Diary of an Autodidact: slavery

I first read about Colson Whitehead back in 2016, when The Underground Railroad was published - and won the Pulitzer. I didn’t read it then, because it was quite popular, and thus the library wait list was pretty long. Instead, I grabbed an audiobook of Zone One, best described as a literary fiction meets the zombie apocalypse. It was a bit out of my usual reading zone, but quite thoughtful, so I added Whitehead to my regular read list. That it has taken me more than three years to read him again is sad, although it isn’t for lack of trying. I nominated different books of his for our book club, but they never got enough votes to be chosen. Oh well.

The Underground Railroad also defies expectations. On the one hand, it is fantastical: the Underground Railroad is re-envisioned as a literal railroad, with underground tunnels and trains. Kind of like a subway at continental scale. (This leads to one of the most hilarious lines in the book, from one of the station operators: “If you want to see what this nation is all about, I always say, you have to ride the rails. Look outside as you speed through, and you’ll find the true face of America.”)

Add to this a symbolic character: the slavecatcher Ridgeway, who is kind of a less appealing Javert, and that pretty much sums up the fantastical elements. There are other parts that I think can be seen as metaphorical - indeed, the whole book is a synecdoche. But much of the book is at least on the surface quite realistic.

To be sure, Whitehead does not pull punches in showing the brutality of slavery and white supremacy. The book is in sections devoted to certain states, each of which has its own flavor - and expression of racial violence. It starts on the plantation in Georgia, which is pretty much a typical plantation narrative. (There are plenty of sad connections between Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Kindred.) From there, once the protagonist, Cora, escapes on the Railroad, the scene shifts to South Carolina, where a “model” town of free negroes is revealed to be the center of medical experimentation and involuntary sterilizations. North Carolina (in this telling) has decided to attempt to end slavery by outlawing (and exterminating) its negro population, and replacing them with Irish and German immigrants. (While this didn’t happen on a statewide scale, and mass deportation was usually preferred to genocide, this idea was shockingly popular in white intellectual circles at the time.) Tennessee has become a fire and plague ravaged wasteland. Indiana, formerly a slave state, now a free state, expresses its violence by proto-Jim Crow and pogroms against free African-American communities which become “too successful.”

Against this background, Whitehead tells of Cora, a teenage who escapes. But she is believably human - in fact, she just wants to live her life as a human, free from disrespect and violence. Which is pretty much what we all want, isn’t it? At least the decent people among us?

The problem, of course, is that the United States still has a system of white supremacy that expresses itself in violence when threatened. (See, for example, our ongoing problem with police brutality, and our vicious approach to immigration from Latin America.) I think the strongest element of this book is the way that Whitehead demonstrates the way that slavery, white supremacy, and racism function as a system which brutalizes everyone. It destroys everyone, and makes the nation as a whole far less strong and functional than it should be. Even those who “benefit” from the system are degraded and spiritually violated. And those who fight the system fare badly almost across the board. It is easy to forget just how much those who worked the real-life Underground Railroad risked - and how many paid the ultimate price.

Colson Whitehead’s style tends to be ironic and more than a bit snarky. This book isn’t quite that way, because of the topic. There are certainly moments which seem satirical, and there is enough of the combination of cynicism and determination to survive to make it recognizable as a Whitehead book. I also found a certain similarity between this one and Zone One. After all, the protagonist is on the run from an overwhelming menace, and finds ways to survive. And the ending is equally ambiguous. The book ends, but the journey doesn’t.

As usual, I have to quote a few lines that were outstanding. First is this one, about the first white man working on the Railroad that Cora encounters, a man named Fletcher who offers Cora’s fellow slave Caesar a ride.

He had met this sort of white man before, earnest and believing what came out of their mouths. The veracity of their words was another matter, but at least they believed them.

That’s a classic Whitehead observation, ironic, snarky, and uncomfortably true. Another is essentially Ridgeway’s observation about the white immigrants and their future role in America.

The possibilities lay before these pilgrims like a banquet, and they’d been so hungry their whole lives. They’d never seen the likes of this, but they’d leave their mark on this new land, as surely as those famous souls at Jamestown, making it theirs through unstoppable racial logic. If niggers were supposed to have their freedom, they wouldn’t be in chains. If the red man was supposed to keep hold of his land, it’d still be his. If the white man wasn’t destined to take this new world, he wouldn’t own it now.

Here was the Great Spirit, the divine thread connecting all human endeavor - if you can keep it, it is yours. Your property, slave or continent. The American imperative.

Damn, that’s ugly, stated that way. But what else is the meaning of Manifest Destiny? What else is the meaning of the “peculiar institution”? And, although my ancestors didn’t come to the US until the 1880s, didn’t we just assume it was our right to free stolen land through the Homestead Act? Didn’t we assume that we had the right to the benefits of a segregated society? Alas, that’s the case, from what I can tell listening to my ancestors. (And far too many of my extended family, sadly.)

