Wednesday
As I’m currently in Slovenia, Americans were still going to the polls last night when I went to bed. Before I fell asleep, the magnificent final passage from Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon came to mind. In it two former friends struggle for the soul of the Black community, just as America today is struggling for its own soul.
Guitar has become obsessed with his hatred for whites, so much so that he has joined a Black terrorist group that kills an innocent white for every Black that whites kill. Milkman, by contrast, is finding meaning in a roots quest. Formerly aimless, the privileged son of a successful businessman now knows that love trumps hate and is preparing to live his life accordingly.
In this final showdown that has elements of magical realism, he draws on stories of slaves who flew back to Africa. Guitar has a gun as the two stand on opposing cliff ledges, but Milkman doesn’t hesitate as he launches himself into an uncertain future:
Milkman stopped waving and narrowed his eyes. He could just make out Guitar’s head and shoulders in the dark. “You want my life?” Milkman was not shouting now. “You need it? Here.” Without wiping away the tears, taking a deep breath, or even bending his knees—he leaped. As fleet and bright as a lodestar he wheeled toward Guitar and it did not matter which one of them would give up his ghost in the killing arms of his brother. For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.
America is currently being ravaged by a white hatred that is just as toxic as Black hatred. But hatred doesn’t allow you to fly.
As I write this at 5:30 Wednesday morning, the Democrats are set to retake both the Senate and the House. Trump, of course, is still president, which means we are entering unknown territory. Voters, however, are rejecting a politics of hate and divisiveness as they tap into the best of the American promise. Our 250th anniversary may become an occasion for renewal rather than mourning.
I conclude, therefore, with another powerful novelistic ending, this one from Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony. Tayo has fought off the forces of hate in his own Laguna Pueblo community by, like Milkman, tapping into his people’s rich heritage. The novel ends with a prayer:
Whirling darkness
started its journey
with its witchery
and
its witchery has returned upon it.
Its witchery
has returned
into its belly.
Its own witchery
has returned
all around it.
Whirling darkness
has come back on itself.
It keeps all its witchery
to itself.
It doesn’t open its eyes
with its witchery.
It has stiffened
with the effects of its own witchery.
It is dead for now.
It is dead for now.
It is dead for now.
It is dead for now.
And then the final invocation:
Sunrise,
Accept this offering,
Sunrise.
The sun is just rising over Ljubljana and touching the snow-covered Alps that one can see from the city center. Hope rises with it.
