African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song (Part 1)

Source of book: I own this.

 

Over the last couple of years, I have been adding to my increasingly extensive collection of poetry. Call it one of the benefits of the pandemic if you will, but my time in the evenings was more free (due to lack of music gigs), I have made a number of friends who share my interest, and poetry seems to be enjoying at least a modest resurgence, perhaps because it speaks to troubled times. 

 

I was thrilled to see Library of America come out with an anthology of African American poetry in 2020, edited by Kevin Young, and including many works that are nearly impossible to find elsewhere. I snapped up a copy using my “mad money,” aka credit card rewards. Before I get into the book in more detail, let me just say that this is a wonderful collection. Kevin Young’s introduction alone is enlightening, and the poems and poets collected both carefully and creatively chosen. Library of America is known for its high standards, and this book is no exception: I expect it to be the definitive anthology for decades to come. 

 

I didn’t officially read this for Black History Month, I read it during February. You can find all of my Black History Month selections here. 

 

The book is divided into eight sections, based on eras, and representing a tradition building on tradition. As Young describes it in the wonderful introduction, as with all literature and human thought, African American poetry is an ongoing conversation, and to fully understand a modern poem, one should really know what has come before, and thus where the new poem fits into that running conversation. 

 

As with all of my large anthologies, I try to read a section at a time, and in this case, I could use the divisions already in the book, rather than make my own, as I have with other books. 

 

Thus, this post is about the first section, entitled “Bury Me in a Free Land,” and which covers the rather long period between 1770 and 1899. 

 

Obviously, no anthology of African American poetry can be complete without acknowledging the writing of its queen mother, Phillis Wheatley. Ever since I discovered her in high school, she has been one of my heroes, and one of the poets I am always eager to share with others. In fact, I own and have read her complete poems - I wrote a post about her six years ago. Since I already quoted a few of her poems then, I will not do so in this post, not because she isn’t deserving, but because she has her own post and I want to highlight a few others. But by all means, I urge everyone to become familiar with her poetry, and the story of her life. In many ways, hers is the quintessential American story, and all us Americans should be proud to claim her as our own. 

 

I want to start out with a few lines from the introduction, which I already mentioned. Kevin Young has finally gotten some recognition in the last few years, not least by being being appointed last year as the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. (That’s on my list if I ever get to visit DC.) The introduction doesn’t just introduce the anthology; rather, it is a powerful reflection on revolutionary power of poetry, and the way that poets (and their musical antecedents) have always been revolutionaries, speaking truth to power, even when power didn’t realize it was being subverted. It’s a wonderful journey, and it made me eager to read more by Young. Here is one bit that was particularly memorable, the opening lines:

 

For more than 250 years, African Americans have written and recited and published poetry about beauty and injustice, music and muses, Africa and America, freedoms and foodways, Harlem and history, funk and opera, boredom and longing, jazz and joy. The wrote about what they saw around them and also what they dreamt up - even if it was a dream deferred, derailed, or flat-out denied. In sonnets and anthems, odes and epics, Black poets in the Americas confronted violence and indifference, legal barriers to reading and writing, illegal suppression of voting rights, and outright threats to their personhood, livelihood, and neighborhoods. The wrote from a world they made and a world that, at times, seemed designed to distract at best, to dis or destroy at worst. For African Americans, the very act of composing poetry proves a form of protest. 

 

Later in the introduction, Young quotes James Weldon Johnson, poet, writer, and lawyer, regarding what Johnson saw as the true greatness of a people. And Johnson would know - he wrote the “Negro National Anthem,” “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” By the way, Johnson was the subject of my very first Black History Month post, originally on Facebook, and republished on my blog here. 

 

“A people may become great by many means, but there is only one measure by which its greatness is recognized and acknowledged. The final measure of the greatness of all peoples is the amount and standard of the literature and art they have produced.” 

 

Which is why we remember the ancient Greeks as a great civilization. Nobody would have cared about their senseless wars except that their great art has memorialized their culture in works as beautiful and timeless as any ever written. And, I believe with all my heart, the greatness that exists in the United States of America has always been seen, not it its military or economic might, but in the great art that it has contributed to the world - and the roots of our enduring contributions to art and culture and particularly music are in the African American traditions and culture that are the most truly American thing we can claim. (Stay tuned for my review of Albert Murray’s book on that theme…) 

 

So, let’s get into the poetry. I am just hitting highlights that I particularly enjoyed this time. Because it is an anthology of the best, I would imagine that each reader might see different things each time they read. 

 

First up is one by Benjamin Banneker, one of the most fascinating men of his era. A free black, he was a self-educated scientist, inventor, writer, and poet. Among his most famous writings are a series of what we would call “word problems” - mathematical questions posed in a story, and in his case, poetry. 

 

A Mathematical Problem in Verse

 

A cooper and vintner sat down for a talk,

Both being so groggy that neither could walk;

Says cooper to vintner, "I'm the first of my trade,

There's no kind of vessel but what I have made,

And of any shape, sir, just what you will,

And of any size, sir, from a tun to a gill."

