180 – 196 Rest of Part One (old book 134-146)

Vincents text Norsk oversættelse Ny dansk bog

180-181 Between giving campus lectures in the ’90s, I loved the all-night discussions of racial issues I had with Wilma in her little shack. She was well educated but voiced in black words what my white audiences think but dare not say: - My own kind are holding me down. I am afraid of them. My life is endangered by my own people. - Have you lost faith in black people? - Yes, I have, because of the way they have treated me. - Have whites never caused you any harm? - Never, in Alabama and New York, I have never had trouble from the whites. Always my own kind of people. - Do you hold it against them? - Yes, I do. - But I told you before you must never forget the real ... - Yes, you call it internalized oppression, right? But I don’t see it that way. I think it’s just the nature of them to be that way … - No, no, no! - I don’t think it is internalized oppression. - But you must never lose faith in human beings. - I have lost faith in them, yes, I have. - But it all comes from up here, it comes from racism. When people are so hurt, and you know that black people are hurt, they take it out on each other. - Yes, but what you are talking about happened back a 100 years ago. I know what you are saying is true, but we have come a long way since then. Doors have opened for us. But we are holding one another back with hatred, selfishness, and whatnot. It is not the whites holding us back now, we are holding each other back. - Wilma, you’re talking the crap of the whites now. That’s what they are saying. Who are the employers in this country? They’re white, and to whom do they not give work? - I know, I know, but I can only speak of what I am going through. They are holding me down. My own kind are holding me back. - That’s how all blacks feel these days, and that’s why they end up causing each other more harm. When people hate themselves, they take out all this stuff out on each other... - I know. All I just want is to get away from them. - Where will you go? - I don’t know yet, but I’m working on it ... 182 After the hope and optimism of the ’70s, I would never have believed that racism could worsen so much that I’d one day sit and defend the victims against each other. People can survive oppression if they’re able to clearly identify their oppressor and thus avoid self-blame. In the past, this understanding let blacks see light at the end of the tunnel. A hundred years ago we lived in close physical proximity to blacks. But today we’ve become so isolated from each other that blacks, whom we ruthlessly bombard with TV fantasies about how free they are, have difficulty identifying their oppressor—a historical first—and therefore look to themselves for the cause of their escalating pain. And once we succeed in convincing oppressed people that they are their own worst oppressors, everything falls apart. Neither their earnings nor sense of self-worth are great enough to recreate the nuclear family we constantly hold up as the ideal. This sense of hopelessness and failure drives families apart. Nobody feeling good about themselves could oppress another group so devastatingly as we do today. And the victims aren’t only the family of the outcast but increasingly the children. 183 We whites love to say that “my best friend is black” to attain moral stature and black recognition. And we love to denounce the more primitive racism of others but forget that bigots like the KKK and the Nazis are themselves so deeply traumatized that have no real power to affect the overall quality of life of blacks in the US or Muslims in Europe. No, our victims know full well that it is we, the “good” law-abiding citizens, who are today silently forcing millions of our outcasts into ghettos, into psychological isolation and despair. In our white guilt over not being able to live up to our lofty ideals and liberal Christian values, we flee into escapist black TV shows to cover up for our ultimate crushing of the black family. Today more than 70% of black children grow up without a father and one in 10 without either parent—twice as many as when I first came to America and three times as many as under slavery. 185 The grandmother therefore has to take care of them. Black students, who are capable of succeeding despite the worst oppression since the slave auctions, often tell me that a grandmother was their saving angel. Grandma’s hands clapped in church on Sunday morning. Grandma’s hands played the tambourine so well. Grandma’s hands used to issue out a warning, she’d say, Billy don’t you run so fast, might fall on a piece of glass - might be snakes there in that grass. Grandmas hands soothed the local unwed mothers... 189 Even under the most hopeless oppression, people have an unconquerable ability to survive, and so the concept of the extended family as a survival unit has often become the black family’s last desperate means of overcoming the effects of a brutal society. But whereas the concept in Africa meant a closely connected family living in the same village, it has in America meant the brutal uprooting and forcible separation of family members over great physical distances. When liberals excuse the destruction of the black family by talking sympathetically about it as an “inheritance from slavery”—as if the family alone, for no reason, should have carried this legacy on from generation to generation—it’s in order to blame an evil system that existed 100 years ago so that they can feel free of responsibility. What I saw again and again was not a black inheritance from slavery but society’s inheritance from slavery. When the whole system they live in is hardly distinguishable from (and perceived as) slavery, it’s clear that the inheritance from slavery is being forced upon the black family. Many of the missing fathers of these children have over time built the southern highways in chain gangs. Today