Dominion (99 page)

Clarence headed to the elevator. “I never asked you for this, right?” Ollie asked.

“Nope. It was 100 percent my idea, start to finish.”

“What’s your column tomorrow?” Jake asked Clarence as they sat at Lou’s Diner.

“Winston says with the latest O. J. controversy, it’s time for another go at ‘the great racial divide.’”

“The O. J. thing’s never gonna go away is it? The case that never dies.”

“October 3, 1995—I remember the exact day of the acquittal, can you believe it? Ollie and I had a long talk about it. Interesting.”

“You and I never talked much about the trial when it was going on, did we?” Jake asked. “I guess I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. But I know it bothered you.”

“Sure it did. When O. J. was accused, I felt like I’d been accused.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m a black man.”

“But that doesn’t—”

“I know, I know. It sounds irrational. One day I overheard two rednecks at a lunch counter, talking about O. J. One guy said to the other, ‘What’d you expect from a nigger?’ I wanted to put his face in his mashed potatoes, but then he probably would have just said, ‘What’d you expect from a nigger?’” Clarence laughed, but not convincingly. “You know what I thought about, Jake? Something I never told a white guy before, but I sure brought it up to my black friends.”

“What?”

“I thought about how nearly all serial killers are white. Manson. Son of Sam. Bandy. Dahmer. Gacy. All those guys. But when Dahmer sexually abused and murdered men and cannibalized them, did anyone say, ‘What’d you expect from a white man?’ Did anyone even think of saying that? Of course not. When Aldrich Ames betrayed CIA agents in the Soviet Union for a maroon Jaguar and a nice house, and twenty people were murdered as a result, did anyone say, ‘That’s a white man for you’?”

“Race has nothing to do with it,” Jake said.

“Unless you’re a black man and it’s a black criminal. See, when a white man does something wrong, he’s just another bad man. But if Dahmer had been black, the whole equation would’ve changed. He wouldn’t have been just another bad man; he’d have been another bad
black
man, a
black
murderer, a
black
cannibal. Every black man feels the weight of that—at least, I do.”

“It really affects you that way?”

“Look at the stereotypes. Black men have illegitimate children and don’t raise them or care for them. That’s what people think. Well, how many centuries did white men rape their black slave women, get them pregnant, refuse to acknowledge the children as their own or raise or care for them? How many black men have been accused of ‘having a thing’ for white women? How many black men are automatically viewed as potential rapists of white women, when for hundreds of years it was routine for
white
men to rape
black
women? But do white men feel everybody’s viewing them as rapists? No. Black men do.”

“Well,” Jake said, “white men do have to live with the stereotype of being racist oppressors. Sometimes you feel like everybody’s loading guilt on you. It really gets old.”

“I hear you. But what about the ‘Blacks are violent’ stereotype? I heard people in the sixties point to marches and demonstrations and riots to defend that thesis. But look at organized labor in this country. White workers marching, rioting, and burning before the civil rights movement even existed. Look at history. For three hundred years whites steal, whip, torture, rape, brutalize, and murder their black slaves. The vast majority of those blacks never fought back, never returned violence for violence. You could make a great case for American blacks historically being the least violent people in the world, obviously a great deal less violent than the whites who whipped them. After all that, now you’ve got some black criminals rioting and shooting each other and everybody thinks, ‘Yeah, those black people are just violent by nature, aren’t they?’”

“I don’t think that way, Clarence.”

“Maybe you don’t. But haven’t you heard people talk about Africa? Idi Amin and what he did in Uganda. The civil war in Mozambique. The slaughter in Rwanda. They think it’s because blacks are violent—I’ve heard it said, Jake. I’m sure you have too. And I say, look at the bloodshed in the Middle East. So that makes Arabs and Jews violent by nature? Look at the wars and murders in Central America. Hispanics are violent by nature? Look at the bloodshed in China—Mao killed what, five times the number Hitler did? And Pol Pot—Asians must be violent by nature. And Hitler, he was a Caucasian, right? So were all the soldiers who did the killing. And how about Stalin’s Caucasian Russians murdering starving children in the Ukraine, millions of them? And what about the Bosnian Serbs? More Caucasians. Look at Ireland. They’re white as they can be, religious church-goers, too. But does anybody say, ‘See that proves it—those whites, they’re just violent by nature’? Of course not.”

Jake felt Clarence’s frustration and didn’t know how to respond.

“Know what it all tells me, Jake?”

“What?”

“Not that blacks are violent. Or Hispanics are violent. Or Asians are violent. Or whites are violent. Just that all of them are people and it’s
people
who are violent. Color doesn’t matter. Like Pastor Clancy says, It’s not a skin problem, it’s a sin problem.’”

“I’m with you there, brother,” Jake said. “And I’ve got another example for you. Think about Bobby Knight and John Thompson. Knight grabs players by their jerseys and screams and swears at referees and throws chairs. Thompson’s a controlled disciplinarian who treats his players with respect. But nobody looks at Bobby Knight and says, ‘Just another out-of-control white man.’ And they don’t look at John Thompson and say ‘There’s another cerebral, thoughtful, disciplined black man.’”