While slavery as it was no longer exists, the poisonous ideas linger. I was struck by what Valentine, the free farmer in Indiana who is concerned about white hostility and considering selling out and moving west, said about the problem.

What we built here...there are too many white people who don’t want us to have it. Even if they didn’t suspect our alliance with the railroad. Look around. If they kill a slave for learning his letters, how do you think they feel about a library? We’re in a room brimming with ideas. Too many ideas for a colored man. Or woman.

And years later, a woman born in freedom - a survivor of the destruction of the farm - comments in a similar vein.

She said that white towns had simply banded together to rid themselves of the black stronghold in their midst. That is how the European tribes operate, she said. If they can’t control it, they destroy it.

This is a thread that runs through our history, as Carol Anderson details in White Rage. (Highly recommended.) This too is something I still hear on a regular basis. An acquaintance talked about moving out of California to a very white (and white supremacist) part of Idaho. “A better cultural climate” was the goal. Which is, well, code for...I don’t think I need to explain that. An older former neighbor said he was planning to move because “when I got here, it was all Americans, but now it’s Mexicans everywhere.” We live in a nice, middle class suburb/exburb filled with professionals and government workers. Cops, lawyers, doctors, teachers, firefighters. But yes, I guess there are a lot more successful non-whites in the neighborhood than there were 30 years ago. I find that rather nice, honestly, but a lot of whites apparently don’t. That makes me sad.

And what is the destruction of the public sector but an example of the “we’d rather destroy it if we can’t control it and keep it away from brown people”?

I also want to mention two interesting scenes. The first involves one of the several “character background” chapters disconnected from the main narrative. It is all about a corpse stealer - providing the medical schools with cadavers. I was reminded of a chapter in Stiff by Mary Roach. Like Roach, Whitehead notes that the advantage of stealing negro corpses is that nobody noticed or cared. Yet another example of the dehumanization inherent in racism.

The second scene is one with Ridgeway and his servant Homer. Ridgeway sees Homer being sold to pay a gambling debt, and buys him, then frees him. But Homer stays on. There is a hint later in the book that some suspect Homer of being Ridgeway’s lover, but Ridgeway has a rather simpler explanation:

“If he’s free, why don’t he go?”

“Where?” Ridgeway asked. “He’s seen enough to know a black boy has no future, free papers or no. Not in this country. Some disreputable character would snatch him and put him on the block lickety-split. With me, he can learn about the world. Find purpose.”

And this, contrasted with Cora’s experiences, gets at the truth. It wasn’t enough to end slavery. It wasn’t enough to end official segregation. Equality requires true equality: political, social, and economic equality. And until that happens, we will never be a truly “free” country.

Colson Whitehead is a fascinating author to me. His writing, as can be seen, has “unliterary” features like contractions and simple sentences. But it is also clearly literary, not boilerplate. It is accessible, but keeps you thinking long afterward. And that includes his zombie novel, which continues to haunt me. I have a few more of his books on my list, and it will be interesting to read them. Not one is in the same genre as another, which is unusual for an author. But so far, the themes in both of his books have some overlap. The survivor against the odds, an ironic detachment, piercing insights into reality, and a refusal to live in denialism of how America really works for people who lack racial privilege.

Sunday, November 17, 2019

White Rage by Carol Anderson

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

This book has been on my list since just after the last presidential election. In all honestly, it has proven to be as good of an explanation for what I have seen and heard from people I know - including relatives. There was a disconcerting vibe soon after the election of President Obama among many of the white people I knew, particularly white Evangelicals of a certain age, but I couldn’t really put my finger on it.

I recall a conversation with a man from our former church. He was (and presumably is) a basically nice guy, more reasonable than most, but with redneck roots and a deep commitment to a certain political party. I recall mentioning something about how Obama (full disclosure: I didn’t vote for Obama either time - one of my regrets) was a thoroughly decent person, probably the best human to be president during my lifetime. I mean, faithful and kind and supportive toward his wife; a loving and involved father; a man who seemed to genuinely care about others; thoughtful and informed - the sort you would love to have over for dinner. (I was born just before Jimmy Carter was elected, so I have no memory of his time in office, although I would rank him as the best human being to be president in my lifetime, with Obama in second place.) This brought a chilly response I didn’t expect. While most white conservatives I know freely grant that Carter is a good man, even if they dislike his politics, Obama got no such acceptance.

