3 January. The Anti-Trade Coalition–a gathering of black and liberal white politicians, civil rights representatives, and progressive academics–quickly assembled early that morning. Working nonstop and driven by anxiety to cooperate more than they ever had in the past, the members of the coalition had drafted a series of legal and political steps designed to organize opposition to the Space Traders‘ offer. Constitutional challenges to any acceptance scheme were high on the list of opposition strategies. Bills opposing the Trade were drafted for early introduction in Congress. There were plans for direct action protests and boycotts. Finally, in the event that worse came to worst, and the administration decided to carry out what gathering participants were calling the “African-American kidnapping plot,” a secret committee was selected to draft and distribute plans for massive disobedience.
Now, at close to midnight, the plenary session was ready to give final approval to this broad program of resistance.
At that moment, Professor Gleason Golightly sought the floor to propose an alternative response to the Trade offer. Golightly’s close connection to the conservative administration and active support of its anti-black views made him far from a hero to most blacks. Many viewed his appearance at this critical hour as an administration-sponsored effort to un- dermine the coalition’s defensive plans and tactics. At last, though, he prevailed on the conference leaders to grant him five minutes.
As he moved toward the podium, there was a wave of hostile murmuring whose justification Golightly acknowledged: “I am well aware that political and ideological differences have for several years sustained a wide chasm between us. But the events of two days ago have transformed our disputes into a painful reminder of our shared status. I am here because, whatever our ideological differences or our socioeconomic positions, we all know that black rights, black interests, black property, even black lives are expendable whenever their sacrifice will further or sustain white needs or preferences.”
Hearing Golightly admitting to truths he had long denied, served to silence the murmuring. “It has become an unwritten tradition in this country for whites to sacrifice our rights to further their own interests. This tradition overshadows the national debate about the Space Traders’ offer and may well foretell our reply to it.”
Oblivious of the whites in the audience, Golightly said, “I realize that our liberal white friends continue to reassure us. ‘This is America,’ they tell us. ‘It can’t happen here.’ But I’ve noticed that those whites who are most vigorous in their assurances are least able to rebut the contrary teaching of both historic fact and present reality. Outside civil rights gatherings like this, the masses of black people–those you claim to represent but to whom you seldom listen–are mostly resigned to the nation’s acceptance of the Space Traders’ offer.
For them, liberal optimism is smothered by their life experience.
“Black people know for a fact what you, their leaders, fear to face. Black people know your plans for legislation, litigation, and protest cannot prevail against the tradition of sacrificing black rights. Indeed, your efforts will simply add a veneer of face-saving uncertainty to a debate whose outcome is not only predictable, but inevitable. Flying in the face of our history, you are still relying on the assumption that whites really want to grant justice to blacks, really want to alleviate onerous racial conditions.”
” Professor Golightly,” the chairman interrupted, “the time we have allotted you has almost expired. The delegates here are weary and anxious to return to their homes so that they can assist their families through this crisis. The defense plans we have formulated are our best effort. Sir, if you have a better way, let us hear it now.”
Golightly nodded. “I promised to be brief, and I will. Although you have labored here unselfishly to devise a defense against what is surely the most dangerous threat to our survival since our forebears were kidnapped from Africa’s shores. I think I have a better way, and I urge you to hear it objectively and without regard to our past differences. The question is how best to counter an offer that about a third of the voters would support even if the Space Traders offered America nothing at all. Another third may vacillate, but we both know that in the end they will simply not be able to pass up a good deal. The only way we can deflect, and perhaps reverse, a process that is virtually certain to result in approval of the Space Traders’ offer, is to give up the oppositional stance you are about to adopt, and forthrightly urge the country to accept the Space Traders’ offer.”
He paused, looking out over the sea of faces.Then there was a clamor of outraged cries: “Sell-out!” “Traitor!” and “Ultimate Uncle Tom!” The chairman banged his gavel in an effort to restore order.
Seemingly unmoved by the outburst, Golightly waited until the audience quieted, then continued. “A major, perhaps the principal, motivation for racism in this country is the deeply held belief that black people should not have anything that white people don’t have.
Not only do whites insist on better jobs, higher incomes, better schools and neighborhoods, better everything, but they also usurp aspects of our culture. They have ‘taken our blues and gone,’ to quote Langston Hughes songs that sprang from our very subordination. Whites exploit not only our music but our dance, language patterns, dress and hair styles as well.Even the badge of our inferior status, our color, is not sacrosanct, whites spending billions a year to emulate our skin tones, paradoxically, as a sign of their higher status. So whites’ appropriation of what is ours and their general acquisitiveness are facts–facts we must make work for us. Rather than resisting the Space Traders’ offer, let us circulate widely the rumor that the Space Traders, aware of our long fruitless struggle on this planet, are arranging to transport us to a land of milk and honey–a virtual paradise.
