political literature, non-political law, or non-political press do not exist. There are, however, important distinctions that must be made. Both fairness and honesty is always needed in politics. They are usually incompletely present, but an explicit interest in their pursuit is often needed. Morrison has stated words to the effect that her intent is to give voice to forgotten black persons and forgotten black women. Now, as a matter of fact, she also includes others in her work. For example in Mercy (1992), set during the early days of colonial slavery she includes chapters on a white couple, Jacob and Rebekka Vaark, in addition to the several slave women who are the main focus of the novel. And she references with appreciation various authors who have been useful to her. However, her appreciation for white women in segregated societies is surprisingly sparse in the literature that I have seen. The Grimké sisters of South Carolina during slavery, Lillian Smith's opposition to lynching during the early 1900's, and fellow Noble Laureate (2007), Doris Lessing, seem to have been given short shrift in her analyses. These women have known that the pedestal of 'white womanhood' in racialized caste systems was simply a flattering form of enslavement. Their work provides insight for any woman or man concerned about the links between sexual roles and societal injustice.

In commenting about the killing and murders of young African-American youth Morrison is reported to have said:

"People keep saying: 'We need to have a conversation about race.' This is the conversation. I want to see a cop shoot a white unarmed teenager in the back. And I want to see a white man convicted for raping a black woman. Then when you ask me, 'Is it over?', I will say yes."

Morrison is off the mark. Policemen shoot and have been shooting unarmed teenagers and older men in the back from the time they began to holster weapons. For several generations an obscenely large proportion of those killing and murders involve Afroamericans and have frequently remained unpunished. If the general society does not respect 'black lives' when manslaughter or murder is committed by a person wearing a badge, then — in actuality — none of us is safe. Some people respond to such selective killings with their own 'selective' killings. In killing some policemen in Dallas, a young African American ex-soldier is reported to have said, "I want to kill white people — especially white policemen". Several other 'random' killings of police have not been solved. But, returning to our topic. Killings by policemen — all too often unpunished — are hardly restricted to Afroamericans or to members of other minority groups. On a more positive and, I believe, a more important note, there are large differences in the latitude with which different cities and communities permit their members to use deadly force. Committed people can bring about positive changes in their communities.

At another point Morrison made the comment "I teach my children that there is a part of yourself that you keep from white people — always." Of course, if you think of your 'white' audience simply as necessary 'help' for your career, the 'help' may hear some things that you did not intend them to hear.

Final Comments

From the mix of her own experience, her readings, her conversations, and her considerable talents, Toni Morrison has created stories of the enduring problems for the descendants of slaves in the American Republic. Her work has helped to considerably broaden the scope of U.S. and Western literature which is, of course, the why and how she has earned the Nobel Prize in literature and other awards. Some of her wider generalizations about her characters and her work are not untypical and share assumptions about the 'practical truth' of racial distinctions and injustice that are held in one way or another by a great number of U.S. citizens, particularly those who are politically active and/or are older. When she speaks in more general and ideological terms about her work, her remarks are often technically quite interesting and always politically relevant. In my opinion, however, her moral vision does not reach the level of her high artistic skill and her intense personal energy.

Selected Bibliography

Carolyn Forché, Editor (1993) Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness. W.W. Norton & Company: New York/London. 812 pages.
 Sarah Moore Grimké (1838; 1970) Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women. Lenox Hill (Burt Franklin): New York. 128 pages.
Harriet A. Jacobs (1861: 2000) Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by herself. Jean Fagan Yellin, Editor. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England. 336 pages.
Thomas D. Morris (1987) Southern Slavery and the Law: 1619-1860.  The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill/London. 575 pages.
Toni Morrison (1987) Beloved.   Alfred Knopf. New York.
Toni Morrison (1992) Jazz. Alfred A. Knopf: New York. 229 pages.
Toni Morrison (2008) A Mercy. Alfred A. Knopf: New York. 274 pages.
Danille Taylor-Guthrie (1994) Conversations with Toni Morrison. University Press of Mississippi: Jackson, Mississippi.  293 pages.

Digital Bibliography
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/25/toni-morrison-books-interview-god-help-the-child

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

When I Hear Odetta Sing
Reflections on Song from the Deepest Regions of the 'American' (USA) Soul


"Wade in the water; wade in the water, children;
God's gonna trouble the water."

Abstract

Reflections on the power, promise, and problematics of song from the victims of slavery and segregation in Southern portions of the United States. We end with brief intimations of related issues associated with jazz, Appalachian folk music, and white southern spirituals.

I. All the pretty little horses.
II. I've been in the storm a long, long time.
III. Many thousands gone.
IV. They say that Freedom is a constant struggle.

All the Pretty Little Horses

A children's lullaby sung by the black american folksinger Odetta includes the following words:

"Blacks and bays, browns and grays,
all the pretty little horses.

