So now you say “Well, if you can’t tell who My People are by skin color, how are you going to know?” There’s more ways than one of telling, and I’m going to point them out right now.
A
Wait until you see a congregation of more than two dark complected people. If they can’t agree on a single, solitary thing, then you can go off satisfied. Those are My People. It’s just against nature for us to agree with each other. We not only refuse to agree, we’ll get mad and fight about it. But only each other! Anybody else can cool us off right now. We fly hot quick, but we are easily cooled when we find out the person who made us mad is not another Negro.
There is the folk-tale of the white man who hired five men to take hold of a rope to pull up a cement block. They caught hold and gave a yank and the little stone flew way up to the pulley the first time. The men looked at one ’nother in surprise and so one of them said to the bossman: “Boss, how come you hire all of us to pull up that one little piece of rock? One man could do that by hisself.” “Yeah, I know it,” the bossman told him, “but I just wanted to see five Negroes pulling together once.”
Then there is the story of the man who was called on to pray. He got down and he said. “Oh Lord, I want to ask something, but I know you can’t do it. I just know you can’t do it.” Then he took a long pause.
Somebody got restless and said “Go ahead and ask Him. That’s God you talking to. He can do anything.”
The man who was praying said “I know He is supposed to do all things, but this what I wants to ask….”
“Aw go on and ask Him. God A’Mighty can do anything. Go on, brother, and ask Him and finish up your prayer.”
“Well, alright, I’ll ask Him. O Lord, I’m asking you because they tell me to go ahead. I’m asking you something, but I just know you can’t do it. I just know you can’t do it but I’ll just ask you. Lord, I’m asking you to bring my people together. but I know you can’t do it, Lord. Amen.”
Maybe the Lord can do it, but he hasn’t done it yet.
It do say in the Bible that the Lord started the disturbance himself. It was the sons of Ham who built the first big city and started the tower of Babel. They were singing and building their way to heaven when the Lord came down and confused their tongues. We haven’t built no more towers and things like that but we still got the confusion. The other part about the building and what not may be just a folk-tale, but we’ve got proof about the tongue power.
So when you find a set of folks who won’t agree on a thing, those are My People.
B
If you have your doubts, go and listen to the man. If he hunts for six big words where one little one would do, that’s My People. If he can’t find that big word he’s feeling for, he is going to make a new one. But somehow or other that new made word fits the thing it was made for. Sounds good, too. Take for instance the time when the man needed the word slander and he didn’t know it. He just made the word discriminate and anybody that heard the word would know what he meant. “Don’t discriminate de woman.” Somebody didn’t know the word total nor entire so they made bodacious. Then there’s asterperious, and so on. When you find a man chewing up the dictionary and spitting out language, that’s My People.
C
If you still have doubts, study the man and watch his ways. See if all of him fits into today. If he has no memory of yesterday, nor no concept of tomorrow, then he is My People. There is no tomorrow in the man. He mentions the word plentiful and often. But there is no real belief in a day that is not here and present. For him to believe in a tomorrow would mean an obligation to consequences. There is no sense of consequences. Else he is not My People.
D
If you are still not satisfied, put down two piles of money. Do not leave less than a thousand dollars in one pile and do not leave more than a dollar and a quarter in the other. Expose these two sums where they are equally easy to take. If he takes the thousand dollars he is not My People. That is settled. My People never steal more than a dollar and a quarter. This test is one of the strongest.
E
But the proof positive is the recognition of the monkey as our brother. No matter where you find the brother in black he is telling a story about his brother the monkey. Different languages and geography, but that same tenderness. There is recognition everywhere of the monkey as a brother. Whenever we want to poke a little fun at ourselves, we throw the cloak of our short-comings over the monkey. This is the American classic:
The monkey was playing in the road one day and a big new Cadillac come down the road full of white people. The driver saw the monkey and drove sort of to one side and went on. Several more cars came by and never troubled the monkey at all. Way after while here come long a Ford car full of Colored folks. The driver was showing off, washing his foot in the gas tank. The car could do 60 and he was doing 70 (he had the accelerator down to the floor). Instead of slowing up when he saw the monkey, he got faster and tried to run over him. The monkey just barely escaped by jumping way to one side. The Negro hollered at him and said, “Why de hell don’t you git out of de way? You see me washing my feet in the gas tank! I ought to kill you.” By that time they went on down the road. The monkey sat there and shook his head and said “My People, My People!” However, Georgette Harvey, that superb actress, said that she had spoken with our brother the monkey recently and he does not say “My People” any more. She says the last monkey she talked with was saying “Those People, Those People!” Maybe he done quit the Race. Walked out cold on the family.