“Remember, most whites are so jealous of their race-based prerogatives that they oppose affirmative action even though many of these programs would remove barriers that exclude whites as well as blacks. Can we not expect such whites-notwithstanding even the impressive benefits offered by the Space Traders–to go all out to prevent blacks from gaining access to an extraterrestrial New Jerusalem? Although you are planning to litigate against the Trade on the grounds that it is illegal discrimination to limit it to black people, mark my words, our ‘milk and honey’ story will inspire whites to institute such litigation on the grounds that limiting the Space Traders’ offer to black people is unconstitutional discrimination against whites!
“Many of you have charged that I have become expert at manipulating white people for personal gain. Although profit has not in fact motivated my actions, I certainly have learned to understand how whites think on racial issues. On that knowledge, I am willing to wage my survival and that of my family. I urge you to do the same. This strategy is, however, risky, our only hope.”
The murmurs had subsided into stony silence by the time Golightly left the podium.
“Does anyone care to respond to Professor Golightly’s suggestion?” the chairman finally asked.
Justin Jasper, a well-known and highly respected Baptist minister, came to the microphone. “I readily concede Dr. Golightly’s expertise in the psychology of whites’ thinking. Furthermore, as he requests, I hold in abeyance my deep distrust of a black man whose willing service to whites has led him to become a master minstrel of political mimicry. But my problem with his plan is twofold. First, it rings hollow because it so resembles Dr. Golightly’s consistent opposition in the past to all our civil rights initiatives. Once again, he is urging us to accept rather than oppose a racist policy. And, not only are we not to resist, but we are to beg the country to lead us to the sacrificial altar. God may have that power, but Dr. Golightly is not my god!”
The Reverend Jasper was a master orator, and he quickly had his audience with him.
“Second, because the proposal lacks truth, it insults my soul. In the forty years I have worked for civil rights, I have lost more battles than I have won, but I have never lost my integrity. Telling the truth about racism has put me in prison and many of my co-workers into early graves.
“The truth is, Dr. Golightly, that what this country is ready to do to us is wrong! It is evil! It is an action so heinous as to give the word betrayal a bad name. I can speak only for myself, but even if I were certain that my family and I could escape the threat we now face by lying about our likely fate–and, Dr. Golightly, that is what you’re asking us to do–I do not choose to save myself by a tactic that may preserve my body at the sacrifice of my soul. The fact is, Dr. Golightly, until my Lord calls me home, I do not want to leave this country even for a land of milk and honey. My people were brought here involuntarily, and that is the only way they’re going to get me out!”
The Reverend Jasper received a standing ovation. Many people were crying openly as they applauded. After thanking them, the minister asked everyone to join in singing the old nineteenth-century hymn “Amazing Grace,” which, he reminded them, had been written by an English minister, one John Newton, who as a young man and before finding God’s grace, had been captain of a slave ship. It was with special fervor that they sang the verse:
Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come.
‘Twas grace that brought me safe this far,
And grace will lead me home.
With the hymn’s melody still resonating, the coalition’s members voted unanimously to approve their defensive package. The meeting was quickly adjourned. Leaving the hall, everyone agreed that they had done all that could be done to oppose approval of the Space Traders’ offer. As for Golightly, his proposal was dismissed as coming from a person who, in their view, had so often sold out black interests. “He’s a sad case. Even with this crisis, he’s just doing what he’s always done.”
Again, as after the President’s cabinet meeting, Golightly sat for a long time alone. He did not really mind that none of the delegates had spoken to him before leaving. But he was crushed by his failure to get them to recognize what he had long known: that without power, a people must use cunning and guile. Or were cunning and guile, based on superior understanding of a situation, themselves power? Certainly, most black people knew and used this art to survive in their everyday contacts with white people. It was only civil rights professionals who confused integrity with foolhardiness.
“Faith in God is fine,” Golightly muttered to himself. “But God expects us to use the common sense He gave us to get out of life-threatening situations.”
Still, castigation of black leadership could not alter the fact. Golightly had failed, and he knew it. Sure, he was smarter than they were–smarter even than most whites; but he had finally outsmarted himself. At the crucial moment, when he most needed to help his people, both whites and blacks had rejected as untrustworthy both himself and his plans.
To be continued. . . . .
Ann
