the commencement ceremony, we had lunch together in the law school cafeteria. It was for the graduates and their families. I told the hostess that we had a bus load of people from Virginia coming in at any minute. “Can you help me hold these six tables for my family?” I pleaded.
“I’ll try to keep them for you,” she said, while gesturing to her colleague to help her hold the tables. I went to help direct our family and friends to the right place. When I returned, all the tables were gone except one. I asked the hostess what happened and she threw up her hands and said, “Sorry. I couldn’t stop them. There are no reservations, you know.” Unable to sit together, we integrated ourselves into the sea of Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants who were there.
Throughout the day I observed and took mental notes on the state of graduate education and the conditions that Black people still have to negotiate to survive and get ahead. Well, so much for diversity and affirmative action, I thought. Culture means acculturation to most white folk even in the prestigious liberal universities: theology and culture, religion and culture, philosophy and culture. In my theology and culture seminar at the University of Virginia the focus was on St. Augustine, Schleiermacher, and Kathryn Tanner. This is the extent of the worldview regarding the study of God and humankind—theology and culture’s only axis was through Western Europe and the United States’ kinship to Europe. Africa and the African diaspora played no part in the formal discussion of culture.
Chapter 2
“Mr. Harris,” I finally heard someone say. The class was in full swing. Everyone had introduced themselves during my mental hiatus. It turned out that the voice belonged to a tall, balding white man who taught the class. He was a Mark Twain scholar and devotee of some notoriety. He appeared to be a little annoyed at me. “We are waiting for you to introduce yourself.” He mustered up a smile, and so did I.
“My apologies,” I began. “My name is James Henry. I am in the graduate English literature program here.” I thought I had offered enough information but the faces of the students showed that they were not satisfied with my terse response. Some smiled with anxious excitement; others frowned with concern and anticipation. They expected me to say more, but I didn’t know what more to say and, if the truth be told, I didn’t want to say much about myself. Minimalism was the order of the day for me. I cleared my throat and continued. “I am just here to learn.” This time I thought I had finished. The professor thanked all who shared words about who they were and what they expected from the course and asked us to open our books to one of his favorite passages.
I didn’t have my copy of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in front of me as the others did; nor had I, in my introduction, talked about my expectations from the class. I reached for my briefcase that I carried as a book bag. It had fallen under the table. I didn’t want to be too distracting, but when I couldn’t feel the book immediately, I had to pull it from under the table, open it, and look through it. I thought I had put it in a place where I could readily grab it. Papers ruffled as I fingered through my briefcase, which I should have cleaned out but had not. I caught the lawyer’s eyes glaring at me with what I took to be annoyed frustration. And my own skepticism and prejudice kicked into high gear. Another barracuda from William and Mary, I thought. A barrister, maybe. Everything about her looked slightly British to me. I could hardly wait to hear her speak. I was making it difficult for her to hear what page number the class was being asked to turn to. I pulled my book from my briefcase and put it on the table. It was a paperback book whose cover showed bent corners, and the first few pages were permanently creased because of the way it had been stuffed into my case. The class apparently had no time to wait for me. They were already following along as the professor recited his favorite passage from the book. I was tempted to ask the young redheaded woman beside me what page we were on, but I decided that I had already been too disruptive for a few folk in the class. So I opted to simply lean forward and sneak a peek over her shoulder. They were on page thirty-three. As I turned to that page, I heard nothing the professor was saying. When I looked up at him, I saw that he was not reading but reciting this section of the book from memory. I started to listen and to squirm. I became very fidgety. I felt nervous, and unsettled.
I couldn’t believe how I was feeling and how my mind and body were reacting to hearing the forbidden word, nigger, by a white man. Well, I’d thought it was forbidden. As the professor recited Huck’s father Pap Finn’s drunken palaver with what I interpreted to be a joyful glee, I struggled with my feelings. It had been so long since I had heard a white person verbalize the word nigger without hesitation. But it was right there, embedded in the text the professor chose to recite. I cannot eradicate this haunting introductory recital from my mind. The professor lifted his tall, lanky body from the chair and began to speak from memory. The front of the class was his stage as his presence filled the room. It felt as though Mark Twain had risen from the dead as Professor Wilson burst forth in his booming mimetic voice:
“Call this a govment! Why, just look at it and see what its like . . .
“Oh yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful.” Why looky–here. There was a free nigger there, from Ohio; a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat and there ain’t a man in that town that got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane—the awfulest and old gray-headed nabob in the state. And what do you think? They said he was a p’fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain’t the wust. They said he could vote, when he was home. Well that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country coming to? It was ‘lection’ day, and I was just about to go and vote, myself, if I wasn’t too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a state in this country where they’d let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I say’s I’ll never vote agin. Thems the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may not for all me—I’ll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the cool way of that nigger—why he wouldn’t a give me the road if I hadn’t shoved him out o’ the way. I says to the people, why ain’t this nigger put up at auction and sold?—that’s what I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why they said he couldn’t be sold till he’d been in the State six months, and he hadn’t been there that long yet. There, now—that’s a specimen. They call that a govment that can’t sell a free nigger till he’s been in the State six months. Here’s a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it a govment, and yet’s got to set stock still for six whole months before it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger and—”
When the professor finally finished his performance of Pap’s invidious diatribe, I thought to myself how clever Mark Twain had been in capturing Pap Finn’s spirit and the spirit of America towards Blacks. Even the most despicable, low-down, drunken white man could glory in his superiority to Blacks. Twain had been right about that. And not just an ordinary Black. He was not a slave, nor a farm hand. Not a janitor or jackleg preacher. Not a busboy or butler. Not even a gifted musician or a dancer. But an educated and distinguished professor. A man of letters like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Michel de Montaingne, Wole Soyinka, or Henry David Thoreau. Like Johann Von Goethe or Gustave Flaubert. Like Frederick Douglass or Langston Hughes. Smart and proud like W. E. B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington. A free human being of letters. A scholar and an intellectual of high social and moral character. And yet, Huck’s father, Pap, felt and displayed a condescending attitude driven by patriarchy and white privilege. Pap Finn was a worthless, scabrous scamp who possibly didn’t know a noun from a verb or a subject from an object. And yet he felt that he was better than or superior to the most educated and accomplished Black intellectual. If Pap were superior to a free Black professor, then the Black man was indeed an animal. A nonbeing. A piece of wood. A nigger. The nerve of my professor. The gall of him, I thought to myself as he brought his raspy mimesis to a close. My mind was still trying to process what I was witnessing with my eyes and hearing with my own ears. The professor’s unmitigated gall was decorated by a verdant coat of sincerity