In contrast, I was talking with a relative in summer of 2016, and got a totally different sort of reaction to a different person. I walked out of a conversation after a different (closer) relative made a pretty nasty and xenophobic statement about refugees - that could be a whole post in and of itself: the grief I have had as a result of that discovery has been harrowing. In any event, this relative tracked me down and talked a bit. I expressed my fears (which totally came to pass) that there was literally no amount of racism and hate that would be a deal breaker for white Evangelicals. Somewhere in that conversation, this person expressed that one point in Trump’s favor was that his kids turned out well.

To say I was flabbergasted was an understatement. Trump never raised his kids - he has repeatedly said that childrearing was women’s work. And as far as that goes, the Trump children may have inherited wealth (which is essentially the only reason anyone thinks they turned out) and appear to be every bit as racist and hateful and corrupt and vacuous as their father.

So why did we never hear about Obama’s kids in the same way?

Hmm. Something to think about.

[By the way, for me, the worst thing about the Trump Era has been losing my illusions about my extended family. I really thought - or was it hoped? - that they were better than this. Apparently not.]

Carol Anderson has a theory, and, given the many additional things I have seen and heard since the election, I think she is absolutely spot on. To wit:

After every gain that non-whites - particularly African Americans - have made, there has been a backlash of white rage, expressed primarily through the “legal” methods of power and violence. Through legislation, the courts, and other means (including open violence), whites have responded to Black ambition with hate and oppression.

Let me be clear about one thing regarding this book: Anderson has done her research. The book is built upon literally hundreds of direct quotes from primary sources. All of the horrifying and vicious things said and done happened - there is no question of that - and this process of violent and nasty reaction against the loss of white privilege continues to today.

The election of Trump is the most visible, but far from the only evidence of this.

Anderson focuses on five seminal events in American history which involved African Americans making incremental strides toward full emancipation and citizenship. She then shows how these gains were attacked by the white establishment, erasing much (although not quite all) of the gains made.

These events were, in historical order: (1) The abolition of slavery following the Civil War, (2) The “Great Migration” of blacks out of the South during the early 20th Century, (3) Brown v. Board of Education, (4) The Civil Rights Acts, and (5) The first black president. In each case, the gains were followed by a paroxysm of white rage and successful efforts to limit and reverse the gains.

There is way too much in this book to try to detail here - you really need to read it for yourself. Here are some highlights.

First, Anderson puts her finger on the key fact:

“The trigger for white rage, inevitably, is black advancement. It is not the mere presence of black people that is the problem; rather, it is blackness with ambition, with drive, with purpose, with aspirations, and with demands for full and equal citizenship. It is a blackness that refuses to accept subjugation, to give up.”

I hear this echoed today - it’s mostly dog whistles now, but in the era of Trump, it has been more explicit. “I don’t wish minorities ill - I just don’t want them in my neighborhood and in my kids’ schools.” It’s the whole “uppity negro” and “entitled immigrants” thing once again.

In fact, the most shocking part about the book to me was just how much the exact same arguments - literally the exact same words - were used in 1865, in 1915, in 1947, in 1966, and in 2019. Nothing. Has. Changed. We are still racist AS FUCK in this country.

That’s not to say that nothing at all has changed. Clearly, progress has been made, although not in a linear manner. Every “whitelash” has been only partly successful, and anti-racist people of good will have and continue to push back. With their - our - efforts over the centuries, the arc of the moral universe may be long but it has been bent toward justice, as Unitarian minister Theodore Parker said in 1853. (MLK, among others, would borrow this quote in the decades to come.) Things have changed for the better, and with the efforts of people of good will today, they can further change for the better.

We have a lot of work to do, clearly.

Here is a quote from the Louisiana Constitutional Conference in 1865. Having lost the civil war, those in power were determined to keep the black population subjugated:

“We hold this to be a Government of white people, made and to be perpetuated for the exclusive benefit of the white race.”

This was no outlier, either in place (most of the South adopted similar terms, and the North enforced de facto Jim Crow) or in time (the obvious ongoing voter suppression laws openly targeting black and other minority voters.) Or the lovely rhetoric about how “they” (minorities and immigrants) are taking what belongs to the “real Americans” (white Americans.) Again, when it comes to attitudes, not much has changed.

The book spends a good bit of time on education - with good reason. That particular issue has been a sore point for white rage ever since blacks were first enslaved. First with the prohibitions on teaching slaves to read. Then, with the opposition to schools for the children of freed slaves. Obviously, the opposition to the desegregation of schools after Brown. Ever heard of “segregation academies”? Or how about the founding of the Religious Right for the purpose of keeping certain “christian” colleges segregated? Or the way we continue to use neighborhood de facto segregation to keep our schools mostly segregated now.

This is not an accident. The ongoing efforts to ensure that whites get a superior education are intentional and have a specific purpose. As Anderson puts it:

As in most oppressive societies, those in power knew that an educated population would only upset the political and economic order.