there are no chains since bloodhounds and submachineguns are far more effective. By following some of the prison trucks, I discovered that, among other things, the prison workers clean up around the mansions and the private beaches of the richest people in the world in Palm Beach. One of them is Trump who as president with the biggest tax cut in history helped billionaires pay less tax than the working class. To work here under the guns of white overseers can hardly be perceived by the black consciousness as anything but a direct continuation of the slave work formerly carried out around the large white plantation homes. Just as slaves found it justifiable to steal to survive the hardships forced upon them, many of today’s prisoners justify crime as necessary to survive the poverty these white millionaires have forced on them. The wealthy’s active reverse class struggle has meant a regressive redistribution of money from the poor to the rich, away from the relative economic equality I witnessed in the ’70s. When it’s a fact that blacks everywhere in America get much longer sentences than whites for similar offenses, the perception of slavery becomes a concrete reality. Blacks often receive a life sentence for charges of which whites would’ve been acquitted. The many thousands who suffer from this forced legacy of slavery can in a sense be called our political prisoners. 190 I find most of my friends in this book in a relatively worse situation today than when I first met them. But here on Palm Beach and Miami Beach with America’s wealthiest families are people whom Reagan’s, Bush’s and Trump’s tax cuts made even richer. Until a few years ago, blacks (apart from servants) weren’t allowed to set foot here—and they’re often arrested if they do. Occasionally, however, a beggar gets in and gets a penny from the multimillionaires. It’s also here that America’s presidents play golf on some of the finest courses in the world—and use black caddies, whom they pay less than $5–$6 dollars an hour. And it’s here that these black slave workers can see white millionaires getting out of their Rolls Royces to read the latest quotes from Wall Street. Nevertheless, I also found a leftist millionaire, Bill Gandall, with whom I spent some amusing days and who let me borrow his Mercedes so I could follow the prison slaves in this money hell. If you use inmates to work for you, you must of course also have the police by your side. When you’ve killed love and trust in society, all the TV cameras and electronic surveillance equipment in the world aren’t enough. It would be horrifying to have your children kidnapped; better to lock them up in a cold isolated world, like Tania and her little sister here, and have a Cuban nanny take care of them. And for busy career parents, it’s probably wiser to turn them into slaves of TV than to let them see the world outside, where, only a few miles away, Linda and her family live. 194 Linda lived not too far from Disney World, but I shouldn’t say that too loudly since she’s never had the money to go there. So poor were they at Linda’s that they rarely had light before I moved in with them. I had a little millionaire money with me so I could buy kerosene for their old lamp. It was a day of rejoicing for the family. Linda’s father worked from early morning to late night taking care of cows for a white landowner and, after a three-mile walk, often on bare feet, he didn’t get home before 10 pm. But this evening we wanted to delight him with a surprise, and when we saw him coming in the darkness, Linda ran out and leaped into his arms shouting: “Dad, Dad, we got a present ... see? See? Light! We got light!” Afterwards, Linda and her brother danced outside in the glow of the lamp. There was such joy over that light that it warmed me immensely, especially right after my experience of a succession of cold millionaire homes. For the most part, though, I didn’t find much to be happy about. Food always had to be cooked over an outdoor fire, and Linda’s mother could only sit motionlessly all day in the same chair because of the painful disease she suffered from. Linda had to do her homework before sunset, but sometimes I saw her reading in moonlight. Often, hours passed while she read to me on the bed. 195 Linda was without comparison my brightest and most encouraging experience in America. I came to her family at a time when I was deeply depressed and discouraged after months of traveling through the poverty of the black South, which I felt was more destructive and dehumanizing than any other poverty in the world. I looked at Linda and wondered why she hadn’t been subdued in spirit and body as had so many other poor black children I’d met in the underclass. What was it that enabled her family to stay together in the midst of this inhuman existence? And why did they have a deeper love for each other than I’d found in any other home I’d been to in America? To be in Linda’s home was like stepping into a Hollywood movie romanticizing poverty. While poverty everywhere in America is hideous and gives both people and their surroundings a repulsive face, here it had let love survive. That experience, to find love in the midst of a world of ugliness, was so indescribable and shocking that I was totally overwhelmed. 196 Now that we found love what are we gonna do with it? Let’s give it a chance let it control our destiny. We owe it to ourselves to live happy eternally. Oh, love is what we’ve been hoping for, and love is what we’ve been searching for. Now that I’ve got it right here in my hand, I’m gonna spread it all over the land. Now that we found love what are we gonna do with it? Let’s forgive and forget let no thought be your enemy. I never felt so good, I’m as happy, happy, happy as a man could be. Love is what we’ve been waiting for, love is what we’ve been hoping for. Now that I got it right here in my hand I’m gonna spread it all over the land...