F
If you look at a man and mistrust your eyes, do something and see if he will imitate you right away. If he does, that’s My People. We love to imitate. We would rather do a good imitation than any amount of something original. Nothing is half so good as something that is just like something else. And no title is so coveted as the “black this or that.” Roland Hayes is right white folksy that way. He has pointedly refused the title of “The Black Caruso.” It’s got to be Roland Hayes or nothing. But he is exceptional that way. We have Black Patti, Black Yankees, Black Giants. Rose McClendon was referred to time and again as the Black Barrymore. Why we even had a Black Dillinger! He was the Negro that Dillinger carried out of Crown Point when he made his famous wooden gun escape. Of course he didn’t last but a day or two after he got back to Detroit or Buffalo, or where ever he was before the police gave him a black-out. He could have kept quiet and lived a long time perhaps, but he would rather risk dying than to miss wearing his title. As far as he was able, he was old Dillinger himself. Julian, the parachute jumper, risked his life by falling in the East River pretending he knew how to run an aeroplane like Lindbergh to gain his title of Black Eagle. Lindbergh landed in Paris and Julian landed in New-York harbor, but, anyhow, he flew some.
What did Haiti ever do to make the world glad it happened? Well, they held a black revolution right behind the white one in France. And now their Senators and Deputies go around looking like cartoons of French Ministers and Senators in spade whiskers and other goatee forms. They wave their hands and arms and explain about their latin temperaments, but it is not impressive. If you didn’t hear them talk, in a bunch, they could be Adam Powell’s Abbysinia Baptist Church turning out and nobody would know the difference.
In Jamaica, the various degrees of Negroes put on some outward show to impress you that no matter what your eyes tell you, that they are really white folks—white English folks inside. The moment you meet a mulatto there he makes an opportunity to tell you who his father was. You are bound to hear a lot about that Englishman or that Scot. But never a word about the black mama. It is as if she didn’t exist. Had never existed at all. You get the impression that Jamaica is the place where roosters lay eggs. That these Englishmen come there and without benefit of females they just scratch out a nest and lay an egg that hatches out a Jamaican.
As badly as the Ethiopians hated to part with Haile Selassie and freedom, it must be some comfort to have Mussolini for a m
odel. By now, all the Rasses and other big shots are tootching out their lips ferociously, gritting their teeth and otherwise making faces like II Duce. And I’ll bet you a fat man against sweet back that all the little boy Ethiopians are doing a mean pouter pigeon strut around Addis Ababa.
And right here in these United States, we don’t miss doing a thing that the white folks do, possible or impossible. Education, Sports, keeping up with the Joneses and the whole shebang. The unanswerable retort to criticism is “The white folks do it, don’t they?” In Mobile, Alabama, I saw the Millionaires’ ball. A man who roomed in the same house with me got me a ticket and carried me to a seat in the balcony. He warned me not to come down on the dance floor until the first dance was over. The Millionaires and their lady friends would want the floor all to themselves for that dance. It was very special. I was duly impressed, I tell you.
The ball opened with music. A fairly good dance orchestra was on the job. That first dance, exclusively for the Millionaires, was announced and each Millionaire and his lady friend were announced by name as they took the floor.
“John D. Rockefeller, dancing with Miss Selma Jones!” I looked down and out walked Mr. Rockefeller in a pair of white wool pants with a black pin stripe, pink silk shirt without a coat because it was summer time. Ordinarily, Mr. Rockefeller delivered hats for a millinery shop, but not tonight.
Commodore Vanderbilt was announced and took the floor. The Commodore was so thin in his ice-cream pants that he just had no behind at all. Mr. Ford pranced out with his lady doing a hot cut-out. J. P. Morgan entered doing a mean black-bottom, and so on. Also each Millionaire presented his lady friend with a five-dollar gold piece after the dance. It was reasoned the Millionaires would have done the same for the same pleasure.
G
Last but not least, My People love a show. We love to act more than we love to see acting done. We love to look at them and we love to put them on, and we love audiences when we get to specifying. That’s why some of us take advantage of trains and other public places like dance halls and picnics. We just love to dramatize.
Now you’ve been told, so you ought to know. But maybe, after all the Negro doesn’t really exist. What we think is a race is detached moods and phases of other people walking around. What we have been talking about might not exist at all. Could be the shade patterns of something else thrown on the ground—other folks, seen in shadow. And even if we do exist it’s all an accident anyway. God made everybody else’s color. We took ours by mistake. The way the old folks tell it, it was like this, you see.
