MDDM Gershom's Intervention (was ...

[jbor]

To be fair to MalignD's point, changing "slave" to "enslaved person" is no
more than a nominal distinction, of course. And yet, there *are* ignorant
people out there who might perceive the term "slave" as denoting something
innate, a fault of the individual or race, rather than something forcibly
imposed. Though, it's unlikely that they're the sort of people who'd be
reading Walker's books.

But I can see what she's getting at. And there *are* a lot of ignorant and
bigoted people out there. There are apparently still some who consider that
Africans and African-Americans are not the "intellectual equals" of whites,
that they needed "opportunities to advance" - indoctrination into white
culture, in other words - before they could be classed as "equals". Shame.

best

on 13/7/02 9:08 AM, jbor at jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

> I tend to agree that the bits quoted from Sheila Walker's book aren't
> ahistorical or preposterous in themselves, and that the rhetorical move from
> "slaves" to "enslaved peoples" or "enslaved Africans" is valid. She is
> certainly a biased commentator, however, and it needs to be emphasised that
> what she writes, the generalisations about behaviours and attitudes she
> makes, and what Pynchon shows in _M&D_ in the relationship between George
> and Gersh, are two different things entirely. Standard tactic.
> 
> Nowhere in _M&D_ is GW depicted as "attempting to define the total reality"
> of Gersh - quite the opposite in fact, in terms of the absolute liberty to
> be and do and say whatever he wants that Gersh is afforded by GW - and the
> "jive" version of the slave-master relationship they create together is a
> *shared* joke between them rather than dissimulation against George on
> Gersh's part, and it's performed at the expense of stereotypes which
> sanctimonious Philadelphians (and someone like Walker, too, I'd add) have
> concocted and propagated. Gershom following GW to Raleigh's Billiard-Room in
> Ch. 58, and intervening there on George's behalf, does reenforce the mutual
> bonds of affection, respect and loyalty between them which Pynchon
> establishes in Ch. 28.
> 
> Elsewhere in his depictions of slaves and their masters in this text, such
> as at the Cape, at Lord Lepton's, or the incident with the Maryland
> slave-driver later on, and in his other novels, stories and non-fiction,
> Pynchon certainly portrays a range of different relationships between
> slaveholders and enslaved Africans, including the sort of stereotypical
> generalisation Walker proposes, and there are ignorant racists aplenty all
> through his texts. But in his texts there are also white Americans and
> Europeans, such as GW, who aren't racist, and black Africans and
> African-Americans who recognise this, and this is something which doesn't
> fit into Walker's schema as it has been presented here. The relationship
> between Enzian and Weissmann in _GR_, for example, is another which subverts
> the one mould Walker tries to create.
> 
> best
> 
> 
> 
> on 13/7/02 5:25 AM, MalignD at aol.com at MalignD at aol.com wrote:
> 
>> I shouldn't get into this, but it is worth pointing out that Sheila Walker is
>> an Afrocentrist, with all that implies; i.e., at least at this stage of
>> things, a field of study many of the claims of which are grossly ahistorical
>> and patently preposterous.
>> 
>> She is apparently not terribly consistent either.  In addition to her
>> comments on slavery as noted [...], she also has said, "We need to stop
>> talking about slaves. I don't believe in slaves."  And, "The wealth of the
>> Americas and the western world-all the Peri-Atlantic world, was created by
>> Africans."
>> 
>> 
>