Anderson returns to this idea later as an explanation for why the United States has such a massive education gap that puts it below other first world (and some third world) nations.

Although I was familiar with some of the history in this book, I was a bit surprised by the details of the Great Migration - particularly the many laws aimed at preventing blacks from leaving the South and seeking a better life. They were literally criminalized for trying to leave. (Hey, there is a good bit of an echo in our own time’s xenophobic opposition to immigration. Can’t have those uppity folks trying to better themselves…)

Again, this response was triggered by black success. Any black person or family who got too “uppity” was a target for violence. (I recommend Black Boy (American Hunger), The Devil in the Grove, Strange Fruit, and Remembering Jim Crow for more on this.) Anderson quotes a former sharecropper, Ned Cobb, as pointing out, “They looked hard, didn’t stop lookin...they didn’t like to see a nigger with too much; they didn’t like it one bit and it caused ‘em to throw a slang word about a ‘nigger’ havin all this, that, and the other. [Whites] hated to see niggers living like people.”

Again, you hear the exact same thing now - about how “those people” get benefits that white people don’t. (Personal experience in my legal practice, by the way.)

Then - as now - there was a huge irony in the fact that those who most loudly boosted “capitalism” were the same ones who were most panicked about the migration.

City councils, state legislators, and police forces were determined to punish those, who, in a capitalist economy, offered African Americans a better employment opportunity.

Ditto today, with those most panicked about “socialism” rallying around tariffs and immigration restrictions to (supposedly) protect the deserving “real Americans” from actual competition. Again, racism is the common thread.

There is a particularly harrowing legal case in the chapter on the Great Migration. An educated and successful African American physician dared to purchase a home in a white neighborhood in Chicago. The white citizens came to shoot and burn him out. He and some friends and relatives stood their ground - and shot back. He was charged with murder (among other things) for defending his right to stay in his own home.

The case was picked up by the NAACP, who hired as part of the team, a very familiar lawyer: Clarence Darrow.

Now, let me be clear about this. In the Fundie culture I was raised in, Clarence Darrow was considered the epitome of evil. I mean that literally. The Fundie A Beka curriculum we used for history tarred him as one of the most evil men of all time, and an example of all that was wrong with the modern age. If you didn’t guess why, it was because he was on the “wrong” side of the Scopes trial. Darrow defended the school teacher who violated state law by teaching Evolution. Looking back, of course, it is easy to see the case in a very different light. It has been a long time since I believed in the Young Earth Creationist bullshit, but I also understand better (as a lawyer) what Darrow’s point was. Simply put, Darrow advocated for the freedom of the teacher to actually teach science, not religious dogma. Subsequent experience has shown that the one thing religious Fundamentalism fears more than anything else is that their cherished dogmas might have competition. And that rational minds, when given the choice between reality and perceived theological needs (to borrow from Peter Enns), might choose historical and scientific truth instead of dogma. In this particular case, Darrow was a serious badass, eventually winning an acquittal. Suffice it to say that over the course of my nearly twenty years in legal practice, I have come to appreciate Darrow (and Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Thurgood Marshall) as the giants of jurisprudence that they were.

Once again, this issue of intimidation of African Americans for daring to live in white neighborhoods is still with us. Obviously, the phenomenon of “white flight” continues to be a thing. I know a lot of people who have left California to move to whiter states - often intentionally. I have heard a lot lately about “everybody wants to leave California” and “California’s traditional middle class has left.” Nice bit of coding for what has really happened: California has become “majority minority”: there are more non-whites here than whites, because of non-white immigration and white flight. I personally like it here. I mean, we have a huge issue with housing affordability (the legacy of Prop 13 and restrictive zoning), but the diversity is wonderful.

How about another issue which has been in the news, but is absolutely nothing new? “School vouchers” have been a big thing in homeschooling and Fundie circles for a few decades. The basic idea is that students would get vouchers to spend on private (and religious) schools, rather than public schools. In practice, there are huge problems with this idea, among them the way that whites tend to locate said private religious schools in places that lower income people (and minorities) can’t easily get to.

But I was rather surprised to find that the idea itself goes back to...wait for it....the South in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education. Faced with a mandate to integrate schools, Southern states literally shuttered their public schools and provided white families with vouchers to segregated private schools.

Say what?

Yes, this actually happened. Rather than share with non-whites, they chose to end public education.

Needless to say, this was a bit eye-opening. I mean, I understood the racist impulse behind the push for vouchers, having grown up in a minority-dominated neighborhood and having heard far too much about how the “wrong sort of kids” were in public schools. But to see it in black and white - the obvious straight line between Jim Crow and Betsy DeVos - it made my blood run cold. It is becoming increasingly impossible to deny that the Religious Right is truly the latest iteration of the Klan.