Clarence looked at Jake with surprise. “Careful, bro. You almost sound like a black cat. Like you’re starting to see through different eyes.”

Blacks are lazy. There’s a stereotype few people say aloud anymore. Like most racial prejudice, it lingers barely beneath the surface. And like most, it is also irrational. Consider the historical facts. A culture of white people enslaved blacks to do their menial labor for them. For hundreds of years blacks worked sixteen hours hard labor a day so whites wouldn’t have to wash their clothes, cook their food, tend their animals, or raise their crops. Yet somehow the belief surfaced that it’s
blacks
who are lazy. The truth is, of course, there are lazy whites, blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans. There are also hard-working whites, blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans. The fact that I even have to make what should be a self-evident point demonstrates the depth to which we are permeated by racial stereotypes.

After finishing his column, Clarence started opening the day’s mail. He braced himself. The first letter was printed crudely by one of those adults who still write like a second-grade boy who’d rather be at recess. “So you played around with the white girl, nigger? Got the jungle fever? Bet it felt good. And now you killed her. O. J. got away with it, but you won’t.”

Clarence’s index finger rubbed against the leathery patch an inch below his right ear. He opened the next letter, this one on letterhead from a Gresham businessman.

“Though I’ve never written you before, I’ve always enjoyed your columns. Just wanted you to know I believe in innocent until proven guilty. Unless you are proven guilty in a court of law, I’ll continue to believe you when you say you didn’t do these things. If I was in your position, I’d want others to assume my innocence, and Jesus said, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ Keep writing that column, Clarence, and know a lot of us still trust you. Respectfully, Jim Riegelmann.”

Letters such as this, and he’d gotten several others, moved Clarence deeply. Encouraged, he decided to open one more.

“Nigga: why you messin’ with white trash in the first place? Sisters ain’t good enough for you? I’m glad she’s dead. You deserve to die too.”

The whole Abernathy clan gathered at Clarence and Geneva’s house December 12 for a combined Christmas and Kwanzaa event. As they had the past few years, they met two weeks before the first day of Kwanzaa in deference to Harley’s family’s custom of preparation for their holiday.

Before dinner Harley set up a red, black, and green flag. He stood before the family and spoke in solemn and heartfelt tones.

“Habari Gani. This is the Bendera Ya Taifa, the flag of the black nation. The red stands for blood, because with blood we lost our land and without blood we cannot acquire land. The black stands for our proud identity as African people. The green stands for our land, which we have lost but which we must regain, for without a land of our own we can have no freedom, justice, independence, or equality. We gather today to begin our preparation for Kwanzaa. We give thanks for being part of a black family.”

After Harley’s wife and children said a few words about the meaning of the Kwanzaa season, Obadiah opened a Bible and read the Christmas story from Luke 2. A family feast followed that went on for two hours, punctuated by stories, laughter, and animated discussions.

“Geneva, honey,” Obadiah said, “I swears that’s the best sweet potato pie this old soldier’s had since my Ruby used to make it.”

Geneva got up and hugged her father-in-law. “Now
that’s
the greatest compliment I’ve ever gotten, Daddy. Nobody did tater pie like Mama.”

“Nobody,” Obadiah agreed, “but yours is as close as they come, I reckon.” He looked at all the children. “If your grandma could see you now … I expect she can. Some of you didn’t ever get to meet her here, but you’ll see her on the other side, if you loves Jesus like she do.”

“What was she like, Grampy?” Keisha asked, as the family retired to the cramped elbow-brushing living room.

“She was an Aunt Jane if ever there was one,” the old man said as soon as he was seated on the couch. “A Miss Sally through and through.” The children looked confused.

“Aunt Jane and Miss Sally,” Clarence said, “were nicknames they used for a few older women in each black church. They were always highly respected women. Usually didn’t have much education, but lots of homespun wisdom and God-given common sense. They were especially close to the Lord.”

“Close to God, my Ruby was. And even closer now,” Obadiah said. “My own mammy was an Aunt Jane. Mammy used to ring that ol’ bell on the porch, she did. Meant it was supper time, time to come home. Sometimes this ol’ boy hears the bell a ringin’. Time to come home.”

Obadiah tilted his head, listening intently. A few family members felt embarrassed, as if this old man belonged in a place where people who hear voices are kept from hurting themselves. Obadiah went right on listening to the music no one else could hear. In moments such as this, when his old age was most obvious, Obadiah looked most youthful, boyish, as if running unrestrained through the meadows of childhood. Was he remembering childhood or anticipating it? How could it be that the older he got, the younger he appeared? After listening to the music in silence, the old man joined it with a dilapidated voice that nonetheless rippled with enthusiasm.

“Oh Freedom, Oh Freedom, Oh Freedom over me. And before I’ll be a slave I’ll be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free.

“Git on board, little chillen’, git on board. De gospel train, she’s comin’, git on board.

