Tuesday, February 14, 2012
"The seasons of the plantation no longer dictate the lives of many of us; hundreds of thousands of us are moving into the sphere of conscious history.
We are the new tide. We stand at the crossroads. We watch each new procession. The hot wires carry urgent appeals. Print compels us. Voices are speaking. Men are moving! And we shall be with them..." (147)
Wright spends roughly 140 pages describing, in harrowing detail, the plight of the average African-American and the roles they played in Southern and Northern society. It is, therefore, nice to see him ending on a seemingly positive note. The closing paragraph and accompanying picture of a man with his face upturned and his expression positive, encapsulates the journey that African-Americans have made from despair to the strong hope of change. Wright expresses, in strong terms, the dream of African-Americans to become a part of American life and partake of the successes and opportunities available to others. He acknowledges the importance of cooperation between whites and blacks but also recognizes that the African-American consciousness has been moulded by their experiences with whites. With the last passage, he highlights their endurance and their strong will to fight back against the injustice of oppression and make a change for themselves. 12 Million Black Voices is a compelling narrative about the sufferings of African-Americans at the hands of the whites, but it's also a declaration of the strength and perseverance that characterizes them. Wright still uses "us-them" language, but here I think it is necessary to use this kind of divisive language to indicate that they are a people who are no longer taking no for an answer and who are fed up of the alienation imposed by the South and the Black Belt in the North and are ready to become part of a new era of tolerance and acceptance. He uses short, emphatic phrases to drive the point home but what intrigued me was the ellipses at the end of the last sentence. It seems to serve as a form of temperance to his prior declarations but it seems ill-fitting, given that his earlier sentences are empassioned and straightforward.
Question: why do you think Wright chose to end 12 Million Black Voices in such a manner? Does it affect the impact that the ending had on you? Would you say the ending is positive or cautious?
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"The fears of black and white lessened in the face of the slowly widening acceptance of an identity of interests." (144)
ReplyDelete"The differences between black folk and white folk are not blood or color, and the ties that bind us are deeper than those that separate us." (146)
Not only does Wright seem to suggest that the history of black America is formed against the grindstone of white oppression, but he proposes throughout 12 Million Black Voices that the drive for this oppression was a dedication to improvement. The idea is that America collectively produced a "new world culture... a higher human consciousness" (12), albeit at the hands of flagrant inflinctions upon freedom and equality along the way.
The conclusion is interesting, especially in the rhetorical use of ellipsis. Another peculiar rhetorical device resides in the simple but loaded question: "What do we black folk want?"
Wright offers his own answer to this and other questions, but many years have passed since he posed this question. Do Wright's notions of non-racial solidarity hold true today? Would his answers to the ultimate questions of the book satisfy modern racial demands?