Anger in Raw Form

The Marrow of Tradition

I am required to read this novel for a class in American Studies entitled Culture Wars. So, I read it. I am angry. It is the typical anger of Blacks when faced with the injustices of the history of race in this country. The typical anger of a mother who contemplates the potential loss of life of her only child due to senseless greed and violence. It is the anger of a woman in today's society who does not recognize race as a meaningful division amongst an educated people. It is the anger of fear, sadness, hope undelivered, justice unsought, and mostly of the sheer reality that this time has not wholly passed away in our society.

A few weeks ago...MLK (not milk but the honorable Doctor Martin Luther King) day was celebrated in our country and a fellow myspacer sent a bulletin saying a friends request had been denied based on the fact that she was Black. Ignorance is alive and thriving in America.

I, grey eyed, educated, well spoken and somewhat light in color, don't experience race in the same way others of my race do. I am well accepted and I identify far too well with Dr. Miller in The Marrow of Tradition. Dr. Miller is a light skinned Black surgeon who tries to mediate between his education and the limitations of his color. I will simply say he is repaid with the death of his only child from a stray bullet issued in a media induced riot. In his grief, he is summoned to care for a white child on the verge of death, incidently the child is the son of the newpaper editor. He does, as his wife bids him, save the child.

The irony is not lost on me. There is an argument that Blacks are too forgiving of slights of race perpetuates the acceptance of these slights. There is the argument that that was then and this is now. There is the argument that morally one must take the high ground in these matters or be lost to the underpinnings of evil oneself. All are simply arguments of a topic that is hateful.

A good friend of mine and I, yes you Steve, frequently discuss race. We discuss it from an open and honest source that occassionally brings us into conflict. He is Jewish (see I didn't just say White) and has a different perspective. My argument is this, you can not understand the injury of a thousand slights that result in the bitterness and brokenness of a people. Another friend of mine, has experienced the slight to which I refer and is vehemently opposed to racial inequality of any kind. He too is white. His vehemence is akin to the passion with which I write now.

I am angry. I am angry that those who claim moral superiority could take the life of another for a political principle. (e.g. one who would kill abortion doctors) I am angry that I live in a world where the topic of race is SO FUCKING CONSUMING that I can not take one DAMN class at UC Berkeley without race being a major topic that is felt mandatory to make people understand racism is wrong.

I am angry that James Byrd Jr., a man of questionable character, died like an animal in the streets of Texas in 1998. I am angry that only blond, blue eyed, little girls that are stolen from their lives of innocence make the evening news. I am angry that I am angry. That my Sunday has been disrupted by this sense of injustice that has no seeming end. I am angry that Steve will never understand my anger. I am angry and I think I will go cry now.