"Then," says the vintner, "you're the man for me.

Make me a vessel, if we can agree.

The top and the bottom diameter define,

To bear that proportion as fifteen to nine,

Thirty-five inches are just what I crave,

No more and no less in the depth will I have;

Just thirty-nine gallons this vessel must hold,

Then I will reward you with silver or gold, —

Give me your promise, my honest old friend."

"I'll make it tomorrow, that you may depend!"

So, the next day, the cooper, his work to discharge,

Soon, made the new vessel, but made it too large:

He took out some staves, which made it too small,

And then cursed the vessel, the vintner, and all.

He beat on his breast, "By the powers" he swore

He never would work at his trade any more.

Now, my worthy friend, find out if you can,

The vessel's dimensions, and comfort the man!

 

Feel free to solve it yourself, or you can check out “Puzzle 5” here

 

Next up is George Moses Horton. He has the distinction of being the first African American author first published in the United States. He attempted to earn enough with his first collection to buy his own freedom, but failed and had to wait until Lincoln and the Union army ended enslavement. The book includes several of his poems, and it was really hard to choose. But I am going with this one. 

 

The Art of a Poet

 

True nature first inspires the man,

But he must after learn to scan,

    And mark well every rule;

Gradual the climax then ascend,

And prove the contrast in the end,

    Between the wit and fool.

 

A fool tho’ blind, may write a verse,

And seem from folly to emerge,

    And rhyme well every line;

One lucky, void of light, may guess,

And safely to the point may press,

    But this does not refine.

 

Polish mirror, clear to shine,

And streams must run if they refine.

    Am widen as they flow;

The diamonds water lies concealed,

Till polished it is ne’re revealed,

    Its glory bright to show.

 

A bard must traverse o’er the world,

Where things concealed must rise unfurled

    And tread the foot of yore;

Tho’ he may sweetly harp and sing,

But strictly prune the mental wing,

    Before the mind can soar.

 

 Plenty of us have known the sort who haven’t put in the necessary work to learn how to polish. I have endured plenty of “poems” that were more like imitative stream of consciousness than word music. (I might add that the poems I wrote in my teens, both for school and for amusement, were both technically correct, and poor poetry. I’m better at enjoying the art of others than actually writing anything worth reciting.) 

 

Female writers often tend to get the short shrift, particularly if they were from the Victorian Era and non-white. Thus, it is satisfying to see so many excellent female poets represented in this collection. The next poem is by Sarah Louisa Forten, badass abolitionist and early intersectional feminist. 

 

The Grave of the Slave

 

The cold storms of winter shall chill him no more,

His woes and his sorrows, his pains are all o'er;

The sod of the valley now covers his form,

He is safe in his last home, he feels not the storm.

 

The poor slave is laid all unheeded and lone.

Where the rich and the poor find a permanent home;

Not his master can rouse him with voice of command;

He knows not and hears not his cruel demand;

 

Not a tear, nor a sigh to embalm his cold tomb,

No friend to lament him, no child to bemoan;

Not a stone marks the place where he peacefully lies,

The earth for the pillow, his curtain the skies.

 

Poor slave, shall we sorrow that death was thy friend,

The last and the kindest that heaven could send?

The grave of the weary is welcomed and blest;

And death to the captive is freedom and rest. 

 

Ah yes, Death the great leveler. But also, the horror of the feeling that death is better than life. It is something that has haunted me since childhood. And something I see played out daily in our own time, when LGBTQ kids feel death is preferable to life. I cannot understand being so obsessed with one’s ideology that one accepts the death of children - or human beings generally - as acceptable collateral damage in the culture wars. Forten certainly got that, as her writings attest. 

 

One of the amusing authors in this collection was David Drake, who was best known as a potter. A potter who put poetic aphorisms on his pots: witty, poignant, and just bizarre by turns. Here are a few:

 

I wonder where is all my relations

Friendship to all - and every nation

 

---

 

A noble jar

For lard or tar

 

---

 

The sun moon and - stars =

In the west are a plenty of - bears

 

There is also a collection of poems from Les Cenelles, a collection of poems by free creoles of color in New Orleans. The poems were originally in French, but are translated in this collection. This one by Pierre Dalcour was translated by Langston Hughes.

 

The evening start that in the vaulted skies

Sweetly sparkles, gently flashes,

To me is less lovely than a glance of your eyes

    Beneath their brown lashes. 

 

Next up is a devastating critique of the United States, by James M. Whitfield. The son of parents who fled enslavement, he was both the friend of Frederick Douglass, and his opponent on the issue of whether American Blacks should return to Africa. (Douglass believed African Americans were as American as anyone and belonged here. Whitfield believed a return to Africa was best. After emancipation, however, Whitfield decided to move to California instead, where he believed there was sufficient opportunity for blacks.) In any event, this is a moving poem, and it certainly is evidence that “Critical Race Theory” is nothing new either as an idea, or as a bogeyman for racist reactionary whites. 

 

America

 

America, it is to thee,

Thou boasted land of liberty,—

It is to thee I raise my song,

Thou land of blood, and crime, and wrong.