180-181 Mellem mine universitetsforelæsninger i 90'erne elskede jeg de natlige diskussioner om racemæssige spørgsmål, som jeg havde med Wilma i hendes lille shack. Hun var uddannet, men udtrykte med sorte ord det, som mine hvide tilhørere tænker, men ikke tør sige: -Mine egne holder mig nede. Jeg er bange for dem, ja, mit liv er truet af mit eget folk. - Har du mistet troen på sorte mennesker? - Ja, det har jeg, på grund af den måde, de har behandlet mig på. - Har hvide aldrig gjort dig fortræd? - Nej, aldrig. I Alabama og New York har jeg aldrig haft besvær med hvide. Altid mine egne... - Bebrejder du dem det? - Ja, jeg gør. - Men jeg har sagt til dig før, at du aldrig må glemme den virkelige ... - Ja, du kalder det internaliseret undertrykkelse, ikke sandt? Men jeg ser det ikke sådan. Jeg tror det blot er deres natur at være sådan… - Nej, nej, nej! - Jeg tror ikke det er indvendiggjort undertrykkelse. -Men du må aldrig miste troen på mennesket. - Jeg har mistet troen på dem, ja, det har jeg. - Men det kommer heroppe fra, det kommer fra racismen. Når mennesker er så skadede - og du ved at sorte er sårede - lader de det gå ud over hinanden. Når man nedværdiger og ydmyger folk i et land længe nok, vender de til sidst deres vrede mod hinanden. -Ja, men hvad du taler om, skete for 100 år siden. Jeg ved hvad du taler om og at det er sandt, men vi er kommet langt siden da. Dørene er blevet åbnet for os. Vi bør kunne klare os selv. Men vi holder hinanden tilbage med had og selviskhed. Det er ikke de hvide, der holder os nede nu, det er os selv, der holder hinanden tilbage. -Wilma, du lirer de hvides snak af nu. Det er hvad de siger. Hvem er arbejdsgiverne i dette land. De er hvide, og hvem giver de ikke arbejde til? -Jeg ved det, men jeg kan kun tale om hvad jeg går igennem og mine egne er dem som holder mig nede. -Det er hvad alle sorte føler nu om dage, og således skyder de skylden på sig selv og skader hinanden endnu mere. Når folk hader sig selv, lader de alt det her gå ud over hinanden... - Jeg ved det. Jeg vil bare væk fra dem. - Hvor vil du tage hen? - Det ved jeg ikke endnu, men jeg arbejder på det ... 182 Aldrig havde jeg i 70ernes håb og optimisme troet at racismen kunne forværres så meget, at jeg en dag skulle sidde og forsvare ofrene mod hinanden. Mennesker kan overleve undertrykkelse, hvis de klart er i stand til at identificere deres undertrykker og dermed undgå selvbebrejdelse og selvnedvurdering. Tidligere lod denne forståelse de sorte se lyset for enden af tunnelen. For hundrede år siden levede vi fysisk tæt på de sorte. Men i dag er vi blevet så isolerede fra hinanden, at de sorte, som vi skånselsløst bombarderer med tv-fantasier om, hvor frie de er, har svært ved at identificere deres undertrykker - en historisk første gang - og derfor ser på sig selv som årsag til deres eskalerende smerte. Og når det først lykkes os at overbevise undertrykte om at de er deres egen værste undertrykker, falder alt fra hinanden. Hverken deres indtjening eller deres følelse af selvværd er stor nok til at genskabe den kernefamilie, som vi konstant holder op som idealet, og følelsen af håbløshed og fiasko slår familien i stykker. Ingen, der har det virkelig godt med sig selv, kunne undertrykke så knusende, som vi gør det i dag. Og ofret er ikke blot den udstødtes familie, men i stadig stigende grad børnene. 183 Vi hvide elsker at omtale, at vi har ”en sort ven her” og ”en muslimsk ven der” – for at opnå moralsk status og anerkendelse fra vore ofre. Vi elsker at fordømme andres, mere primitive racisme, men glemmer, at fanatikere som Ku Klux Klan og nazisterne selv er så dybt traumatiserede og marginaliserede, at de står uden reel magt til at påvirke livsvilkårene for sorte i USA eller muslimer i Europa. Nej, vores ofre ved udmærket godt, at det er os, de "gode" lovlydige borgere, der i dag i stilhed tvinger millioner af vores udstødte ind i ghettoer, i psykologisk isolation og fortvivlelse. I vores hvide skyldfølelse over ikke at kunne leve op til vore høje idealer og kristne, frisindede værdier, flygter vi ind i eskapistiske sorte tv-shows for at dække over vores ultimative knusning af den udstødtes familie. I dag vokser over 70 % af de sorte børn op uden fædre og hvert tiende barn uden hverken mor eller far – dobbelt så mange som da jeg først kom til USA og tre gange så mange som under slaveriet. 