Every he and every she who feels it knows.
This is not a side issue, it’s at the very heart of the ongoing
turmoil in the United States.
Since the cold-blooded murder of George Floyd, there has
been so much talk and some action (just a little) about racism in the United States, much more this year than in any other year in my lifetime. That’s
why there are so many Americans here, elsewhere and not there. So they say.
Just a few days ago America’s first fully Black President
Barack Obama, who has been recently at the forefront of the crusade against the
incumbent President Donald J. Trump wasn’t mincing words when he said that
Trump more than anyone else has exacerbated race relations in the United States,
literally, fanning the flames.
“The United Snakes”,
said Malcolm. The United, now heavily divided
Indeed, he and she who feels it
knows:
“The United States of America is to me the most wonderful
country in the world, and it really is, but only if while you live there you
attach yourself to the best people in it and the best people in it are Black
people, African American people. If, when you go to the United States, you
attach yourself to the group of people who call themselves “White” you will
consign yourself to misery and minor and major transgressions against your
fellow human beings and also greediness and everyday murder.”
Context and Source : https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/11/11/inside-the-american-snow-dome/
Like black fire on white snow, these are strong words as carefully
chosen as the smooth stone from David’s sling purposefully delivered with the
very best wishes to Goliath, as carefully chosen as Gil Scott-Heron’s “To Whitey on the Moon”
For this simple reason Jamaica Kincaid is never going
to be decorated with the Nobel Prize for Literature - for the same most probable
reason why Graham Greene was never awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature,
in one word, a perceived “anti-Americanism”. In Jamaica Kincaid’s case,
she has said explicitly that she is not hankering after it (The Nobel Prize in Literature)
Incidentally, this essay by Jamaica Kincaid also appeared on
the Culture section in Dagens Nyheter on Thursday, 12th November,
2020
BTW, for several weeks now Dagens Nyheter has been on the rampage against what they refer to as “Trumpism” and Trump’s United States. I’m sure that if Tehran Times or some other Iranian newspapers were to be featuring some of the editorials and other stuff that’s been flowing out of the mighty pen of their commander-in-chief, Peter Wolodarski (the wordy pen being mightier than the sword) – then Donald J Trump would have been doing some sabre-rattling, tweeting some "no options off the table" and accusing such newspapers of hostile “Un-American Activities.”
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