alice's blog

Veils and such

alice — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:06:26 -0400

I brought this up to my students the other day. Speaking of veils...Ellison's narrator IM asks whether the veil is being lifted by Washington or lowered:

Claude McKay - America

alice — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 21:59:13 -0400

Along with race, class, and gender, throw in the immigration factor and/or possible language barrier:

America

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,

from Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place

alice — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 14:41:05 -0400

If anyone is curious as to the effects of the white service industry, it is still ongoing:

The Hotel Training School, Antigua

“a school that teaches Antiguans how to be good servants, how to be a good nobody, which is what a servant is. In Antigua, people cannot see a relationship between their obsession with slavery and emancipation and their celebration of the Hotel Training School (graduation ceremonies are broadcast on radio and television)”; it is these same people that cannot see that “they are governed by corrupt men, or that these corrupt men have given their country away to corrupt foreigners.

Booker T.

alice — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 14:35:35 -0400

Wow. I can't tell if this text is completely subversive in conning white people to donate their money to Tuskegee, or if Washington truly believes his turn-the-other-cheek Christian-oriented rhetoric. What does everyone else think?