It is to thee, my native land,

From whence has issued many a band

To tear the black man from his soil,

And force him here to delve and toil;

Chained on your blood-bemoistened sod,

Cringing beneath a tyrant's rod,

Stripped of those rights which Nature's God

   Bequeathed to all the human race,

Bound to a petty tyrant's nod, 

   Because he wears a paler face.

Was it for this, that freedom's fires

Were kindled by your patriot sires?

Was it for this, they shed their blood,

On hill and plain, on field and flood?

Was it for this, that wealth and life

Were staked upon that desperate strife,

Which drenched this land for seven long years

With blood of men, and women's tears?

When black and white fought side by side, 

   Upon the well-contested field,—

Turned back the fierce opposing tide, 

   And made the proud invader yield—

When, wounded, side by side they lay, 

   And heard with joy the proud hurrah

From their victorious comrades say 

   That they had waged successful war,

The thought ne'er entered in their brains

   That they endured those toils and pains,

To forge fresh fetters, heavier chains

For their own children, in whose veins

Should flow that patriotic blood,

So freely shed on field and flood.

Oh no; they fought, as they believed, 

   For the inherent rights of man;

But mark, how they have been deceived 

   By slavery's accursed plan.

They never thought, when thus they shed 

   Their heart's best blood, in freedom's cause

That their own sons would live in dread, 

   Under unjust, oppressive laws:

That those who quietly enjoyed 

   The rights for which they fought and fell,

Could be the framers of a code, 

   That would disgrace the fiends of hell!

Could they have looked, with prophet's ken, 

   Down to the present evil time, 

   Seen free-born men, uncharged with crime,

Consigned unto a slaver's pen,—

Or thrust into a prison cell,

With thieves and murderers to dwell—

While that same flag whose stripes and stars

Had been their guide through freedom's wars

As proudly waved above the pen

Of dealers in the souls of men!

Or could the shades of all the dead, 

   Who fell beneath that starry flag,

Visit the scenes where they once bled, 

   On hill and plain, on vale and crag,

By peaceful brook, or ocean's strand, 

   By inland lake, or dark green wood,

Where'er the soil of this wide land 

   Was moistened by their patriot blood,—

And then survey the country o'er, 

   From north to south, from east to west,

And hear the agonizing cry

Ascending up to God on high,

From western wilds to ocean's shore, 

   The fervent prayer of the oppressed;

The cry of helpless infancy 

   Torn from the parent's fond caress

By some base tool of tyranny,

   And doomed to woe and wretchedness;

The indignant wail of fiery youth, 

   Its noble aspirations crushed,

Its generous zeal, its love of truth, 

   Trampled by tyrants in the dust;

The aerial piles which fancy reared, 

   And hopes too bright to be enjoyed,

Have passed and left his young heart seared, 

   And all its dreams of bliss destroyed.

The shriek of virgin purity, 

   Doomed to some libertine's embrace,

Should rouse the strongest sympathy 

   Of each one of the human race;

And weak old age, oppressed with care, 

   As he reviews the scene of strife,

Puts up to God a fervent prayer, 

   To close his dark and troubled life.

The cry of fathers, mothers, wives, 

   Severed from all their hearts hold dear,

And doomed to spend their wretched lives 

   In gloom, and doubt, and hate, and fear;

And manhood, too, with soul of fire,

And arm of strength, and smothered ire,

Stands pondering with brow of gloom,

Upon his dark unhappy doom,

Whether to plunge in battle's strife,

And buy his freedom with his life,

And with stout heart and weapon strong,

Pay back the tyrant wrong for wrong,

Or wait the promised time of God, 

   When his Almighty ire shall wake,

And smite the oppressor in his wrath,

And hurl red ruin in his path,

And with the terrors of his rod, 

   Cause adamantine hearts to quake.

Here Christian writhes in bondage still, 

   Beneath his brother Christian's rod,

And pastors trample down at will, 

   The image of the living God.

While prayers go up in lofty strains, 

   And pealing hymns ascend to heaven,

The captive, toiling in his chains, 

   With tortured limbs and bosom riven,

Raises his fettered hand on high, 

   And in the accents of despair,

To him who rules both earth and sky, 

   Puts up a sad, a fervent prayer,

To free him from the awful blast 

   Of slavery's bitter galling shame—

Although his portion should be cast 

   With demons in eternal flame!

Almighty God! Ât is this they call 

   The land of liberty and law;

Part of its sons in baser thrall 

   Than Babylon or Egypt saw—

Worse scenes of rapine, lust and shame, 

   Than Babylonian ever knew,

Are perpetrated in the name 

   Of God, the holy, just, and true;

And darker doom than Egypt felt,

May yet repay this nation's guilt.

Almighty God! thy aid impart,

And fire anew each faltering heart,

And strengthen every patriot's hand,

Who aims to save our native land.

We do not come before thy throne, 

   With carnal weapons drenched in gore,

Although our blood has freely flown, 

   In adding to the tyrant's store.

