#833 And Love Them? – Thomas Glave

#833 And Love Them? – Thomas Glave

Glave writes this as a white woman having an internal discussion with herself. She has race-guilt and is trying, but failing to work out her feelings on “them.” Hitting all the race hot spots and trying to bring up moments where she felt she was noticeable sympathetic to black people, but then of course equivocating strongly. Saying all too familiar common things like:

“Haven’t we all been hurt by something? But some of us still manage to think.”

“I know I’m a very compassionate person. I can feel sorry for anybody.”

“How I try, as God is my witness how I try.”

Life must be hard for such a compassionate, well-meaning person, who just wants to be kept out of the race issues of the world. Privilege has its…privileges, even if you yourself don’t acknowledge it.

Rating: 7-7-8-8 Total= 30 

#544 Attack of the Love Dogma- Toure

#544 Attack of the Love Dogma- Toure

Mojo is on a date with a beautiful blonde woman. They are having a wonderful time, and they are both feeling like this could be something real.

“He was the smartest guy she’d ever met. She was more at peace than anyone he’d ever known. He loved her lips. She loved his hands. It was too early for promises, but promise was in the air.”

They wanted to continue their date, but Mojo was worried.

“Black and Blonde together in Soul City? He knew better. He knew as every boy who grows up in Soul City knows, that if you were in Soul City with a blonde after dark, the Love Dogma would get ya.”

And that’s exactly what happened when they parked for some ice cream. Mojo got yanked out of his car by a snatch squad and was taken directly to Dr. Ziggaboo at the Love Dogma’s Reassignment Center. Here they took black men that had a blonde obsession and reminded them about black beauty. Like something out of 1984 this Orwellian re-education program that was creepy and over the top. Mojo got out just in time. All he wanted was a chance to see if this woman was the real deal.

Rating: 7-8-8-7 Total= 30

#450 Brownies- ZZ Packer

#450 Brownies- ZZ Packer

This is the first story in Packer’s collection, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere.  A troupe of Brownies (younger girl scouts if there is someone who doesn’t know what that is) attend a camping weekend. They are from a predominantly black south Atlantic Suburb and they fixate on an all white Troupe 909.  The “leader” of the girls says she heard a racial slur being thrown in their direction, and she rouses the others into action.

What follows is a pretty great description of child group/peer/tribal behavior. Social archetypes play their rolls: the leader, the peacemaker, the troublemaker, the follower, the goody-two-shoes, quiet moral one, etc. Although race is at the heart of the conflict, it does not seem to be the heart of the meaning of this story (although the race dynamics shouldn’t be overlooked). Group activity and peer pressure are a huge part of growing up, especially at a Girl Scout camp.

Notable Passages: “The word ‘secret’ had a built-in importance, the modifier form of the word carried more clout than the noun. A secret meant nothing; it was like gossip: just a bit of unpleasant knowledge about someone who happened to be someone other than yourself. A secret meeting, or a secret club was entirely different.”

“Even though I didn’t want to fight, was afraid of fighting, I felt like I was a part of the rest of the troop; like I was defending something.”

 “When you’ve been made to feel bad for so long, you jump at the chance to do it to others.”

Rating: 9-9-10-9 Total= 37

#357 Never Was- David Dante Trout

#357 Never Was- David Dante Trout

Booby Hall had a gun, a pearl-handled automatic, that he carried around everywhere. “He had the gun because it was the thing that says, I am.” He was also patriotic, so when his brother went off to war, he also wanted to serve.

It was “A war so large it refitted every tool, swallowed all belief, threatened to change the tomorrow of a continent, or the yesterday of a country.”

“If you can bear arms against your enemy in Europe, you can protect yourself against your enemy anywhere.”

But black men weren’t wholly welcome to serve in combat, apparently not good enough to die for their country. But bobby got a job working for the military auxiliary services. It didn’t get him to Europe but let him do his part, and let him proudly walk around in a uniform.

Of course, the sight of black men in a uniform set many up in arms, and seeing one such as Bobby, strong willed, and carrying a gun just wasn’t going to be tolerated. So, they faked an ordinance and a warrant, and took Bobby’s gun away. The battle in Europe was far away, but there was a second battle at home, juts as important, that one was for freedom as well. Unfortunately for Bobby, the side with the biggest guns usually wins.

Rating: 8-7-8-8 Total= 31

#327 For Love of Trains- David Dante Troutt

#327 For Love of Trains- David Dante Troutt

The Patterson’s learned of a horrible event. Their 19 year old son, Haywood had been falsely arrested for murder and rape aboard a train. Him and 8 others were convicted and sentenced to death in an Alabama prison. The family became hardened to the hopeless reality that faced their family.

“[He] became like a hopeless kind of iron, just thickening and hardening under flames he couldn’t put out.”

After the ineptitude of the NAACP lawyer, they accepted the help of a white, Jewish, communist group from New York. They won a stay of execution and finally were able to see Haywood in person. He was beaten, and desperate, but he was their son:

“They’d beaten him across the left side of his face, and his eyes swole up. But when you looked deep into them there were the brown, tender eyes of the boy.”

They won a Supreme Court appeal, but didn’t win the re-trial. As the case continued to make its way back and forth, disaster strikes again. Even without hope, you can still have fight, what else is there?

Rating: 7-7-8-7 Total= 29

#285 The Tale of Almost- David Dante Troutt

#285 The Tale of Almost- David Dante Troutt

Will Kelly was born a black slave, but with a blemish, a white birth mark appeared under one arm. They called the affliction mulitis. As the civil war ended, and reconstruction was underway, Will’s “condition” spread. White marks were making rings were showing up all over his body.

This cause all sorts of scorn: “Will Kelly was no better than a mule, a beast with blood between the races who’d drown one day forever more.”

It not only effected the way the public viewed him, but cause himself alarm, although his self-identity never waivered: “His neck was half white, and he was pale behind the ears. The colony of cream had not yet reached his face, nor his loins, nor his heart.”

During this time, there were several black leaders looking to him for help, and using his skin color as a cause, but to most a black man was a black man no matter the tone: “So, black men hung from trees, and high yellow burned like the darker variety.”

Soon, his identity was questioned by all parts of society.

Rating: 7-8-6-8 Total=29