185 Derfor må bedstemoderen tage sig af dem. Sorte elever, som her efter årtusindskiftet er i stand til at klare sig på trods af denne – den sorte families værste undertrykkelse siden slaveauktionerne – fortæller mig ofte, at netop bedstemoderen var deres frelsende engel. Grandma’s hands clapped in church on Sunday morning. Grandma’s hands played the tambourine so well. Grandma’s hands used to issue out a warning, she’d say, Billy don’t you run so fast, might fall on a piece of glass – might be snakes there in that grass. Grandma’s hand soothed the local unwed mothers... 189 Selv i den mest håbløse undertrykkelse har mennesket en ukuelig evne til at overleve, og derfor er konceptet om den udvidede familie som overlevelsesenhed ofte blevet den sorte families sidste desperate middel til at overvinde virkningerne af et brutalt samfund. Men hvor begrebet i Afrika betød en tæt forbundet familie, der boede i den samme landsby, er det i Amerika kommet til at betyde den brutale løsrivelse og tvangsmæssige adskillelse af familiemedlemmer over store fysiske afstande. Når liberale undskylder ødelæggelsen af den sorte familie med forstående snak om dens ”arv fra slaveriet” – som om familien selv, og uden grund, skulle have båret denne arv videre fra generation til generation – er det for at lægge skylden på et ondt system, som eksisterede for 100 år siden, så vi kan føle os selv fri for ansvar i dag. Hvad jeg derimod så igen og igen, var ikke de sortes arv fra slaveriet, men tværtimod samfundets arv fra slaveriet. Når hele det system, de lever i, næppe kan skelnes fra (og opfattes som) slaveri, er det klart, at den sorte familie også rent faktisk bliver påtvunget arven fra slaveriet. Mange af de forsvundne fædre til disse børn har med tiden bygget Sydens landeveje som lænkefanger. I dag har de ikke mere lænker på, da blodhunde og maskinpistoler er langt mere effektive. Ved at følge efter nogle af de salatfade, de køres ud i, opdagede jeg, at fangearbejderne bl.a. bruges til at gøre rent omkring palæerne og de private strande for verdens rigeste mennesker i Palm Beach. En af dem er Trump, der som præsident med den største skattelettelse i historien hjalp milliardærer med at betale mindre i skat end arbejderklassen. At arbejde her under truslen fra hvide vagters geværer, kan i den sorte bevidsthed næppe opfattes som andet end en direkte fortsættelse af det slavearbejde, der tidligere blev udført omkring de store hvide plantagehjem. Ligesom slaverne fandt det berettiget at stjæle for at overleve de strabadser, der blev påtvunget dem, retfærdiggør mange af nutidens fanger kriminalitet som nødvendig for at overleve den fattigdom, som disse hvide millionærer har påtvunget dem. De riges aktive omvendte klassekamp har betydet en regressiv omfordeling af penge fra de fattige til de rige, væk for den relative økonomiske lighed, som jeg var vidne til i 70'erne. Når det er en kendsgerning, at sorte overalt i Amerika får meget længere straffe end hvide for lignende lovovertrædelser, bliver opfattelsen af slaveri en konkret virkelighed. Sorte får ofte en livstidsdom for anklager, som hvide ville være blevet frikendt for. De mange tusinde, der lider under denne tvungne arv fra slaveriet, kan på en måde kaldes vores politiske fanger. 190 De fleste af mine venner i denne bog finder jeg i en forholdsvis værre situation i dag, end da jeg først mødte dem. Men her på Palm Beach og Miami Beach blandt USA’s rigeste familier er der mennesker, som Reagans, Bushs og Trumps skattelettelser gjorde endnu rigere. Det er også her, at sorte – bortset fra tjenestefolk – indtil for få år siden ikke måtte sætte deres ben, og hvor de stadig i praksis bliver arresteret, hvis de kommer. Af og til slipper en tigger dog ind og får en skilling af multimillionærerne. Det er også her, USA’s præsidenter spiller golf på nogle af de fineste golfbaner i verden – og bruger sorte caddier, som de betaler 5-6 