“Amazin’ Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”

Most the family joined in now, though Harley seemed uncomfortable and buried his nose in a newspaper he’d picked up from the coffee table. They sang four verses, Obadiah knowing every word of every verse, though nowadays he often couldn’t remember what happened that morning. Clarence could tell how far back his father’s mind went by the way he pronounced the words.

“When we been dere ten thousand years, bright shinin’ as da sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, dan when we first begun.” The tears poured down Obadiah’s cheeks as he stared out the window. Clarence followed his daddy’s gaze. He could see nothing.

“Merry Christmas to my family,” Obadiah said, bouncing suddenly back to the moment, lucid and sharp, as if his empty tank had been refueled. “And Happy Kwanzaa too,” he added, looking at Harley, who still gazed at a
Tribune
article.

“These Republican crackers won’t be happy until they crush the last black man,” Harley said, throwing down the paper. “White devils.”

Geneva glared at her brother-in-law for ruining the mood.

“There’s some white devils all right, brother, and some black devils too,” Clarence said. “How many whites you seen comin’ in here from the suburbs to blow black heads off? Most of our crime is black on black, and you know it.”

“And I know who it was,” Harley said, “that taught blacks their lives were worth nothin’. I know who robbed them of their African heritage and taught them to hate what they are and to hate each other. Whites poured toxic waste into our black sea for hundreds of years, and if some of them don’t dump quite as much waste on us now, that doesn’t do anything to clean up the toxic mess they made. You don’t have to pull the trigger to be responsible for a death.”

Obadiah held up his hands, and Clarence and Harley restrained their tongues. “Both of you has a point. Trouble with you, Son,” Obadiah said to Harley, “is when you trace your roots back, you stop too soon.”

“What do you mean?”

“You go back to Africa,” Obadiah said. “Well, Africa ain’t far enough. Keep goin’ back, back to Noah and his sons, back to Adam and Eve. Go back to where we all come from the same stock, whatever color their skin was, and I don’t care if Adam was green and Eve was purple. It’s right there in Acts 17 and 26: ‘From one man God made every nation of men.’ We’re the same race, human race. We got the same problem, sin. We got the same solution, Jesus. Black Republicans, White Democrats, Hispanic Chinese American Indian Independents, it just don’t matter. Sin’s sin and the Savior’s the Savior. Your generation seems to always forget that.”

“All due respect, Daddy,” Harley said, “but my generation didn’t roll over. If we hadn’t fought for our rights, we wouldn’t have any. When it comes to racial justice, we were the pioneers.”

“No, Son, you weren’t,” Obadiah said, determined to stack up his third-grade education against Harley’s Ph.D. “Harriet Tubman was takin’ three hundred slaves to freedom a hundred years before you was even born. Sojourner Truth was refusin’ to leave white streetcars a hundred years before Rosa Parks. Frederick Douglass was writin’ books about justice and gettin’ stoned by crowds who thought he was an uppity nigger. And a lot of us in betweens was doin’ all along what we thought we could. So don’t act like black folk didn’t do nothin’ till you smart young blacks come along in the sixties. It just ain’t so.”

“One thing’s for sure,” Harley said, “your conservative churches weren’t the solution, they were the problem. They let Bibles and prayer in their schools, but they wouldn’t let black children in. Don’t forget, Sophie spent six months at one of your evangelical colleges. She heard them talk about ‘Martin Luther Coon.’ Tell them, Sophie.” Clarence braced himself. He knew what was coming—he’d heard the story before, though not for years. He didn’t want to hear it again and especially didn’t want his children to hear.

“We were watching an old black-and-white TV in the dorm lounge.” Sophie’s voice was reserved and hesitant, like someone having to open an old wound. “That’s when the newscaster said, ‘Martin Luther King has died in a Memphis hospital.’ All of a sudden a bunch of the students clapped and cheered. Those white Christians celebrated when they heard Martin had been murdered. Next day I left that school, and I never looked back.”

Clarence always found it easier to battle ornery Harley’s anger than sweet Sophie’s pain.

“You knows how sorry I is for that, Sophie girl,” Obadiah said. “Breaks this old man’s heart what happened that day. No excuse for it. But it wasn’t the spirit of Jesus you saw, it was the spirit of the devil, and he can get admitted to any college.”

Obadiah hung his head, as if groping for what to say next. “Well, family, now’s not the time for such words. I thanks God for every one of you. Pray with me, will you?” He bowed his head and nearly all the family followed his lead. “Tonight, Lord, as we celebrate your Son’s birthday—and our African heritage—touch the hearts of everyone in this great family. Show ’em how much you love ’em. Teach us how much we needs you. And Father, tell your son Jesus ‘Happy Birthday’ from Obadiah Abernathy and his kin.”

Harley and Clarence went into the kitchen to get seconds on tater pie. Keisha and Celeste and two of their cousins, Marny’s girls, came up to Geneva and whispered in her ear.

“The girls want to sing for us,” Geneva said. The four girls stood out in the middle of the living room. With exuberant faces they looked up toward the ceiling.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Jesus, happy birthday to you.”