Down in the meadow lies my pretty little baby.
Fleas and butterflies picking on his eyes.
Oh! My pretty little baby.

Blacks and bays, browns and grays,
all the pretty little horses…"

When I hear this song, it is pretty clear to me that the nurse attending the little white baby in the rocker or in her arms loves and cares for both the white child and her own, probably, much darker child. And — at least when she is singing — hopes for both of them even as she knows that they are both entangled in a web which contains deeper sorrows than most of us can ever say.

Iv'e Been in the Storm a Long, Long Time

One nite in 1963 or thereabouts, I attended an all nite vigil on behalf of a white minister who had been crushed by a bulldozer while protesting the construction of segregated housing in the northern city of Cleveland, Ohio. Memorable to me were some words by a cleric from Chicago, David Matthews, who stated that "Men died when white men won their freedom; Men will die as black men win their freedom."  However, more deeply anchored in my mind and soul was the singing of Bernice Reagon. Except for the introductory phrase of the song I don't remember any other words. It was a large, mildly lit auditorium (perhaps a church?) and a young woman was singing and as she sang I felt that the full weight of three centuries of slavery and segregational peonage were held upon her shoulders while simultaneously weighing upon all of us in that room and, sometimes unbeknownst, upon the entire nation.

Many Thousands Gone

"No more auction block for me. No more, no more…
No more driver's lash for me. No more, no more…

Many thousands gone. [Chorus]

"Many Thousands Gone" is ostensibly about the end of chattel slavery in the United States of America — it has been sung by Odetta, Bernice Reagon, and many others. It is the title of an essay by James Baldwin. In Baldwin's heart and in the minds of most of those who sing and hear the song, the song is not only about U.S.A. slavery, it is also about the strong shadows of slavery which have persisted in this country up until the present moment. I would like to add two brief commentaries. One paragraph concerns the roots of slavery (including its continuation into the British Colonies during the 17th Century). The second paragraph describes the particular evils associated with the empowered version of chattel slavery within the United States and its accompanying ideological/theological enshrinement within many ostensibly "Christian" congregations.

Slavery itself has been a part of human history which appears to have been present whenever and wherever humans began to record events in written or engraved words and characters on wood, stone, leather, parchment or paper. The instances are quite diverse — our words slavery, servant, servitude, and serf are all linguistically rooted in the Latin word 'servus.' The Pharaohs had slaves and so, apparently, did Abraham and other Jewish patriarchs. The English derive their name from very fair-skinned German slaves ["Angles"] brought to Rome. The 'angel-like' colored Angles/Anglas were much stranger looking than the tan, brown, and black slaves which had been brought from Arabia or Africa. It is quite difficult to tease out many important details of these diverse embodiments of slavery (for example, a historian certainly cannot, as a matter of course, always differentiate between promulgated laws and norms and actual practice). However, it is still quite clear that in early colonial America of the 17th Century some slaves could 'earn' their freedom. This practice of 'manumission' also appears to have been much more common in some Roman epochs than it was in the subsequent pre-independence American colonies and the pre-Civil War United States. And, it must be quite clearly understood — and, if possible, be neither overemphasized or underemphasized — that many slaves who came to the Americas had been sold by Africans to other Africans one or more times before they were herded into slave ships whose "Middle Passage" [collectively considered] constitute one of the greatest crimes of the past 5 centuries of western European, ostensibly 'Christian' 'civilization.'

Further anticipating the argument I wish to make below, I think it is important to fold another matter of interest into our understanding of slavery during the early post-reformation era. Within the Roman Catholic world — those portions of the world whose 'faith' was supposedly promulgated and protected by the bishop of Rome — it was frequently demanded by law that even slaves had some rights. In particular, spouses were not to be sold separately and very young children were not to be separated from their mothers. How consistently such requirements were practices is not a matter that this author is competent to judge. However, it is still important that even in the post-Civil War United States, the issue of slavery was separated from the issue of race in Roman Catholic New Orleans to the extent that two different slaveholders of African origin individually owned more than 60 slaves.

