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1. For Black History Month today, I watched Episodes 2-3 of Roots: The Next Generation. In my posts on Roots and Roots: the Next Generation, I’ve distinguished between the African-Americans who sought to appease white society to make a place for themselves and their people within the system, and those who challenged white society in their pursuit of freedom (see #1 in Roots TNG 1, Baltzer on the Suffering Servant, Dahood on the Afterlife, Bold Gideon, Apuleius—Meet Melinda Gordon and Jonathan Smith, along with the links there).
But the division between these two groups is not always clear-cut. For one, what is freedom? Tom Harvey defines it as having the right to vote, even if that means picking the lesser of two evils, in his case, Colonel Warner, who’s championing white supremacy to get the white redneck vote.
Tom Harvey’s son-in-law, Will Palmer, defines freedom as economic independence. The white elders of the town give Will Palmer the lumberyard after its previous drunken manager (played by Harry Morgan of MASH and Dragnet) had neglected it and accumulated a debt. As the elders tell Will, Will’s been the one keeping the lumberyard afloat anyway, so Will’s race won’t keep them from performing a sound business practice: giving Will the lumberyard.
Both Tom and Will are accused of being Uncle Tom’s who try to appease the white man. Tom’s daughter Elizabeth calls her father a Jim Crow, and Tom’s friends and family question his desire to support Colonel Warner, who’s a racist (or at least an opportunist), however elegant and refined he may be. And Tom mocks Will for being nice to the white elders who gave him the lumberyard, especially after some of these elders had approved of a recent lynching. But Will tells Tom that he’s fighting for freedom in his own way: he’ll pay his debts so that he owes the white man nothing, and he’ll make a success of his business.
In Episode 3, we see the conflict between the two groups in Simon Haley’s comments regarding Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois. Simon loves Booker T. Washington, who is exalted at the black college that he attends with Bertha, the granddaughter of Tom Harvey (who’s descended from the African, Kunta Kinte). But, when Bertha lends him W.E.B. DuBois’ new book, The Souls of Black Folk (which she got as a going-away present from her Aunt Warner, a student with Dubois at Fisk College), his faith in Booker T. is shaken, right before Booker is about to visit the campus! As Bertha (who’s not exactly an intellectual, as sweet as she may be) says to Simon, “It’s like you just lost your faith in Jesus!”
I had my stereotype of the positions of Washington and DuBois. Washington believed that blacks should improve themselves and become independent, whereas DuBois thought they should challenge white society in their pursuit of equality. But things are much more complex than that. For one, Simon Haley quotes DuBois’ statement that Booker T. Washington has sought to undermine black colleges, which somewhat took me aback, for I thought that Booker T. championed black colleges as an integral part of black advancement. And, when I saw the Great Debaters, there was a scene in which two sides were debating black suffrage, and the “anti” side actually appealed to W.E.B. DuBois to say that blacks shouldn’t overly push for what white society is not ready to accept.
Yale University has a good article on the subject: see here. Booker T. was accused of undermining black colleges because he focused on African-Americans gaining skills in industry and agriculture, while neglecting the liberal arts. W.E.B. Dubois may have believed that African-Americans (or at least the “talented tenth” of them who would lead the African-Americans) should have broader knowledge than that required for grunt work. So that could be the basis for his charge against Washington, which Simon read.
As far as the scene in the Great Debaters goes, I’m not sure what to say, except to note that the Yale article says Dubois believed in “political gradualism.” Perhaps he believed that African-Americans should aggressively pursue equality, but that they should do so strategically—picking their battles based (in part) on what whites were ready for.
Here’s something I like about Episode 2: it acknowledges that Democratic President Woodrow Wilson was an ardent segregationist. Unfortunately, the miniseries chose to whitewash FDR’s racism (see Wrong on Race)—on Episode 5 (I think).
2. In Ancient Israelite Religion, I read John Collins’ “The Place of Apocalypticism in the Religion of Israel.”
According to Collins, the figure of Enoch (Genesis 5:21-24) is based on the ancient Mesopotamian chararacter Emmeduranki. Enoch is seventh in a genealogy, and Emmeduranki is seventh in “several antediluvian king lists” (542). Enoch is 365 years old when he is taken, the length of a solar year, and “Emmeduranki was associated with the sun-god Shamash.” Enoch was taken and walked with God, and Emmeduranki “was admitted to the divine assembly”, meaning he went to heaven.
Collins also talks about the attitude of the Enoch group to the Mosaic law. The Enoch group believed in the apocalyptic book of I Enoch, which was about revelations that Enoch received in heaven concerning God and the distant future. I vaguely recall reading in a commentary that the Enoch group viewed I Enoch was a replacement for the Mosaic Torah, but that didn’t make much sense to me. I Enoch speaks in favor of the Maccabees and the Hasidim, who supported the Torah against Hellenistic aggression. I prefer what Collins says on page 548: “There is no reason to suppose that the Enoch group rejected the Mosaic law, but it was not sufficient for them; hence the need for the higher angelic revelation.” They felt they needed more than the stories and laws of the Pentateuch. Rather, they wanted to know what heaven was like, and especially God’s plan for their own time. Many who believed deep-down that the Bible wasn’t sufficient sought to overcome this problem by reading things into the Bible. The Enoch school, by contrast, embraced another book in addition to the Torah.
3. In Psalms II: 51-100, I read Mitchell Dahood’s comments on Psalm 72, which is called a Psalm of Solomon. Dahood says that the Psalm “may well have been composed by a functionary of the Solomonic court”, for the “language is in some verses very archaic…” Plus, certain verses can be applied to Solomon. For instance, v 8 says (in Dahood’s translation), “And may he rule from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.” The river is probably the Euphrates, and Dahood reads this verse in light of I Kings 5:1: “Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates (hannahar) to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.”
So I guess Dahood is a biblical maximalist, who believes in a Solomonic kingdom as vast as the Bible depicts.
4. On pages 173 of Narrative History and Ethnic Boundaries, Theodore Mullen actually questions the widespread idea that the thugs in Genesis 19:5 and Judges 19 wanted to have homosexual sex. When they said “Bring them out that we may know them,” were they expressing a desire to gang-rape the guests?
Mullen says: While the verb yada’ clearly can carry sexual connotations, the narrative does not demand that a homosexual interpretation be given to the text. What is clear from the response of the hosts in each of these parallel accounts is that the actions of the people of the town are in violation of the rules of hospitality.
Unfortunately, as far as I can see, he doesn’t really support this statement. If yada doesn’t mean sexual relations in these stories, what does it mean?
5. On page 329 of The Middle Platonists, John Dillon states regarding second century C.E. philosopher Apuleius: Apuleius lays down the principle that man is born neither good nor evil, but having a nature which may incline either way. Seeds of virtue and of vice are sown in him at his birth, and it is the duty of education to foster the right ones, so that virtue and vice would come to coincide in the individual with pleasure and pain.
Christians would probably ask why we need to be taught virtue if we weren’t predisposed towards evil at birth. Others may argue, however, that the selfishness of infants isn’t “evil” but is a part of human development. Still, discipline is necessary in childhood as well. But don’t discipline and education imply that we have the capacity for goodness, even if there’s a pull in us towards mischief?
6. At Latin mass this morning, we had the priest who speaks about love, and he was talking about Lent. According to him, we can experience the glory and presence of God during our fast. Personally, I don’t plan to observe Lent. People have told me that fasting brings them closer to God and gives them a clearer mindset, but all it does for me is make me hungry. I fast on Yom Kippur every year, and that’s it.
