blog4.12.2021

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Our cultural bridges are valuable

 

A few days ago, a Chinese colleague expressed surprise that a few African Americans owned slaves before the end of the Civil War.  He considered THE KNOWN WORLD by Edward P. Jones to be an exceptional case of black writing about black humanity.  The cases are not unknown; they are for not so obvious reasons just rarely spoken about in the vast commentaries on American slavery.  Most often we regret and refuse to talk about the obscene. Yet, the obscene talks endlessly  about us.

 

The cultural bridges we have sought to maintain between ourselves and our Chinese comrades are paths on which we experience shocks of recognition.

 

I suggested to my comrade that he should read Carter G. Woodson's 1924 essay on free Negro owners of slaves,  Larry Koger's  Black Slaveowners (1985) and Thomas J. Pressly's "The Known World of Free Black Slaveholders," Journal of African American History 91.1 (2006): 81--87.  Cultural bridges have a way of throwing local "truths" into our minds. And black writing is a definitive godsend.

 

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.            April 12, 2021

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