Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Take It or Leave It

CUNY Queens College's Powdermaker Hall is tattooed with quotes from famous writers and thinkers. By far, my favorite quote is one I pass each morning on my way to class. It is posted somewhat obscurely on the outer northwestern wall, and it is the one I have memorized and constantly call up within my own mind. It is a James Baldwin quote: “The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.”

baldwin-quote

Baldwin, who was poor, black and gay, often joked that, rather than being thrice cursed, had “hit the trifecta.” “How much more disadvantaged could one person be?” he asked. Baldwin’s search for self, like Ralph Ellison’s was more of a lifelong journey than a destination at which to arrive. I believe Ellison, whose path diverged significantly from Baldwin’s would nonetheless appreciate his contemporary’s quote.
After following in the angry, and somewhat separatist footsteps of his mentor Richard Wright (Native Son), Ellison evolved into more of an integrationist, insisting that blacks would succeed by excelling and mixing it up with the larger world, a view also held by the founder of his alma mater, Booker T. Washington. His contemporary, and fellow Wright offspring, James Baldwin, (Notes of a Native Son) also came under Ellison’s harsh criticism. Baldwin was much more a separatist, finding no real home for himself in America and eventually emigrating to Paris.
One thing all three have in common is their search for a sense of self. Ah, that all-important word, which to Antonio Damasio can be deconstructed into three levels. Ellison (et. al) understood that unconscious Protoself level — that’s an easy one. But dive deeper into Core Consciousness and Extended Consciousness and these writers each take a different road leading to Rome. Ellison seems to narrow down his search by first finding what and who he is NOT. To white people, he is as invisible as a shadow which passes along as near nothingness. In the prologue to Invisible Man, Ellison states, “That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality” (Prologue II).
Ellison’s self is there. He just has to find it among the sea of black faces and its accepted group identity, as well as within a larger, (optic) white-washed world. His allusions to Jazz as metaphor for individuality or self-ism (my term) are intrinsic to the story.
In the end, Ellison’s nameless (self-less?) narrator comes back from his trip around his own inner world to say, “I had no desire to destroy myself even if it destroyed the machine; I wanted freedom, not destruction. It was exhausting, for no matter what the scheme I conceived, there was one fatal flaw — myself. There was no getting around it. I could no more escape than I could think of my identity. Perhaps, I thought, the two things are involved with one another. When I discover who I am, I’ll be free” (11.103).
This book and topic is so very timely. Black Lives Matter, racial profiling, the fires that burn in Charlotte, Chicago, Kansas City and elsewhere, all indicate Ellison’s point, while shining a hopeful light onto Baldwin's message. Once we discover who we are, perhaps, only then will we all be free.

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Hold the Door

At the school where I work, the campus buildings have heavy double doors. Most come equipped with large square buttons to push for extended automated entry. This is South Florida, so winter winds blowing through the halls is never a concern.

Despite the automation, I still check behind me to see if another person is also intending to enter. I hold the door and smile. That person, whether student or staff, smiles back and says "Thank you." A small event in an otherwise uneventful day.

Yet I do not think this is such a small event. My campus is host to a rainbow of students and faculty. This rainbow embraces ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, religion, age, and economic class. When I hold the door, I am saying, "I honor you, I respect you, I am your friend. Your entry into my office, the restroom, the dining hall, my life, is a joy, and a blessing."

Small actions can offer bigger meanings.

If I could choose the title of my own eulogy, it might read: "She held the door."