As the European settlers established their footholds and enclaves into the "New World", they brought their customs as well. Our U.S. history books usually tell us that there were 'indentured' servants who came to the new colonies and — within a few years  — redeemed their financial freedom and become part of the general 'free' populations. Beginning in 1619, slaves were introduced as property and — in spite of a few exceptions due to generous masters or successful escapes  — remained so along with their progeny for the next two and a half centuries. This reconstruction, however, is filled with a number of half truths. To begin with, in the European Colonies of the 16th and early 17th Century, the Lord of the Manor or Plantation Owner was normally both the chief executive and the judge of the manor or plantation — and he meted out punishments, fines, whipping, and brandings from which there were normally no legal or effective redress. He also had sexual 'privileges '  — the Lord of some French manors had the first opportunity for intercourse for young serf women ('Droit du seigneur"). Hangings and executions, perhaps, might not be administered so freely. But whether they were termed servants or slaves, those on plantations and, to a lesser extent, those bound to other forms of 'service' were bound to their masters and mistresses. Furthermore, there were also a goodly number of interactions between the slaves and servants including marriages as well as the usually medley of friendships, affairs, and betrayals which always occur among all classes and castes of any human society. Finally, it seems abundantly clear that a significant fraction of slaves were able to 'earn' their freedom in ways that eventually became almost impossible once southern U.S. slavery rigidified into the ante-bellum South of the 1800's. The history books are also strangely silent about the various small communities of former slaves, servants, owners and other vagabonds that formed and sometimes still exist in hamlets in mountainous western Virginia/West Virginia.

"Long summer days make a white man crazy; Long summer days;
Long summer days make a slave run away, Sir; Long summer days."

Into this late medieval medley of masters and mistresses, freemen, maids, servants and slaves, several events occurred which transformed the fabric of the Southern United States. One, as servants and slaves disappeared and escaped into neighboring colonies and Indian lands, southern plantation owners their economic allies realized that it was much easier to find an absent 'slave' of African origin than an absent 'bound servant' of European origin. They then began to reinterpret the physical features of the enslaved or runaway Africans as features of inferior 'beings' of a natural inferior order. Greed and guilt compounded natural interest as children from natural attraction, affairs of various sorts, and ubiquitous rape produced new American-born Afro-European progeny who were sold by fathers, vengeful wives, and relatives. This morally impossible state of affairs was eventually legally justified and theologically rationalized by what this author believes to be the beginning of a true original sin into the history of what was eventually to become the United State. It was written and preached that sexual congress between the 'black race' and 'white race' was immoral. A simple lie — the colors of humans vary into a near continuum that varies from fair Scandinavian and Northern European tints thru mild and modern tints of tan and browns of Southern Europe, Arabia and North Africa to the dark ("Black") Nubians and Ethiopians, and reverts back again to the brown hues of the Kalahari Bushmen of South Africa and its neighborhoods. I forgo here the additional tinctual variations of the Chinese, Indian Subcontinent, Pacific Islanders, Australian, native Americans etc. This lie — not really very different from those who today deny climate change —  was compounded by a protestant 'innovation'. In clear contradiction to Anglo-Saxon common law which identified children by their paternity, these legal and theological apologists of slavery introduced one of the purist instances of moral manure produced by humankind into the notion that any identifiable African Ancestry marked one as 'colored' — effectively 'black' — with the inherent dignity of a cow or a stallion (i.e., chattel).  [In actual fact, various states introduced various notions of what constituted legal 'negritude' (1/16; 1/32 or less of African 'blood' as the notion is — like any lie — unworkable at its root).]

This intolerable doctrine of legitimate human chattel — enforced by law and custom — eventually led to a great Civil War because it is in conflict with the best of both our religious and political traditions (The Hebrew prophet Amos queried, "Are you ['Israelites'] not like the Ethiopians to me, The Lord?"). And also, because we humans are never able — as far as I can see — to actually exterminate most genuine ills and evils of our epochs — its shadows are still found today in such problems as the incredibly difficult problem of convincing a unanimous jury of U.S. citizens that a human being who wears a badge can be guilty of murder of an unarmed Afroamerican who is absolutely innocent of any criminal behavior. So, I conclude by saying that the words "Many thousands gone" remind most of us that institutions such as slavery — especially U.S. chattel slavery — have not only claimed millions of lives, but their residues still claim 'thousands' today.

Of course, each of us who study and think about these events must process it as the person we are. In the United States, others may think of the Holocaust or of the European wrenching of the land from the Native American people. And, I also note that the history of history sometimes turns very quickly and sometimes very slowly. I would imagine that all of us have slave ancestors. There are pockets of slavery even as I write and even as you read. These three songs invite and even compel us to see slavery as part of our history. As long as a single person is a slave, none of us is truly free. There is and, apparently, has never been in any nearly complete sense a free people, a free culture, a free nation, or a free world. To be sure, we do see instances of movements for and toward freedom. We also see individuals and groups (usually small) who are more clearly headed towards freedom than the great majority of us. And, finally, it is true that groups, cultures, nations, and movements embody important constituents of freedom or aspirational elements of freedom‚ even if imperfectly. But freedom is not and never has been a possession of any individual, group, culture, or nation. It does not belong to you, brothers and/or sisters.  It does not belong to you — any more than it belongs or ever belonged to me or anyone that I have ever known and loved.

They Say that Freedom is a Constant Struggle.