And another link is in tactics. In the wake of Brown, one strategy that the Southern states took was to pass clearly unconstitutional laws, over and over and over, in order to tie up the resources of civil rights groups fighting them. This was (and is) a complete abuse of the legal system and process. But doesn’t it sound familiar?

Yes. Yes it does.

Because the EXACT SAME TACTICS are used by the anti-abortion industrial complex. And you know, it is the same people too. Not much has changed.

Anderson makes an intriguing point when it comes to the aftermath of Brown. Since that decision, a tremendous amount of energy and effort and emotion has been poured into keeping schools segregated. And, naturally, to ensure that African Americans and other minorities are not given full and equal education. What has been the result?

Well, there remains a HUGE racial education gap in the United States. That’s not good. But also, the United States fell behind other countries in education.

The refusal to implement Brown throughout the South even in the face of Sputnik -- not only as the law or as simple humanity might have dictated but also as demanded by national interest and patriotism -- compromised and undermined American strength.

Once, 40% of the world’s scientists and engineers resided in the US, it is down to below 15%. And, it is safe to say, our current anti-immigrant policies and vicious hatred are likely to push future intellectuals to less bigoted countries. We have and are continuing to commit intellectual suicide to preserve our racism.

Now, of course, we deny any such racism. (Even as it becomes more and more obvious in the age of Trump.) Anderson spends a number of pages detailing how after the Civil Rights acts were passed, the rhetoric shifted from obvious racism to dog whistles. Basically, nobody wanted to admit being in the Klan (although that has shifted since Trump), so code words were used to preserve systemic racism. I can think of so many code words I inadvertently heard - and used myself (sorry!) in my teens and twenties. “Thug.” “Urban.” “Slum dweller.” “Strapping young buck.” Damn, that’s embarrassing. As is hearing the same whistles from my extended family and members of my former faith tradition. It is one thing to kind of live in those polluted waters, and another to see the actual history behind the terms - and the way that the same rhetoric has just been masked to avoid the obvious racism. Only to return in full force once Trump “made racism great again.”

I want to end with a final bit on voter suppression. One of the things that really changed my mind on politics was the obvious attempts by certain Republican dominated states to disenfranchise black voters. And I mean literally studying how groups voted and targeting changes to the law to make it harder for blacks to vote.

Anderson gives a good history of the Voting Rights Act (of 1965), and exactly what it accomplished. Prior to the passage of the act, a mere 6.7 percent of adult African Americans were registered to vote. A mere three years later, due to the changes brought by the act, that number rose to 59.4 percent.

Holy shit.

And this was mirrored throughout the South. The Voting Rights Act made a world-changing difference.

And it has also been followed by a concerted effort to roll back the protections, naturally. This gained momentum after the election of Barack Obama. That election revealed an inconvenient truth: the voting populace was becoming less white - and younger. And the non-white and younger voters were NOT voting for Republicans.

While that reality could have -- or more to the point should have -- signaled an opportunity for the GOP to reexamine its platform, the sclerotic hardening of the “conservative” notions that moved the Republican Party from centrist right to right-wing made it increasingly difficult if not impossible to adapt the GOP’s policies to address the overriding concerns of this wave of newly engaged voters.

So, being unable to adapt to changing times without pissing off the old, white, bigoted, Evangelical base, the GOP had to resort to voter suppression. (Which at minimum flipped the Georgia Senate race.) With a demographic apocalypse at hand, the only thing left for the GOP is open and flagrant vote suppression. That’s all they have. As the Boomers die off, and the country continues to shift to younger and browner citizens, the GOP has nothing left to offer. It has gone so far to the right during my lifetime as to lose my vote. A mere 17% of young Californians are registered Republican. (Thanks in large part to the debacle of Prop 187. It is easy for non-Californians to forget that California was a Republican-leaning purple state for most of my life. In the aftermath of Prop 187, even white voters fled the GOP.) Most likely, the GOP has 20 years to continue its voter suppression efforts or it will have to change or die. Unfortunately, it has successfully packed the Supreme Court, and the forces of racism will, as they did at various points in our history, be able to sustain racist policies. (These sad episodes are detailed in the book. Plessey v. Ferguson is just one in a line of shameful decisions.)

There is insufficient room in this post to really get into the details, but the careful targeting of voter laws is so obviously about keeping the “wrong” people from voting. Namely, minorities and impoverished people. But mostly minorities. It is flagrantly obvious. Seriously, get the book for this part alone.