Father! before thy throne we come, 

   Not in the panoply of war,

With pealing trump, and rolling drum, 

   And cannon booming loud and far;

Striving in blood to wash out blood, 

   Through wrong to seek redress for wrong;

For while thou 'rt holy, just and good, 

   The battle is not to the strong;

But in the sacred name of peace, 

   Of justice, virtue, love and truth,

We pray, and never mean to cease, 

   Till weak old age and fiery youth

In freedom's cause their voices raise,

And burst the bonds of every slave;

Till, north and south, and east and west,

The wrongs we bear shall be redressed.

 

That is an indictment of the true history of America on par with that of the Hebrew prophets - and every bit as true and necessary as what they wrote. 

 

On a related note is this poem by Benjamin Clark. His narrator chooses to leave the land of his birth, and seek freedom and equality. 

 

The Emigrant

 

Adieu to the land of my birth—

Proud land of the slave and the free!

What charms have thy bosom on earth

For men of complexion like me?

 

In this boasted land of the free

I've suffered contumely and scorn;

And cannot relate what I see

Is reserved for millions unborn.

 

If places on earth can be found

Untainted by slavery's breath,

I'll find them, or search the world round

Till my sorrows are ended in death.

 

Thy liberty is but a name—

A byword—a jargon, in fine!

Thy freemen of colour—oh shame!—

Are glad to escape from thy clime!

 

Adieu to thy stripes and thy stars,

That vauntingly float o'er the main!

Adieu to thy Lynch-laws and jars,

Thy fetters, thy charter, and chain!

 

I go to the Isles of the Sea,

Where men are not judged by their hue!

Where all are protected and free—

My native land, therefore, adieu!

 

I would be remiss if I failed to include a sonnet. After all, it is my favorite poetic form, and one which requires great skill to execute well. Oh, and the author of this one, Henrietta Cordelia Ray, has “Cordelia” in her name - the name of one of my children. Also, I like the poem. 

 

Self-Mastery

 

To catch the spirit in its wayward flight

Through mazes manifold, what task supreme!

For when to floods has grown the quiet stream,

Much human skill must aid its rage to fight;

And when wild winds invade the solemn night,

Seems not man’s vaunted power but a dream?

And still more futile, ay, we e’en must deem

This quest to tame the soul, and guide aright

Its restless wanderings, – to lure it back

To shoals of calm. Full many a moan and sigh

Attend the strife; till, effort merged in prayer,

Oft uttered, clung to – when of strength the lack

Seems direst – brings the answer to our cry:

A gift from Him who lifts our ev’ry care.

 

This is a Petrarchan sonnet, with two quatrains setting out the problem or idea. I love that she puts the “turn” mid-sentence - at exactly the right place. So, we have the wandering soul that needs a bit of discipline, so to speak. And at the point of “this quest to tame the soul and guide aright,” the poem switches to the second part, the contrast, with “its restless wanderings.” The soul has wandered just over the break, to be corralled with the last six lines, that taming and direction hard earned. And indeed, even then, the last lines twist and turn, start and stop, as the wayward soul is only barely tied down. And indeed, the form of the poem undermines its ostensible meaning. Is the taming of that soul a good thing…or is it maybe not. As I feel the poem, the poet indeed laments the “self-mastery” she praises. She mourns the capture of the soul even as she insists that some boundaries are necessary. Does she intend a subtle dig at the system of enslavement itself, which “tames” human souls in the name of order? It is a deliciously ambiguous poem, which is why I love it. It also reminds me of the works of Soviet Era composers, who hid protest in garishly patriotic works. Satire is too subtle for those without imagination. 

 

The book quotes some sections of a much longer poem, The Rape of Florida, by Albery A. Whitman. Even the section reproduced is a bit long to quote, but I did want to quote one stanza that is particularly good. 

 

XII.

 

If earth were freed from those who buy and sell,

It soon were free from most, or all its ills;

For that which makes it, most of all, a hell,

Is what the stingy of purse and Fortune fills:

The man who blesses and the man who kills,

Oft have a kindred purpose after all,

A purpose that will ring in Mammon’s tills;

And that has ne’re unheeded made a call,

Since Eva and Adam trod the thistles of their Fall.

 

I will end with a few selections of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, whose poems are some of my favorites in this collection. Another badass feminist, she fought back against the stereotypes of “hypersexuality” used by white men to justify their rape of black women. In addition to poetry, she wrote novels and non-fiction. 

Pictures of authors from this period are difficult or impossible to find. However, there is one of Frances Harper.

 

Let me start with a couple stanzas from “Learning to Read,” a powerful narrative about the way African Americans defied their enslavers and educated themselves. These stanzas seem so applicable to the way that our current Southern (formerly Confederate) states are trying to muzzle teachers to prevent them from teaching accurate history about minorities and LGBTQ people. The more things change…

 

Very soon the Yankee teachers 

Came down and set up school;

But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it, - 

It was agin’ their rule.

 

Our masters always tried to hide

Book learning from our eyes;

Knowledge did’nt agree with slavery -

‘Twould make us all too wise.

