It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
--James Baldwin
It will get me more exposure to entitle this essay 'A Black Man's Fourth of July'. It's something people are desirous to know, I reckon. But I am not so sure that continuing the farce serves any purpose other than a sort of disingenuous marketing.
Long ago I thought my way out of the minority paper bag and using one device or another have managed to keep my mind, soul and heart free of the fetters of a racial worldview. Yet there has always been a basic sort of pride in my ethnic upbringing that would never let me break free of an opportunity to express it in a new, and what I considered important dimension. Every so often I would encounter a reason to write an essay or return to the theme 'The End of My Blackness' knowing I didn't ever really want it to end. And so I would find something black just above my head, jump up grip on and pull myself to another plateau. But something about the Presidency of Barack Obama and the turns the nation has taken over the past three or four years have broken that reflex in me. So here I stand on the Fourth of July thinking that there is no good reason for me to even consider Frederick Douglass' ancient rime.
At some point, all history becomes equally valuable to contemporary ears. It is the point at which all current powers are derived from those other than the actors of history, try as they might to claim cause and effect. And so as I look at the powers that be and the powers that were and I find many generations and many wars in the intervening years, I realize that lives given yesterday are of greater consequence than those sacrificed 150 years ago. The blood of the American Civil War is as dried and gone as that of the Punic Wars or ancient Rome. What history then should we study? All of it. But let us not make the error of thinking we are all a part of the same continuum. To dismiss the thoughts of bygone eras is but an academic concern, but to face today's tyranny is the true matter of courage.That was all I could say.
So I know what I know and I do what I do. I have only the slightest purpose in decoupling myself and making American history just another un-self-interested lesson plan. That is to be free of the legacy of any imperative which mocks my independence. And though the thought comes naturally and freely as I write it here, I suspect that I will be dogged by that assertion.
I don't think or feel that I owe it to 'America' or any ideology so much as I owe it to my own stubborn nature. I can only use those frameworks to understand where such a personality might land me. I fear too few men have bothered for me to find sufficient and ample company should push come to shove and the financial basis for our comfort fail us at the ass end of this recession. I doubt it should matter that I quote James Baldwin then. I'll be like Denzel Washington's Eli with only some religious discipline to keep me intact. In short, I suppose I rather worry about civilization and its ability to defend what I am likely to become at the end of my journey towards wisdom.
It does me no good to apply such skepticism to America in the abstract. At some level, I have to trust that there are some who will accept and defend me on principle, and I hope that some people's patriotic ideas will dovetail with my own and that our shared culture and society will be sufficient. Absent that, I suppose we all will re-gamble as the Founders did with their pledges of life and sacred honor. That might not be such a bad idea after all.
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My friend Bill speaks of something just above my head called cultural evolution. I'm skeptical of it. And I'm not so sure that what has been learned can be re-learned without being re-earned. I'm not so sure, given our predicaments, that we can inherit anything properly. It all seems feudal and that with our rotten kings they are bound to grind their castles into the dust by their horrid misdeeds. We may never gain the view from their parapets. All we may ever get is the relative comfort of our station. I do not know if this hedge disqualifies me or makes me more noble. I don't know whether I have stopped looking for open doors of my own dispirited will or from wise calculation. I simply know that they are rare. Occasionally, I have my paralysis. It makes me want to live somewhere remote with a padlocked cellar full of staples.
These are the doubts that attend a Christian soul, a team player, one who recognizes the benefits of leverage, trust and coordination. At this moment from within the belly of the beast I struggle to know what true independence is other than independence of mind. And where does the independent mind go but towards isolation or reform? It's a restless predicament indeed. It is a painful state of freedom.
I am concerned that I am tending towards the way of isolation, and perhaps it was always my destiny. Perhaps it is the ironic fate of a man who decides not to engage that thing that marks him most whose greater deeds are not obvious. The tall man who doesn't play basketball, the voluptuous woman who doesn't flirt, the Jew who doesn't pray. We are products of a thin consideration and we must draw people in towards our true character, until we grow weary of being appealing as all old men and women eventually must. Then our individual gifts grow more meaningful as we can be nothing else but who we are. Else our individual gifts are wasted and we disappear from society. Thank God I have children.
America is the place for the exceptional. Our view of the individual is unique and profound. It allows us to step away from or experiment with the social dynamic. It allows us the freedom to choose. It is an expensive choice and one must take care in choosing because people are as they ever were. To step away from what society would have you be and to face the consequences are the edges of the individualist's sword. They cut deeply.
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