In the end, this book left me with some conflicted feelings. On the one hand, it is depressing to see the sordid history. The United States is so very fucked up, and has been since the beginning. Our national sin is racism, and we continue to return to our vomit, as the good book has it. Furthermore, given the GOP packing of the courts, the return to open racism under Trump, and the lessons of history, it is obvious that we are in for a rough stretch. And by “we,” I probably should mean “non-whites.” We are in the middle of a paroxysm of white rage right now, a whitelash against Obama and demographic change a changing America. “Make America Great Again” is nothing more than a call to return to a time when women and n----rs knew their place, a cry of rage by whites at the very idea that they might have to make room at the table.

On the plus side, though, progress has continued despite white rage. The good people of the world have continued to push for positive change, and it has come, incrementally. I hope I live long enough to see another era, when the damage from this one has been undone and we can move forward again. There are positive signs. In the previous iterations of white rage, racist bigots were the majority. I am not sure that is the case anymore. Trump is the second president in the last three to win without a majority of votes - and that despite the suppression of black votes. White Evangelicalism, the biggest incubator of racist hatred, is on the decline - this is, in my view, their last gasp of rage before their decline into cultural and political irrelevance. When the Boomers stop writing checks, we will see mass bankruptcy among churches and para-church hate groups. Yes, this will likely take a few decades - I will be an old man - but we can do it.

As I noted above, this book is thoroughly researched and footnoted. Prepare to have your idols thrown to the ground, from Lincoln to Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt to Eisenhower to your favorite modern conservative politicians. White Supremacy is endemic to our nation, and inescapable in our history. Until we truly confront that reality - and repent - we will continue to suffer the devastating effects of that poison.

I am putting this book on my list of suggestions for those who, like myself, are working to detox from a lifetime of immersion in toxic politics and theology.

***

If you haven’t read it, the Washington Post article which sparked the book is fantastic.

***

Just a reminder: Roy Moore, that darling of white Evangelicals, in an address to a religious conference, that the Voting Rights Act (and the Civil Rights Act) were America's biggest mistake. And people wonder why I left that cesspit? Or why Evangelicals are viewed with contempt by those outside the bubble? Take a look in the mirror...

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Volume One by M. T. Anderson

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

This book was recommended by a friend. I listened to it with three of my kids: my eldest daughter, age 15; and my sons, ages 12 and 10. They are the ones who were interested in backpacking with me and brother-in-law, so we listened to it on that trip.

This book is probably not suitable for all children. The subject matter is difficult, disturbing, and uncomfortable in the extreme. It isn’t as graphic as it could be, and the history behind the story is even worse, but some honesty is required. Nothing is gratuitous. Everything is necessary.

The story was loosely inspired by some real life events and institutions. The setting is the early American Revolution and the years before. The Novanglian College of Lucidity was inspired by various philosophical and scientific societies of the time. The “experiment” to determine if Africans were as intelligent as Europeans was actually a thing. The problem, of course, is that those who believed whites were superior couldn’t actually be persuaded by evidence then any more than they are now. And, as now, the scales are far from equal to begin with.

The story is mostly told from the point of view of Octavian, a young African American living in Boston. His mother was enslaved when age 13, and pregnant with Octavian. The two of them are purchased by Mr. Gitney, the head of said College of Lucidity, and he raises Octavian with a classical and musical education. Gitney is fairly benevolent, and appears to want Octavian to succeed and prove the equality of the races.

However, things change when the English lord who has been funding the society dies. His heir comes to see if the society is worth funding, falls for Octavian’s mom, and tries to convince her to become his concubine. When she refuses, he attempts to rape her, and things go bad from there. The College is then thrown on the mercies of a new group of patrons, led by the villainous Mr. Sharpe, who represents the slaveholding wealthy of the South who wish to see Octavian fail.

Later in the book, at the outbreak of hostilities, Mr. Gitney holds a “pox party,” where the participants intentionally infect themselves with smallpox, in the hope that under ideal conditions, they will get milder, non-fatal doses. Unfortunately, some die anyway, including Octavian’s mom. He then escapes, and joins the American army briefly, before being recaptured. The book ends on a cliffhanger, which I assume will be resolved in the second book.

As this summary indicates, the subject matter itself is difficult. The fact of slavery is a blot on our nation, and on humankind in general. The racism inherent in the American institution is also a fact, and there is no sugar coating it. The author is pretty darn blunt about it, letting the various white characters say things that are horrifying to our modern ears, but which were very much in keeping with the times. This is pretty effective, since the story is mostly from Octavian’s point of view, and we have to hear all this racist poison as he would experience it. It truly is an offense against his humanity. He is considered chattel, and subhuman, and the white characters are flabbergasted that he can’t see things that way. (Hey, this sounds a LOT like many white people today!)

My kids really responded to this book, and are eager to read (or listen to) the next one. They are thoughtful and empathetic, and appreciate books like this that speak of history from the perspective of those wronged. While it may be a bit intense for younger kids, I highly recommend it for kids old enough to understand violence and oppression.