 

When you hear “elitists” today, understand this is the exact same dynamics of the “Yankees” and “Rebs” described here. The racists don’t want accurate history taught, and they don’t want critical thinking or factual knowledge. They want propaganda that makes them feel good about themselves. 

 

Also powerful is “A Double Standard,” a tale of a black woman who commits suicide after being impregnated by a white man. Harper takes on both double standards: the one that blames women for sex, and the one that excuses whites as they prey on blacks. Throughout, she uses the metaphorical meanings of black and white as well - the supposedly pure “white” and fallen “black.” And then she turns them on their heads. Here is the killer stanza:

 

I think before His great white throne, 

His throne of spotless light,

That whited sepulchers shall wear

The hue of endless night. 

 

I will end with the title poem for this section, a beautiful poem of longing and a poignant cry for justice. 

 

Bury Me in a Free Land

 

Make me a grave where'er you will,

In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill; 

Make it among earth's humblest graves,

But not in a land where men are slaves.

 

I could not rest if around my grave

I heard the steps of a trembling slave;

His shadow above my silent tomb

Would make it a place of fearful gloom.

 

I could not rest if I heard the tread

Of a coffle gang to the shambles led,

And the mother's shriek of wild despair

Rise like a curse on the trembling air.

 

I could not sleep if I saw the lash

Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,

And I saw her babes torn from her breast,

Like trembling doves from their parent nest.

 

I'd shudder and start if I heard the bay

Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey,

And I heard the captive plead in vain

As they bound afresh his galling chain.

 

If I saw young girls from their mother's arms

Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,

My eye would flash with a mournful flame,

My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.

 

I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might

Can rob no man of his dearest right;

My rest shall be calm in any grave

Where none can call his brother a slave.

 

I ask no monument, proud and high,

To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;

All that my yearning spirit craves,

Is bury me not in a land of slaves.

 

I hope all of us decent human beings can resonate with that cry, that longing, that vision for a better future for all of us. 

 

Full Spectrum by Adam Rogers

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

 

Yet another book that was just sitting there on the new books display that I couldn’t resist picking up. 

 

Full Spectrum is a book that combines multiple areas of study, from history and anthropology to physics and anatomy. Color, after all, isn’t a “real” thing as such, but the creation of our own brains. It is our interpretation of our sensing of electromagnetic radiation of a narrow range of wavelengths. Furthermore, our sensors do not even pick up all the colors we see, but combine the three main (“primary”) wavelength ranges we detect into an extrapolation of the other colors that exist, but are not directly sensed. 

 

Which is why humans can mix red and green light, and see yellow. 

 

In this book, Adam Rogers looks at our understanding of color as it relates to the human technologies of reproducing it. Thus, the paleolithic cave paintings are the start. We know for sure that the basic earth tones - ochres - as well as black and white were well known to the ancients. 

 

Admittedly, it is possible that they used other paint colors too, but these would have faded with time. Or, maybe they didn’t know how to make the other colors in paint. Either way, the ability to create permanent greens and blues in particular came later in human history. 

 

Thus, the book looks at how these additional color technologies went hand in hand with our scientific understanding of what color was, how we sense it, and how we could better utilize it. 

 

As this basic summary indicates, this is a bit of an offbeat book, one that wanders down some fascinating alleyways, and one that ends up in some unexpected places. After all, everything tends to connect to everything else at some point, and following the connections is part of the fun. 

 

Thus, the book moves from the ancient artwork to the ceramics trade - and competition between China and Abbasids. It contains a chapter on Lead White - for centuries the gold, er, maybe the lead standard for white pigments, despite its toxicity. There is a chapter on the Chicago World’s Fair and the relationship of white as a color to racial “whiteness,” among other things. There is a detailed history of the discovery of Titanium and its eventual ubiquity as the far safer replacement of lead in making everything white. Eventually, it gets to the way that screens and color technology can make us “see” colors that do not actually exist, allowing for new artistic techniques. And, of course, there is a chapter on “The Dress,” that internet phenomenon that ended up sparking a whole area of scientific inquiry into color perception. In fact, the article that went viral about the dress was written by none other than Adam Rogers.  

 

As one might expect from an author who writes for Wired, the book has a modern feel to it, with a bit of snark, and a casual feel to the writing that belies the extensive research that went into the book - including the 32 pages of citations, long bibliography, and index. Make no mistake, this book has very high informational content, but it also has a lot of Rogers’ personality in it as well. 

 

Here are some highlights. 

 

Between the world of everything outside your skull and the thoughtful aspic inside it are sensors, biological marvels studding the outside of your body that, in ways both understood and not so much, take input from that outside world of subatomic particles and turn it into impulses that your think-meat can use to create a sensible impression of the world. 

 

That term, “thoughtful aspic” is brilliant, in my opinion. 

 

Rogers does have a bit of a bone to pick with the education he received, particularly the “Western-centric” paradigm which glorified Western thinkers, while mostly ignoring every other civilization. This was apparent in how most of us learn about the history of science and math. So, the book talks about Aristotle and his mostly wrong conception of color - although he did get close to the truth about how rainbows formed - and his belief that colors couldn’t mix. 

