Two Weighty Volumes

Two Weighty Volumes

I know you've seen lengthy volumes that go on and on.
Conversely some of the slimmest books pack a powerful punch and shake
even long held ideas. I spent a lot of a weekend pondering Toni
Morrison's The Origins of Others and Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the
World and Me.
"The necessity of rendering the slave a foreign species appears
to be a desperate attempt to confirm one's own self as normal. The
urgency of distinguishing between those who belong to the human race
and those who are non-human is so powerful that the spotlight turns
away and shines not on the object of degradation but on its
creator...The danger of sympathizing with the stranger is the
possibility of becoming a stranger. To lose one's rank is to lose
one's valued and enshrined difference."
Morrison realizes that individuals and groups do not engage in
behaviors that require effort unless there is an advantage in doing
so. In The Origin of Others she looks for the payoff for creating a
color binary. After all, it's artificial. White is not a genetic
marker. Black has been defined very creatively over the centuries.
In the paragraph quoted above, she points to both payoff of othering
and an implied threat that prevents would be rebels from stepping out
of line.
Othering can be a way of belonging to a larger group, generally
perceived as a superior group. It gives permission to treat the other
in a way one would never dream of treating in group members. The
other then must be shown to be different enough to deserve this abuse
because the actor must perceive self and be perceived by society as a
good person.
Slavery is one of the examples Morrison uses. Masters whipped,
mutilated, and killed their "property", way overworked and starved
them, and routinely broke up families by selling off members. Slaves
were portrayed as being inferior, lazy, helpless beings who could not
manage without the being ruled by "superiors."
Othering requires members of the in group to keep the bounderies
drawn. To cross the line carries the penalty of losing preferred
status. An example I witnessed thanks to the media happened during
the civil rights clashes of the sixties. Some northerners were
bothered by the way black people were denied any kind of opportunity,
disenfranchised, segregated in separate and very unequal schools, and
in general treated cruelly. They travelled south to help create
change. The n****r lovers were hated perhaps even more than the
people whose cause they championed because their actions were seen as
deliberate betrayal of their own.
Morrison and Coates both discuss the pervasiveness of color
othering and the fact that, rather than race engendering racism, the
concept of race was concocted and maintained to legitimize racism.
Coates keeps referring to people who want/need to be white.
"But race is the child of racism, not the father. And the
process of naming "the people" has never been a matter of geneology
and physiognomy as much as one of hierarchy. Difference in hue and
hair is old. But the belief in the preeminance of hue and hair, the
notion that these factors can correctly organize a society and that
they signify deeper attributes, which are indelible--this is the new
idea at the heart of these new people who have been hopelessly,
tragically, deceitfully, taught to believe that they are white."
Coates wrote Between the World and Me as an open letter to his
teen age son. It is very up close and personal. It shows his life
through the lens of precariousness, the fragile hold a black boy or
man has on his body when those who need to be white, even those who
pledge to serve and protect all people, pay little or no penalty for
killing them. It also reveals the toll this takes on heart, soul, and
mind.
One of the most poignant strands of Coates' narrative is his
description of the extreme physical punishments meted out to him and
his peers by parents. His father had said, "Either I can beat him, or
the police." It's cruel to put parents in a situation where their
children live in such peril they must beat them so they won't pay a
higher cost for misbehaving. Richard Wright, coming of age about a
half century before Coates, described a similar desperation instilled
tough love.
Dear readers, I urge you to read both books and give them the
time they deserve. Then, if your epidermis is a shade close to mine,
decide that you don't want to be "white" and accept the undue
privileges that accrue to this false identity. We all need to work
together to replace a cruel binary with a just and fair world of
inclusion.
On a personal note, Amber and Brian threw an awesome birthday party
for Eugene and Adam. They served burgers and fries and a bundt cake
that looked like a pink frosted doughtnut. Katie and Jacob came all
the way from Portland and Adam from around the corner. It was
precious beyond measure to have the family together.
Today is the first day at UMaine. It's snowing, but not looking too
ominous. I got done than I'd expected over vaca while having a
wonderful time. And I'm much more organized.
And the jury is still out on grad school.
Great big shout outs go out to my wonderful family and to the students
going back to classes at UMaine and other fine educational institutions.
jules hathaway




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