. . . Scientific? How have you determined that blacks have underactive kidneys?
TJ: Just watch them. They stand out there for hours, slaving away . . . [pauses to chuckle] and seldom do they excuse themselves to urinate.
PE: They’re being watched by a man with a whip.
TJ: Blacks, you [points to me] are dumb, slothful, and bestial. Your kind respond to sensation rather than out of reflection.
PE: Then how do you account for my remaining seated instead of attacking you?
TJ: The slothful part.
PE: Of course. These are things that you have been able to measure. You’ve set up experiments and used poor whites as control subjects and been able to quantify laziness and bestiality.
TJ: Why no, but I have observed. You know, they have that Phyllis Wheatley up north. All sorts of claims were made about her ability to reason, but I believe she is merely the exception that proves the rule. Anyway, she’s just a parrot motivated by religious zealotry.
PE: I see.
TJ: All of that—the skin color, the broad features, the absence of flowing hair—these must lead you to admit, at least, to the greater physical beauty of the white race.
PE: You mean like Sally Hemmings.
TJ: I should have seen that one coming.
PE: How is it that you have had several children with such an inferior creature?
TJ: First of all, she is an octoroon.
PE: Having a raped ancestor improves one’s lot.
TJ: Well, because of that she is quite fetching.
PE: You have at least one son by her. Is he fetching?
TJ: Whenever I tell him to. [Laughs]
PE: He is more removed from his blackness than his mother. He is, pardon my math, one-thirty-second black. And he is still not equal to you.
TJ: You said it. He has some black blood. How could he be equal to me or any white?
PE: Sally Hemmings is your slave.
TJ: She is.
PE: She is the mother of your children.
TJ: She is.
PE: Do you love her?
TJ: She is my slave.
PE: Does she love you?
TJ: She does what I tell her. You seem bothered by all this.
PE: I might have been, but I expected this . . . May I question you about something else?
TJ: Shoot.
PE: Would that I could.
TJ: That’s very good.
PE: What’s with the dumbwaiters on either side of the fireplace?
TJ: I invented the dumbwaiter. These go down to my wine cellar. I put them in so that I wouldn’t have to rely on the house slaves coming into the drawing room when I’m having sensitive meetings.
PE: Why would that bother you?
TJ: I don’t want them hearing things.
PE: One, you don’t believe that they could understand what you’re talking about, and two, whom would they tell?
TJ: You blacks like to parrot sounds. You’re pretty good at it. And none of you practice any discretion about where you choose to regurgitate what you’ve heard.
PE: And so, the dumbwaiter.
TJ: The dumbwaiter.
PE: Finished with your Bible yet?
TJ: How did you know about that?
PE: A slave told me about it. But anyway, you know there are those who claim that it’s very generous to call your Bible a translation.
TJ: Is that so?
PE: I’ve heard that it’s more or less a paraphrase of the parts you agree with. I think the implication is that your Greek isn’t good enough to actually translate the Gospels. I hear you’re fond of the parables.
[Here I must interrupt to admit to extreme unfairness to Jefferson. I have already discussed Jefferson’s deprecation regarding his “wee” text, but this is my introduction and I can do what I want.]
TJ: [Visibly disturbed] Who has suggested this to you?
PE: If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. So, what’s the problem you have with Jesus and Paul and the gang?
TJ: That Paul screwed it all up by making the religion about Jesus.
PE: In your Bible, you never admit to the deity of Christ. You never mention the virgin birth and there are no miracles. I mean, the old boy doesn’t even rise from the dead. What gives?
TJ: I’ll tell you what gives. The teachings of Jesus are well worth remembering, but the rest of it is superstition. That’s why we have such priestcraft and this abundance of dogma.
PE: You have trouble with dogma.
TJ: I do.
PE: And with untested supposition.
TJ: I do.
PE: Okay, well, I want to thank you for your time. And if you don’t mind, I’ll see myself out.
TJ: Lars!
* * *
The sadness is this. In spite of that fact that Thomas Jefferson was an intellectual in his time and was so beautifully shaped in his thinking by the Enlightenment, he still practiced and perhaps set into motion the duplicity that marks American political posturing, thought, and action. The one trait that has remained constant from Jefferson to Bush is convenient thinking. I accuse myself here of being indulgent and gratuitous in my depiction of Jefferson, but I have not been untruthful, nor, I think, unfair. Jefferson’s