 

Yet Aristotle’s vision of the world stuck. Writing four hundred years later, Pliny argued that it was somehow indecent to introduce new colors and pigments. Plutarch was explicit in his derision for color mixing, suggesting that the Homeric world for dyeing actually meant “tainting” and that mixed pigments were not pure and virginal. 

 

I could write at length about how this basic concept is bound up with the way of thinking that resists all change, and brutally punishes anyone who disproves the rigid categories proclaimed by the priests. Just as Aristotle couldn’t imagine colors mixing, his heirs decided that the fact that the do in fact mix was somehow immoral. There is definitely a similarity in the historical Western approach to gender, to name just one area. But knowledge didn’t stop with the ancients. 

 

History used to take a little break right here. The next beat in the eternally swelling rhythm of white-man progress usually falls on Isaac Newton, who blows a rainbow out of a prism, figures out how colored light works, and invents physics. But that isn’t the way it happened. Over the next few hundred years, someone had to sort out the mess Aristotle had made of light, pigment, and rainbows. That dawning awareness refracts through Cairo and Baghdad.

 

This is exactly how science is taught, isn’t it? Likewise, we tend to hear about the ancient Greeks and their math - Archimedes and Pythagorus, and so on. And then we get Newton and Leibniz and calculus. But what happened in the middle? Well, a hell of a lot - literally most of what you learn in pre-college math, that’s what. From the development of zero as a placeholder, probably in India, to the crowning achievement of the Islamic world, Algebra. 

 

Less snarky but a lot of fun was Rogers’ description of spending time at the Louvre looking extremely closely at paintings, and the ways of suggesting three dimensions. He eventually stopped being able to see the shapes at all, and decided to clear his head by looking at a three dimensional object without much color - “I settled on early-twentieth-century cocktail glasses.” 

 

When Rogers gets to Newton, he notes that we may have the Bubonic Plague to thank for his breakthroughs in color physics. After all, Cambridge canceled all classes in 1665 due to the plague, so he had nothing better to do than conduct experiments by himself. 

 

Rogers also takes aim at sexism throughout the book, in particular the idea that “form” is superior to “color” - a bit of a truism in art for many centuries, and the way that color has been associated with femininity. From the early church father Jerome, who whined about makeup - “They serve only to inflame young men’s passions, to stimulate lust, and to indicate an unchaste mind” - to the renaissance artists who ignored and indeed buried the fact that all of those Greek statues were once brilliantly painted in full color. Not that one is needed, but this is a reminder that the old men who wrote most of western christian theology had a huge misogyny problem. 

 

Speaking of issues of political import, in giving the history of lead paint, Rogers describes the Victorian Era fight to regulate toxic industries. The lead mills were targeted by Dickens, and Dr. Thomas Oliver served on the commission that eventually started regulating workplace hazards in England. 

 

Not that he was exactly a paragon of virtue, though. His first goal was to outlaw women working in the lead mills, on the grounds that lead poisoning hurt fertility. (It does, but for men too…) 

 

Oliver eventually lobbied successfully for laws that banned women from the work, which both helped fix the problem and is exactly the kind of sexism that keeps women from being as well employed and well compensated as men - the invention of occupational health as a practice was aimed more at the health of women’s potential babies than the women themselves. 

 

Needless to say, then as now, the people who profited from pollution fought every single regulation, blaming supposedly careless workers rather than their own dangerous workplaces. Also, the United States was far behind the rest of the first world in banning lead paint. Europe mostly did before World War One, while we waited until the 1970s. 

 

Rogers later turns to the history of color printing, which is quite fascinating. One name that stands out is Jacob Le Blon, who developed the first practical three-color printing process. Few of his illustrations - mostly for science books - exist, but Rogers does mention one on displayed, of a dissected penis, done for a textbook written by William Cockburn. 

 

“In case you were worried that the history of color would fail to involve a dick pic and immature jokes, I have you covered.” 

 

In the middle of the discussion of the World Fair, and the contemporary association of whiteness with purity and goodness, Rogers notes the involvement of renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. (I highly recommend A Clearing in the Distance by Witold Rybczynski for more about Olmsted.) The designer of Central Park did not like the plan for those all-white buildings, and said so. And took some action of his own. 

 

He quietly urged his gardener to add more trees and foliage - the classic move of the passive-aggressive landscape architect who doesn’t like a building. 

 

There are plenty of rabbit holes like this that the book follows. Another is the question of the extent to which language dictates thought. This truism isn’t as true as its proponents claim, particularly since the question of which came first, the language or the idea, is a sticky wicket anyway. Because color is fairly objective at one level (frequencies of light are measurable), it has been used to test this idea. And, as the book shows, it has mostly created more questions than answers. It seems that trying to test this is devilishly difficult, and the elimination of bias pretty much impossible. But it makes for an interesting thought experiment. One thing that does seem to hold true is that men and women - on average - do experience color slightly differently, particularly when it comes to greens and blues. 

