Mechal Sobel (1933–2021)

Intro note: The idea that white people and people of color make the world together is a true and relevant one. (Cf the two Abernathy’s: Haymitch and Ralph David).

Black people have to live in our world, and surely America in general has been influenced by Black culture—not least by the (!) wigger Nazis who (a) take the worst from both cultures, (b) only care about themselves, (c) aren’t honest, and (d) are easily triggered (cf Fox News—well—You Know).

I suppose there might be some Little Englanders left somewhere, but even most people in the UK have been directly or indirectly touched by people of color. Whether your best bet, though, is this at least arguably static recalcitrance where the LE can take American money and conscript South Asian bodies when the Empire is in danger, but still think that everything outside of their personal rose garden is demon-born, and devil-bred…. Are we really that fragile? (!) That said, I don’t think that everybody has to be a Baptist. (See the above.)

But whatever you are, you will sometime, someway, feel at least a gentle black breeze, eventually, (purple prose! Dark purple!), and I think it can be ok as long as you (a) take the best from both cultures, (b) care about other people, (c) tell the truth, and (d) allow other people to dislike you. Of course, the last is better if there’s some degree of civility and not taking it out on your mom; also, while it’s a good goal to have at least, I think, and probably beneficial at least to work on, I don’t suspect that it’s exactly the same in whites and Blacks. People with old wounds are by nature a little tenderer….

But certainly I as an American have been influenced by Black culture, and although I’m also very white—and have spent a lot of my life wandering through Anglo-town’s rose garden—it would be silly to deny or regret what breath of experience I have come to have.

…. It’s also important, before we pity ourselves, that sometimes the scriptures (here 1 Corinthians 1:27-29) speak more strongly than I would. I know I don’t have Mary’s chutzpah, for example, ‘and send the rich away empty’? You’re brave, Mary! You’re a little Red! But here’s Paul:

“But God chose what was foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.”

I was just reading the introduction today and I really irritated me; part of it was my skull was itchy—I don’t really know how to wash my hair the right way, I guess, so occasionally I just got to scratch all the dead skin away—but I’d like to think of myself as pure, you know, but able to mix, and not impure, and afraid to mix, but the truth in that is only so much, you know. “No flesh”. I’d like to think, I don’t know, that the New York liberal (who in this case moves to Israel somewhere) is part of a vast movement of peace and justice, and that we’re all just so good…. But the thing is, we all participate in evil, no matter how good we want to be: there IS less Black history than white history—and look at Africa and Europe on a map; why’d it have to be like that?…. And the Black history that there is is *going against the grain* by studying what’s less documented, and then and even now less valued…. There’s a flutter of change on the surface, of course, but waves are news, not the ocean, that’s just life…. But God isn’t constrained by human wisdom. Sometimes what’s less wise, less documented, less valued, is at least as important to him. If it were me, I’d say “just as”, but I say “at least as” on the strength of these biblical references to God not being afraid of rich white men like everyone else is! (Including me!)

…. Wow, I’d forgotten I’d written all that.

Anyway, ok, more narrowly:

This is certainly (and literally) Anglo-African American race relations. It’s kinda in the middle of that, on the edge of things. It’s not as Afrocentric as some race books are—Blacks and their place in American history—as there’s actually quite a bit about the English; actually from the references you can see that despite recent trends, the whites are still clearly the better-studied of the two groups. And it’s not really a book about the horrors of slavery—the beatings and the rapes—as it is about changing value systems in both groups as a result of their interactions. That is, it’s faintly romantic—‘the world they made together’—and more Twelve Years A Slave, than, A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. I’m sure someone might not feel represented by that, the way they might not like my emoting about the Baptists, lol. But it’s actually kinda a good book…. The presence of Blacks has always changed and been a part of America.

…. It’s interesting or whatever that both races under consideration had these spiritualistic beliefs about the origins of things, the whites included, but then blame seems to have been how it really manifested in many cases—this one cursed me, that one cursed me; I never curse myself! (I would have realized!) And then of course there’s the obvious things about how the way that they practiced their faith didn’t heal their arrogance or greed, and obviously this sunk their race relations…. Although it is kinda funny, the modern girl’s like, Oh yeah, they brought ritual and order to everything; they didn’t know that everything’s supposed to be random and randomness is the great sign of intelligence, because of how stupid they were! Lolz!

So, there’s that.

…. So despite how bad the Old South could be, and how unfair and unequal it was—the Blacks did Not want to be slaves—the two races did interact, and not Always with hostility. It was only in the North and later in the KKK version of the New South that the Blacks were perceived as rivals to be kept out or enemies to be fought and possibly eliminated, you know….

It was the South. They had drink; they had music; they had sexy times, black skin and white skin, true lechery don’t make no distinction.

…. And you cry and shout at their funeral.

…. And yet it’s also obviously true that slavery was not healthy togetherness.… (mehr)