***

Note on Pox Parties:

These still exist, you know. Particularly for Chicken Pox. I am, as regular readers know, a big proponent of vaccination. I suffered through a bad case (although not life-threatening) of Chicken Pox when I was 12, and am thankful my kids won’t have to go through that.

The Pox Party in this book is rather interesting. To a degree, the College had a good point: survival rates would be better for people in a controlled environment, with what supportive care the medicine of the time could provide, warmth, food, and water. Certainly better than getting it at, say, Valley Forge in starvation conditions. But still, quite dangerous, and far from ideal. In 1775, this was the best they had, though. Smallpox is really contagious, and was going around at the time. Prevention wasn’t an option, and the spectre hung over all who hadn’t already survived it and become immune.

It was 21 years later, in 1796, that Edward Jenner proved the first successful vaccine - and by the time I was born, Smallpox was eradicated as a result. Here’s hoping we do the same for Polio and Measles and Rubella and…

Friday, December 8, 2017

Of Course Roy Moore Defends Slavery and Segregation

Roy Moore may or may not be a new name to you, but I have known of him for literally decades. You see, he is practically worshiped in the ultraconservative homeschool circles I grew up in. It is no mystery why.

In my very first religious/political post a number of years ago, I discussed the roots of the Reconstructionist Movement in White Supremacy. It’s a long post, but there is a lot of information in it. Essentially, Christian homeschooling has followed one of two paths. One is the Raymond and Dorothy Moore (no relation to Roy, from what I can tell) path of providing individualized education. This is how and why my own family ended up homeschooling, and I think it is a positive. The other is the Rousas Rushdoony path: Reconstructionism, Culture Wars, and Theocracy.

Roy Moore is a Reconstructionist. Pure and simple. That is important to know.

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Roy Moore has been in the news lately because the various women who he flirted with/dated/groped against their will when they were in their teens (and he was in their 30s) are coming forward and blowing his cover.

That Moore did this really isn’t a surprise to those of us who grew up in that subculture. I mean, many of the leaders from Bill Gothard to Doug Phillips (a very close friend of Moore, by the way…) have gotten busted for getting sexual with the young girls. And also, as we know, the subculture itself kind of pushes the young girl, older man dynamic for sexist reasons. See also fellow Gothardism survivor Katherine Brightbill’s LA Times article - and note Matthew and Maranatha Chapman, who were idolized in my wife’s fundie home church…) It is disappointing, but not exactly surprising that Evangelicals will defend this guy. It didn’t stop them from voting for another pussy grabber, after all. I think in particular, white baby boomer Evangelicals are impossibly clueless as to the damage their support of people like Moore has done to the reputation of the Christian faith here in America. But hey, they got their tax cut, right?

But I wanted to discuss a couple of other things about Moore.

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Moore came to his hero status because of the Ten Commandments war, of which more later. It was his willingness to defy the law (and the Constitution) to further his view of America as a theocracy that made him popular in Fundamentalist circles.

But I think there was more to it than that. I linked my post above because there is a strong and clear connection between the Culture Wars™ and White Supremacy that continues today.

And Roy Moore is Exhibit A.

Let’s start with Segregation. Alabama, obviously, has a long and sordid history when it comes to this issue. (It also was the site of some of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest triumphs. The two are definitely related…)

Roy Moore has gone on the record several times in support of Segregation.

The Guardian in 2004 noted that Moore was one of the opponents to a ballot initiative to remove (unconstitutional) language in the state constitution providing for segregated schools.

In an address to a religious conference a few years back, he went on a familiar screed about how God has (allegedly) been removed from government. It’s a familiar bit of red meat to Fundies, of course. But it is what came next that is interesting. He went right from “kicked prayer out of schools” to...wait for it… “created new rights in 1965.”

Anyone familiar with a famous law from that year? How about the Civil Rights Act of 1965. The one that ended Jim Crow and Segregation. You can find it on video starting at about the 11:00 mark.

That’s all bad enough, right? It gets worse.

Last month, on the Scott Beason show, Moore said that “Alabama always stands up for its rights” including “the Civil War conflict.” And yes, there is video.

And also recently, in a rally in Florence, Moore was asked by one of the few African Americans in the audience when he thought America was great. Here is his response:

“I think it was great at the time when families were united — even though we had slavery — they cared for one another…. Our families were strong, our country had a direction.”

Isn’t that interesting. He could just have left the slavery bit out of it. But he didn’t. I think it was intentional, and the middle finger of friendship directed at the African American who asked the question. The answer to “when was America great?” is - to many from Trump on down - “when n----rs knew their place.”