"They say that Freedom is a constant struggle; (Repeated 3 times)
Oh Lord, we must be free, we must be free, we must be free. (Chorus)

They say that Freedom is a constant jailing; (Repeated 3 times; Followed by Chorus)

They say that Freedom is a constant moaning; (Repeated 3 times; Followed by Chorus)

They say that Freedom is a constant singing; (Repeated 3 times; Followed by Chorus)

Final Verse:
"They say that Freedom is a constant struggle; (Repeated 3 times)
Oh Lord, we must be free, we must be free, we must be free…"


I first heard this song in early August or so, 1964 in a small Negro church in Gulfport, Mississippi at a gathering that was part of the Mississippi Summer of 1964. During those weeks I was mostly working with some young black children in nearby Biloxi. This was the year that a young black man from Mississippi (James Chaney) and two young white men from New York (Michael Schwerner, Andy Goodman) had been — just before midnite — had been turned over to a white mob just outside Philadelphia, Mississippi and murdered shortly thereafter. The murder of these three young men — punctuated as it were by the murder of the two young white men — brought more national attention to the entrenched segregation of the white South than many, many other previous murders including the murders of Emmet Till (1955), Medgar Evers (1963), and 5 politically active black men in SW Mississippi in early 1964 alone. Later, probably in 1965, I talked with a young white woman who had been another 'outsider' working with the news outreach component of the Mississippi Summer Project. She had — during the summer — had conversations and made inquiries related to a total of 10 corpses that had appeared during those times (several unidentified and most — if not all — negro ("black') males.

Speaking for myself alone:
For most of the next 7 years, I worked mostly in what were then known as "Negro" communities in New Orleans, Washington, Albany (GA), and Atlanta — at first as part of educational efforts allied with political efforts of what we called simply "The Movement" and, then, as the political movements within the Afroamerican movement became more consciously "black" I gradually gravitated to more explicitly educational activities as a teacher of very young children. I think that education — like religion — always has a political component at some level. Even if we accept — as I tend to do — that Jesus's kingdom was 'not of this world', I think it is clear because his message had political implications which caused the Roman occupiers and their religious allies to feel sufficiently threatened to execute Jesus of Nazareth.

In 1971 I went to Arizona and in 1974 I undertook a 4 year journey to Polynesia (2 years each in Hawaii and American Samoa). For me it seemed best to become a science teacher and, especially, during my Polynesian years, it seemed that it was healthier for me to get out of the concentrated interest in 'black-and-white' issues which had been such a big part of my young adulthood. Even if I was on the 'right side' of such ethnic-political struggles, it was better for me to interact with less polarizing communities and/or with less polarizing components of my political responsibilities. Still, with a front seat in South Florida of the Republican raw political grab of the White House in 2000, the trivializing of liberty in the plutocratic US Supreme Court's McConnell v. FEC (2010) decision, and the growing intensity of largely Republican efforts to shrink the electorate after the rise of the brass-knuckled and self-described "Tea Party" in 2012 I found myself involved in increasing political activity by underrepresented portions of the U.S. electorate. And, in December 2012 at the local Democratic party's monthly meeting after the reelection of Barack Obama, I felt moved to sing a verse of "They say that Freedom is a constant struggle."

As 2018 begins, a fierce [multi-faceted] worldwide struggle has begun in earnest over whether recent marvelous genetic discoveries and undreamed of informational-distributing technologies shall become the playthings of the entrenched rich-and-powerful or the common heritage of all humankind. In a much earlier epoch, Jesus of Nazareth is reported to have said that "I bring not peace, but a sword!" — and, it seems quite clear, he was not talking about holy wars carried out with metal swords and fire-containing catapults. And, while I am myself now entering the last shadows of my days on this planet and, with great difficulty tending mostly to local and personal affairs of the heart-and-family, it still strikes me as needful that the proper response for me to the first three songs is to publicly affirm that Freedom is indeed a constant struggle and that, indeed we shall someday — thank God, Almighty — be free at last!  Or, if it pleases you, Thank Allah or Truth or … or whatever Face of God or Truth or Meaning strikes you as true in your deepest core.

Other Titles: Amazing Grace, Goldmine in the Sky, Gospel Ship…
The songs which give inspiration to each of us are as varied as our own individual and communal lives… The strengths of these songs resides in their power to evoke currents within our conscious and unconscious which are not always accessible to words alone.

Other Topics: Responsibilities of the Powerful-&-Rich v. Responsibilities of the poor, the imprisoned, and the downtrodden…
This rather short communication does not directly address a number of very thorny problems related especially to race, justice, and power. I recently posted a few thoughts about James Baldwin ["James Baldwin was not just a Negro writer."]. Baldwin was very helpful to me during my years as a young man in the black community. And, as I work through some problematics of such issues, I hope to address them as well — including other issues raised by more recent authors.