Colloquy with Frederick Douglass


MR. DOUGLASS AND I HAD A COLLOQUY



 We agreed we had no quarrel with American  patriotism, but we felt some urgency in the need to interrogate it.  Its origins in loving a land are noble, and its origins in genocide and theft are not.  Time and again women and men who bray each July 4th that they are willing to sacrifice their lives for the land of the brave and the home of the free must be reminded of those facts.  And we asked those men and women  this year why they are not yet dead.  And they were paralyzed for an answer.



As Mr. Douglass and I re-read "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?," the address he delivered in Rochester, New York, on 5 July 1852, we complimented his wisdom in not imitating Caliban, his directness in calling reason and rule of law into question, and his charity in acknowledging that people in his audience were his fellow citizens.  After all, as Mr. Douglass put it, Mr. David Walker did know what he was talking about.



We did not quibble about how  the concept of "sovereign people" becomes more abstract  as our nation ascends  into fascism.  We resorted to the consolation of philosophy to blunt the pain.  Mr. Douglass proposed that we dwell on the love and logic of Robert Hayden's sonnet "Frederick Douglass," because in that excellent poem I might discover once more why my life had not yet succeeded in "fleshing" the dream he and Hayden had in common of "the  beautiful, needful thing."  I was much humbled as Mr. Douglass sympathized with my plight in "degenerate time."



At the end of our colloquy, Mr. Douglass demanded that I remember and never forget that terrorism domestic and global does not kill hope.  It afflicts hope like a cancer for which we might find a cure.  He demanded also that I should never forget  



"Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago.  No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference.  The time was when such could be done.  Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity.  Knowledge was than confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked in darkness.  But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind."



Screwing up courage to the breaking point, I asked Mr. Douglass if the change included justice for indigenous peoples and reparations for kidnapped ones.  He glared at me most severely, saying

"No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light."  I dared not ask him why the sun refused to shine this year.





Jerry W. Ward, Jr.   July 4, 2019

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Christmas, Kwanzaa, 2018

Blog 12.19.2017 CHRISTMAS I have a reason for not being anxious to celebrate Advent and Christmas Day.   Sixty years ago, my father died on December 25.   Fifty-nine years ago, my favorite uncle died a few days before Christmas.   I do want other people to be happy, but I am most at peace when Christmas has gone with the snow, the sunshine or rain, the wind.   I still say "Merry Christmas."   The only genuine happiness I experience, however, is listening to Handel's "The Messiah" and a few songs I've treasured since childhood,   attending Midnight Mass, having home-made fruitcake   after Mass, and eating a special meal with relatives on the excessively commercialized holiday. KWANZAA Umoja ---Decide with whom you should seek unity. Kujichagulia --Expand the terms of engagement for 2018. Ujima ---Cooperate on a project with people you can trust. Ujamaa --Be frugal.   Shop selectively. Nia ---Remember ou...
Read more

implacable violence, part one

Implacable Violence, Part One The death of Senator John McCain quickens our   interest in how to deal with contemporary   narratives of life history.   McCain's touchstone story pertains to American conservative values, the consequences of trauma,   military and public service, violence, and   a sense of honor.   Barack Obama's differently remarkable narratives direct attention to the absence of military service, class and caste violence, the audacity of hope, centralist values, and diversity in the history of "race."   Narratives about McCain and Obama stand in noteworthy contrast to future narratives about Donald Trump, stories that may place ego in the foreground as they unfold tales of sexism, constipated values,     inadvertent racism, the violence of capitalism, sleight of mouth, and avoidance of military service.   Ego, self-fashioning, and boldness are apparent in the three sets of narrative, but excess lynches the Trump set...
Read more

Poem9.16.2019

THE POEM UNDONE To be addressed at a beach she thought most square. To be called to a window to see what ought to be heard. What might sting like a mosquito infecting one with knowledge. She thought of Yeats, of Leda, of time, the coming of a terrifying swan. Did he say the sea's calm, tamed by moonbeams, when sound visualized is turbulent? Is music's allegory of war no more than conceits of violence gathering to clash in the death of light? How violated can a body be? What's put in pain by a mosquito's ignorant gift, by its eternal tweet of sadness, by retarded misery's ebb and flow and slow torture of climate changing? Such faith, such hope, such charity did Antigone, imitating Isis,   sprinkle on a corpse. Honi   soit qui mal y pense and mea culpa invades the heart. Tragedy has gone with the breeze somewhere to fall apart in another country, t o alarm with ...
Read more