And one more: Moore has made a centerpiece of his campaign against his opponent the fact that Doug Jones has supported the right of NFL players to kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality.

And said that kneeling is a violation of federal law.

If the law in question were to be taken to compel a certain kind of patriotic act, it is unquestionably unconstitutional. (No one has ever tried to enforce the law in that way - it is widely considered to be a suggestion, not a binding law.)

It isn’t too hard to see what is going on here. “Ungrateful athletes” is the new version of “uppity nigger” used against African American performers who dared to protest against injustice or assert their civil rights.

Moore isn’t even bothering to use a dog whistle. He is openly stating his racism and his belief that America was greater when we enslaved brown people.

Forget the sexual predation (which is bad, don’t get me wrong). The racism should disqualify Roy Moore by itself.

Unfortunately, as I have come to understand in the last couple of years, support for slavery and segregation not only does not disqualify a candidate with white Evangelicals. It is considered by many of them to be a point in the candidate’s favor.

These beliefs are also endemic to the Reconstructionist/Dominionist belief system. See for example Doug Wilson, slavery defender and pedophile protector. And the hate groups that masquerade as “family values.”

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Just a bit on the Ten Commandments and Same Sex Marriage issues.

The essential problem in both cases is that Roy Moore does not believe that the law is binding on him. If he disagrees with it, too bad. He wins and can do what he wants.

This is why he has been removed from office not once, but twice, by the Judicial ethics board in a very conservative state.

In the first case, he expended public money and space on a gigantic Ten Commandments monument. There was no higher cause here, just a desire to make a statement. A statement that we are a Christian Nation™, dammit, and we need to constantly remind everyone of that. (Particularly those damn Muslims…) Basically, an ego trip for Moore, a phenomenal waste of time and money, with no benefit to anyone.

The second was also a ridiculous ego trip with no benefit to anyone. After the US Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage, Moore took it on himself to defy the ruling.

Mind you, it wasn’t that he would himself refuse to perform weddings. No, he went so far as to order ALL state officials to refuse to follow the federal law. They were literally told that they must defy a federal order or lose their jobs. Even by the standards of Alabama conservatism, this was well over the top. And so he was again removed from the bench.

It’s not really a mystery why he has done both of these things. Both go back to his Reconstructionist beliefs, which is that [the fundamentalist interpretation] of the Bible should be the law of the land. (Ironically, he also rails against the imaginary threat of Sharia Law…) Thus, it doesn’t matter what the actual laws in our nation are. He knows better. And he should be allowed to enforce his own preferences over the actual laws of our nation.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe there is a time and a place for civil disobedience. Rosa Parks comes to mind, as do the thousands of brave men and women who worked on the Underground Railroad. I can even understand abortion protesters (although I think they are on the wrong track for a number of reasons.) If you are trying to help the oppressed, have at it. That is a legitimate reason to disobey a law - in the interest of true justice to those denied it.

But to do so for an ego trip over a monument? Seriously?

Or to assert your control over all the clerks in your state? It really is just a power and ego trip, which is absolutely what Roy Moore is and has always been about.

And that, as much as anything, is why he is utterly unqualified for office.

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I was a Republican until 2013, when I realized that the values of the party had changed radically, to the point where they were willing to shut down the government in order to try to force the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. (Because clearly cutting people off from health care was the most pressing concern for our nation…)

I am not the only one - in general, younger people are fleeing the GOP (except for the Alt-Right sorts.) Here is an interesting article by Kurt Bardella, former aide to Darrell Issa and Brietbart staffer. Let’s just say that when you are losing conservatives like this, you have a big problem.

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Just to be clear, I have every reason to believe that Roy Moore will be elected. Sadly, in our current political climate, the only thing that matters is whether you have an (R) or a (D) after your name. You can prey on women - or children. You can defend slavery and segregation, slander immigrants and Muslims, take away healthcare from the disabled and impoverished...doesn’t matter one bit.

And it particularly doesn’t matter to white Evangelicals. And I think that the racism and social darwinism are actually a major attraction, whether they will admit this to themselves or not.

This is and remains the part of the story that I believe is most important: the moral suicide of Evangelicalism.

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UPDATE December 12, 2017: Apparently I missed the time in 2011 that Moore went on a wingnut radio talk show, and said that getting rid of Constitutional Amendments after #10 would "eliminate many problems." I assume he means ones like these:

13th Amendment: abolished slavery.
14th Amendment: among other things, allowed non-whites to become citizens, gave equal protection of the laws to non-whites, and applied the Bill of Rights protections to State governments.
15th Amendment: gave non-whites the right to vote.
19th Amendment: gave women the right to vote.
24th Amendment: eliminated poll taxes.

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Wednesday, March 4, 2020

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead