RUMINATING ON OUR "RIGHTS"
While reading in "Charles W. Chesnutt's Own View of His New Story, 'The MARROW of TRADITION,'" dated October 20, 1901, I noticed that he wrote:
"Tradition made the white people masters, rulers, who absorbed all the power , the wealth, the honors of the community , and jealously guarded this monopoly, with which they claimed to be divinely endowed, by denying to those who were not of their caste the opportunity to acquire any of these desirable things.
"Tradition, on the other hand, made the Negro a slave, an underling, existing by favor and not by right, his place the lowest in the social scale, to which, by the same divine warrant, he was hopelessly confined."
P.872
"Rights," were not, even then, associated with the Negro, who "existed by favor," while "all" "desirable things" were divinely "monopolized by the whites."
On first reading, these contrasts slipped by me. But, in the first paragraph of his next essay, "The Disfranchisement of the Negro," Charles W. Chesnutt, an attorney and an author writes :
"The right of American citizens of African descent , now commonly called Negroes, to vote upon the same terms as other citizens of the United States, is plainly declared and firmly fixed by the Constitution."
P.874
"Rights" are "favors" relegated to Negroes, in this 1903 essay, while the whites are termed "other citizens of the United States."
I draw attention to these piddling word nuances, because the word "rights" --cum "favors"-- flip frequently, too easily from the lips of too many of my people who do not appreciate that their so-called "rights" are colored codes confined to their caste, that, by "tradition," has too-long lacked the "desirable things," held by "others."
Stated directly, he says: "the desirable things...all the power, the wealth, the honors of the community" are for whites . The "rights" are for Negroes. Such was the case in 1901, 1903, and yet remains painfully similar in 2016.
CHARLES W. CHESNUTT: STORIES , NOVELS, ESSAYS (2002)
Sunday, October 30, 2016
RUMINATING ON OUR "RIGHTS"
RUMINATING ON OUR "RIGHTS"
While reading in "Charles W. Chesnutt's Own View of His New Story, 'The MARROW of TRADITION,'" dated October 20, 1901, I noticed that he wrote:
"Tradition made the white people masters, rulers, who absorbed all the power , the wealth, the honors of the community , and jealously guarded this monopoly, with which they claimed to be divinely endowed, by denying to those who were not of their caste the opportunity to acquire any of these desirable things.
"Tradition, on the other hand, made the Negro a slave, an underling, existing by favor and not by right, his place the lowest in the social scale, to which, by the same divine warrant, he was hopelessly confined."
P.872
"Rights," were not, even then, associated with the Negro, who "existed by favor," while "all" "desirable things" were divinely "monopolized by the whites."
On first reading, these contrasts slipped by me. But, in the first paragraph of his next essay, "The Disfranchisement of the Negro," Charles W. Chesnutt, an attorney and an author writes :
"The right of American citizens of African descent , now commonly called Negroes, to vote upon the same terms as other citizens of the United States, is plainly declared and firmly fixed by the Constitution."
P.874
"Rights" are "favors" relegated to Negroes, in this 1903 essay, while the whites are termed "other citizens of the United States."
I draw attention to these piddling word nuances, because the word "rights" --cum "favors"-- flip frequently, too easily from the lips of too many of my people who do not appreciate that their so-called "rights" are colored codes confined to their caste, that, by "tradition," has too-long lacked the "desirable things," held by "others."
Stated directly, he says: "the desirable things...all the power, the wealth, the honors of the community" are for whites . The "rights" are for Negroes. Such was the case in 1901, 1903, and yet remains painfully similar in 2016.
CHARLES W. CHESNUTT: STORIES , NOVELS, ESSAYS (2002)