 

Men and women almost certainly perceive the colors in the grue region the same, but they describe them differently. This is the region of colorspace that launched a million arguments over whether this shirt goes with these pants.

 

I can attest to that. 

 

I also enjoyed a bit from the conclusion of the book, wherein the author describes a woo device he saw in Paris called the Bioptron - a thing that claims to cure medical issues with polarized light. 

 

The Bioptron has no side effects, the website claims, which doesn’t surprise me, because it seems unlikely that it has any effect effects, either. 

 

I will end with the ending sentence. Rogers writes mostly stuff for magazines, not books, so he has mastered the art of the pithy sentence.

 

Light bounces off a surface and into electrified meat and jelly mounted in the bony skull of our great-to-the-nth-grandparents, and they see what we would’ve seen: glorious color that lets the human mind observe and become a part of the universe at play. 

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Source of book: I own this.

 

This book is one of my official choices for Black History Month this year. (You can see the entire list on this page.) I have been meaning to read Toni Morrison for years, but never remembered to request a book from the library. Finally, we found a used hardback to add to our own collection, and I decided to give it priority for Black History Month this year. 

Having read it, I have somewhat mixed feelings about The Bluest Eye. On the positive side, Morrison’s writing is wonderfully evocative and beautiful and heartbreaking. On the other, I felt the weird structure of the book made it a bit hard to follow, and left the ending feeling disconnected from everything else. I don’t necessarily mind non-linear narratives, but when used, I think they should add something to the story arc, not diminish it, which is what I felt happened here. (For what it is worth, Morrison herself later felt the experimental structure was a mistake.) Still, the book is good and compelling and hard to put down. 

 

The other narrative quirk which works somewhat better is the use of the old Dick and Jane primers both as an opening “chapter” and as the title to various chapters. The words are all run together, but any of us who grew up with those in the house recognize the text and can conjure the illustrations. The books are ultra-white and suburban and of a particular era. They are also boring as hell, and vapid in their lack of anything interesting ever really happening. No wonder Dr. Seuss was able to upend the whole system with stories that kids actually wanted to read. Morrison’s contrast of the sanitized white family with the black families of her story is palpable. But also, the one white family - the one that Pauline cleans house for - is clearly not the family of Dick and Jane once you go even a millimeter below the surface. 

 

The Bluest Eye follows a family with generational trauma to its eventual disintegration after the father (Cholly) rapes his young daughter, impregnating her. Surrounding all this is the poverty and social stigma associated not merely with being black in a white supremacist society, but the effects of being disabled, or physically unattractive, or impoverished generally. It is a whole constellation of negative and traumatic effects that plague the entire society, black, white, and everyone else. 

 

One can see this first in Pauline Breedlove, who injures her foot as an infant, and thereafter walks with a limp. She is disabled, but also not particularly pretty, so she assumes nobody will love her - until Cholly comes along. Cholly has his own trauma - abandoned by his parents and raised by his great aunt until she dies when he is still young. He also has a traumatic sexual experience when he and his partner are surprised and mocked by a group of white men. 

 

This then trickles down to the next generation. Pauline plays the martyr to her drunken husband, while emotionally withdrawing from her children. Cholly drowns his trauma in alcohol and violence toward his family. And Pecola, the young daughter, decides that everything would be better for her if she just had blue eyes. Then, she would be pretty, and loved, and admired. 

 

That’s the main plot, but there are several subplots that come up, but often seem to fade away as soon as they start. The narrator is (mostly) Claudia MacTeer, a young friend and foster sister of Pecola. As a stable, middle class Black family, they have their own issues in society, from the bullying by the Italian immigrant family next door, to the mocking by the “yellow” - and thus more acceptable - light skinned blacks who also happen to have more money. 

 

There is also a subplot involving the local brothel and the prostitutes who are both stigmatized and in a way admired for their independence. There is a dirty old man who has buried his homosexuality by preying on young girls, while running a fortune-telling and spiritualist scam. 

 

Combine these with the flashbacks to the childhoods of Pauline and Cholly, and there is a lot going on in a book of a mere 200 pages. That’s why I felt that things were a bit messy and incoherent in layout, and I think that it would have worked better with a bit more linearity and probably a bit longer length so that the subplots could breathe a bit. 

 

As I noted above, the writing is beautiful: Morrison is skilled and talented, and compelling. There were many moments when I went back just to re-read a particular gem of a sentence or turn of phrase. I definitely want to read her other books. 

 

Here are a few highlights from the book:

 

The tiny, undistinguished days that Mrs. Breedlove lived were identified, grouped, and classed by these quarrels. They gave substance to the minutes and hours otherwise dim and unrecalled. They relieved the tiresomeness of poverty, gave grandeur to the dead rooms. In these violent breaks in routine that were themselves routine, she could display the style and imagination of what she believed to be her true self. To deprive her of these fights was to deprive her of all the zest and reasonableness of life. Cholly, by his habitual drunkenness and orneriness, provided them both with the material they needed to make their lives tolerable. 

