A Fork in the Road: My Close Encounter With Literary Colonialism

A Fork in the Road: My Close Encounter With Literary Colonialism

www.jlpowers.net

Hi, everybody,

my website, www.jlpowers.net, is now finally up and running. It's a work in process and I'll be adding things to it over the next few weeks, but it can be viewed now and it's basically in the form it'll be in. It's powered by blogging technology, so it's also a blog. I don't know if I'll continue this one, as a personal blog, or if I'll just do all my blogging from there from now on. We'll see. Time is of the essence.

But I hope you'll check out my author website. Thanks everybody!

New Cover

For those who don't know, my novel now has a new cover, due to Barnes & Noble saying they would triple their buy if it got a new cover. (They actually quadrupled their buy.)

Here's the new cover, in all it's glory. Reminds me of the X-Files.

Malcolm X

To contrast the MLK quotes, here's Malcolm X, quoted from his "Message to the Grass Roots."


"So I cite these various revolutions, brothers and sisters, to show you -- you don't have a peaceful revolution. You don't have a turn-the-other-cheek revolution. There's no such thing as a nonviolent revolution. [The] only kind of revolution that's nonviolent is the Negro revolution. The only revolution based on loving your enemy is the Negro revolution. The only revolution in which the goal is a desegregated lunch counter, a desegregated theater, a desegregated park, and a desegregated public toilet; you can sit down next to white folks on the toilet. That's no revolution....

...A revolution is bloody. Revolution is hostile. Revolution knows no compromise. Revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way. And you, sitting around here like a knot on the wall, saying, "I'm going to love these folks no matter how much they hate me." No, you need a revolution. Whoever heard of a revolution where they lock arms, as Reverend Cleage was pointing out beautifully, singing "We Shall Overcome"? Just tell me. You don't do that in a revolution. You don't do any singing; you're too busy swinging."


And here's my favorite quote from the speech:

"There's nothing in our book, the Quran -- you call it "Ko-ran" -- that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. That's a good religion. In fact, that's that old-time religion. That's the one that Ma and Pa used to talk about: an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and a head for a head, and a life for a life: That's a good religion. And doesn't nobody resent that kind of religion being taught but a wolf, who intends to make you his meal."

Although as a pacifist, I dislike the sentiment, I love the quote, "...but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery." This is strong rhetoric.

Curtis Mayfield, "People Get Ready"

The song I've been listening to over and over and over again, Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready," a spiritual he wrote while participating in the civil rights marches in Washington in the 1960s. The link below takes you to a video of Mayfield singing the song live sometime in the 1980s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXwdjF0qvkM

MLK

I was reading Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From Birmingham Jail" last night. He had a lot of really great things to say about the reasoning behind non-violent resistance to evil. He is addressing white Protestant ministers, who were uneasy that a minister might have done things that would lead him to be imprisoned. (These days, the idea of civil disobedience is much more widespread and acceptable but not so in the late 1950s and early 1960s.)

Here were a few quotes I thought interesting. Full text can be found at the following web address: http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/letter.html. If you don't have time to read the long paragraphs I've included here, it is the last paragraph that really went UMPH to me....

"I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another mans freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro the wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating that absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. "


"I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relations to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in the generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity."

"Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrations. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. "

Standing up for Good Books

This kid rocks....

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/186441.

And I might add that Deborah Ellis is one of Canada's best children's authors.