dollars i timen. Og det er her, at disse sorte slavearbejdere kan iagttage de hvide millionærer stige ud af deres Rolls Royce for at aflæse de seneste børskurser fra Wall Street. Ikke desto mindre fandt jeg her en venstreorienteret millionær, Bill Gandall, som gav mig nogle festlige dage og lod mig låne sin Mercedes, så jeg kunne følge fængselsslaverne i dette pengehelvede. Og bruger man fængselsfanger til at arbejde for sig, må man naturligvis også have politiet ved sin side. Når man har dræbt kærligheden og tilliden i samfundet, er alle verdens tv-kameraer og elektroniske overvågningsudstyr ikke nok. Det ville være forfærdeligt at få sine børn kidnappet. Så må man hellere spærre dem inde i en kold, isoleret verden, som Tania og hendes lillesøster her, og lade en cubansk barnepige tage sig af dem. Og for travle karriereforældre er det nok klogere at gøre dem til tv-slaver end at lade dem se verden udenfor... den verden kun få kilometer derfra... hvor Linda og hendes familie bor. 194 Linda boede ikke så langt fra Disney World, men det skal jeg ikke sige for højt, for hun har aldrig haft penge til at tage dertil. Så fattige var de hos Linda, at de aldrig havde haft lys før jeg flyttede ind hos dem. Jeg havde lidt millionærpenge med mig, så jeg kunne købe petroleum til en gammel lampe, de havde. Det blev en glædesdag for familien. Lindas far arbejdede fra tidlig morgen til sen aften med at passe køer for en hvid godsejer og kom først gående, ofte på bare fødder, de fem kilometer hjem hver aften ved 22-tiden i mørket. Men denne aften ville vi glæde ham med en overraskelse, og da vi så ham komme i mørket, løb Linda ud, sprang op i hans favn og råbte: ”Far, far, vi har fået en gave... se, se lys... vi har fået lys.” Og derefter dansede Linda og hendes bror udenfor i skæret fra lampen. Der var sådan en glæde over dette lys, at det varmede mig umådeligt meget efter lige at have oplevet en række kolde millionærhjem. Der var ellers ikke meget at glæde sig over i deres tyste armod. Maden måtte altid laves udendørs over et bål, og Lindas mor kunne ikke magte andet end at sidde ubevægelig tilbage i samme stol dagen igennem på grund af sin sygdoms ulidelige smerter. Linda måtte normalt læse lektier før solnedgang, men undertiden så jeg hende læse i lyset fra månen. Ofte tilbragte hun timer med at læse højt for mig på sengen. 195 For mig blev Linda uden sammenligning min lyseste og mest opmuntrende oplevelse i Amerika. Jeg kom til hendes familie på et tidspunkt, hvor jeg var stærkt nedslået efter måneders rejse gennem den sorte undertrykkelse og marginalisering, som jeg følte var mere ødelæggende og dehumaniserende end nogen anden fattigdom i verden. Jeg så på Linda og undrede mig over, hvad det var der gjorde, at hun ikke var blevet underkuet i sjæl og krop, som så mange andre børn i underklassen. Hvad var det, der gjorde det muligt for hendes familie at holde sammen midt i denne umenneskelige tilværelse? Og hvorfor nærede de tilmed en dybere kærlighed til hinanden end jeg havde oplevet det i noget andet hjem, jeg havde besøgt i Amerika? At være i Lindas hjem var som at træde ind i den slags Hollywoodfilm, der romantiserer fattigdom. Mens fattigdommen overalt i USA er hæslig og giver både omgivelserne og mennesket et afskyeligt ansigt, havde den her formået at lade kærligheden overleve. Den oplevelse – midt i hæslighedernes verden – at finde kærligheden, var så ubeskrivelig og rystende en oplevelse for mig, at jeg blev fuldkommen overvældet. 196 Now that we found love what are we gonna do with it? Let’s give it a chance let it control our destiny. We owe it to ourselves to live happy eternally. Oh, love is what we’ve been hoping for, and love is what we’ve been searching for. Now that I’ve got it right here in my hand, I’m gonna spread it all over the land. Now that we found love what are we gonna do with it ? Lets forgive and forget let no thought he your enemy. I never felt so good, I’m as happy, happy, happy as a man could be. Love is what we’ve been waiting for, love is what we’ve been hoping for. Now that lie got it right here in my hand I’m gonna spread it all over the land...