 

That is just part of an amazing and perceptive passage on the dynamics of an abusive relationship. I have done a lot of domestic violence cases, and, while this is not the only kind of dynamic I have seen, it is definitely one of them. For Pauline, her very identity is tied up in being a martyr to Cholly. 

 

If Cholly had stopped drinking, she would never have forgiven Jesus. She needed Cholly’s sins desperately. The lower he sank, the wilder and more irresponsible he became, the more splendid she and her task became. In the name of Jesus.

 

There is a bit of that dynamic in my own family, I’m afraid. The need to pray for a “wayward” child gives meaning to life, and one’s own undistinguished days can feel better when you can look down on someone else for making different choices. Of course, for Cholly too, there is a reward in the dynamic. He never has processed his trauma, particularly that sexual trauma, and Pauline is a convenient way to numb that pain. 

 

No less did Cholly need her. She was one of the few things abhorrent to him that he could touch and therefore hurt. He poured out on her the sum of all his inarticulate fury and aborted desires. Hating her, he could leave himself intact.

 

Again, that is a dynamic I have seen a lot in violent intimate relationships. Morrison points out here and elsewhere that shame is a difficult emotion to handle, so we often turn it into anger. (Oh man, do I know what this feels like. Way too much.) Pecola herself does this when the store owner refuses to touch her hand, even to take her money.

 

Anger stirs and wakes in her; it opens its mouth, and like a hot-mouthed puppy, laps up the dredges of her shame. Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovely surging. 

 

This, unfortunately, raises some difficult - perhaps impossible - issues in our society. I think that one significant source of the Trumpist anger and rage on the part of many white people in our society is a sense of shame. This is a reason why there is the push to keep all honest teaching about history out of schools - white Americans have a lot to be ashamed of, and not just the past. But trying to avoid the shame isn’t helping, and it won’t just go away, because there are genuine reasons that the shame exists. Merely telling people that they shouldn’t feel ashamed won’t fix the problem - it will ultimately require them to stop doing the shameful things that bring the shame in the first place. 

 

It also contrasts with the shame that Pecola feels, because her shame is at being black in a society that considers her literally untouchable. Cholly has both kinds of shame, of course. His inappropriate shame and the shameful way those white men treated him feeds his doing shameful things - beating his wife, raping his daughter - that he should be ashamed of. It’s a tough nut, to be sure. 

 

Morrison also takes an unflattering look at light-skinned black girls from the city, who look down on Southern rural (and darker skinned) blacks like Pauline. 

 

They go to land-grant colleges, normal schools, and learn how to do the white man’s work with refinement: home economics to prepare his food; teacher education to instruct black children in obedience; music to soothe the weary master and entertain his blunted soul. Here they learn the rest of the lesson begun in those soft houses with porch swings and pots of bleeding heart: how to behave. The careful development of thrift, patience, high morals, and good manners. In short, how to get rid of the funkiness. The dreadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of nature, the funkiness of the wide range of human emotions.

 

While this is specifically about a certain kind of refined black woman, the project of a lot of white religion and white culture is quite similar. The elimination of passion, nature, and the full range of human emotions. In fact, that was literally a key part of Bill Gothard’s cult: the suppression of all “negative” emotions, particularly in children and women. It was the inculcation of a certain kind of “manners” that was every bit as subservient as what Morrison describes for refined black domestics. I am currently reading Walden Two by B. F. Skinner (stay tuned), and it takes a similar utopian approach to the messiness of human emotion to that of Gothard, although Skinner sought to eliminate the underlying causes of negative emotions, while Gothard just told you that negative emotions were evil, and had to be brutally suppressed, even at the cost of one’s psychological health. (The damage is real and widespread among ex-Gothard kids.) Morrison really nails how this plays out in her characters, with an inability to make emotional or sexual connection with a spouse or raise emotionally healthy children - after all, babies have messy emotions. Much easier to get a cat. 

 

Morrison points out that neither money nor whiteness protects against this dysfunction. In a way, the white family is the most dysfunctional, despite having plenty of money to paper over that fact. Once incident is fascinating. The woman rants at Pauline about the fact that her brother - who she put through dentistry school - hasn’t invited her to a party. 

 

All the while I was thinking how dumb she was. Whoever told her that her brother was her friend? Folks can’t like folks just ‘cause they has the same mama.

 

Oh yes. This question of the meaning of “family” can be a tough one. In some circumstances, economic or safety concerns require sticking together no matter what - a clan matters in time of war. But there is no automatic reason why sharing a mother (or father) guarantees friendship. In fact, in dysfunctional families like mine, what it leads to instead is flagrant favoritism and bullying behavior, all while expecting a loyalty that goes only one way. In families, as anywhere else, relationships must be earned and maintained, not taken for granted. 

 

The Bluest Eye was an interesting read. I think what surprised me the most was Morrison’s depth of understanding of human psychology and interpersonal dynamics. While the book is about the black experience and takes a hard look at the way whiteness is seen as beauty and virtue, most of what Morrison describes is universally human, between the unhealthy coping mechanisms, the emotional stunting, and the way we cage our own souls as we seek to cage the souls of others.