God didn’t make people all of a sudden. He made folks by degrees. First he stomped out the clay and then he cut out the patterns and propped ’em against the fence to dry. Then after they was dry, He took and blowed the breath of life into ’em and sent ’em on off. Next day He told everybody to come up and get toe-nails. So everybody come and got their toe-nails and finger-nails and went on off. Another time He said for everybody to come get their Nose and Mouth because He was giving ’em out that day. So everybody come got noses and mouths and went on off. Kept on like that till folks had everything but their color. So one day God called everybody up and said, “Now I want everybody around the throne at seven o’clock sharp tomorrow morning. I’m going to give out color tomorrow morning and I want everybody here on time. I got a lot more creating to do and I want to give out this color and be through with that.”
Seven o’clock next morning God was sitting on His throne with His great crown on His head. He looked North, He looked East, He looked West and He looked Australia and blazing worlds was falling off of His teeth. After a while He looked down from His high towers of elevation and considered the Multitudes in front of Him. He looked to His left and said, “Youse red people!” so they all turned red and said “Thank you, God” and they went on off. He looked at the next host and said, “Youse yellow people!” and they got yellow and said “Thank you, God” and they went on off. Then He looked at the next multitude and said, “Youse white people” and they got white and told Him, “Thank you, God” and they went on off. God looked on His other hand and said, “Gabriel, look like I miss some hosts.” Gabriel looked all around and said, “Yes, sir, several multitudes ain’t here.” “Well,” God told him, “you go hunt ’em up and tell ’em I say they better come quick if they want any color. Fool with me and I won’t give out no more.” So Gabriel went round everywhere hunting till way after while he found the lost multitudes down by the Sea of Life asleep under a tree. So he told them they better hurry if they wanted any color. God wasn’t going to wait on them much longer. So everybody jumped up and went running up to the throne. When the first ones got there they couldn’t stop because the ones behind kept on pushing and shoving. They kept on until the throne was careening way over to one side. So God hollered at ’em “Get back! Get back!!” But they thought He said “Git black!” So they got black and just kept the thing agoing.
So according to that, we are no race. We are just a collection of people who overslept our time and got caught in the draft.
ZORA NEALE HURSTON
July 2, 1937
Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
SEEING THE WORLD AS IT IS
Thing lies forever in her birthing-bed and glories. But hungry Time squats beside her couch and waits. His frame was made out of emptiness, and his mouth set wide for prey. Mystery is his oldest son, and power is his portion.
That brings me before the unlived hour, that first mystery of the Universe with its unknown face and reflecting back. For it was said on the day of first sayings that Time should speak backward over his shoulder, and none should see his face, so scornful is he of the creatures of Thing.
What the faceless years will do to me, I do not know. I see Time’s footprints, and I gaze into his reflections. My knees have dragged the basement of Hell and I have been in Sorrow’s Kitchen, and it has seemed to me that I have licked out all the pots. The winters have been and my soul-stuff has lain mute like a plain while the herds of happenings thundered across my breast. In these times there were deep chasms in me which had forgotten their memory of the sun.
But time has his beneficent moods. He has commanded some servant-moments to transport me to high towers of elevation so that I might look out on the breadth of things. This is a privilege granted to a servant of many hours, but a master of few, from the master of a trillion billion hours and the servant of none.
In those moments I have seen that it is futile for me to seek the face of, and fear, an accusing God withdrawn somewhere beyond the stars in space. I myself live upon a star, and I can be satisfied with the millions of assurances of deity about me. If I have not felt the divinity of man in his cults, I have found it in his works. When I lift my eyes to the towering structures of Manhattan, and look upon the mighty tunnels and bridges of the world, I know that my search is over, and that I can depart in peace. For my soul tells me, “Truly this is the son of God. The rocks and the winds, the tides and the hills are his servants. If he talks in finger-rings, he works in horizons which dwarf the equator. His works are as noble as his words are foolish.”
I found that I had no need of either class or race prejudice, those scourges of humanity. The solace of easy generalization was taken from me, but I received the richer gift of individualism. When I have been made to suffer or when I have been made happy by others, I have known that individuals were responsible for that, and not races. All clumps of people turn out to be individuals on close inspection.
This has called for a huge cutting of dead wood on my part. From my earliest remembrance, I heard the phrases, “Race Problem,” “Race Pride,” “Race Man or Woman,” “Race Solidarity,” “Race Consciousness,” “Race Leader,” and the like. It was a point of pride to be pointed out as a “Race Man.” And to say to one, “Why, you are not a race man,” was low-rating a person. Of course these phrases were merely sounding syllables to me as a child. Then the time came when I thought they meant something. I cannot say that they e
ver really came clear in my mind, but they probably were as clear to me as they were to the great multitude who uttered them. Now, they mean nothing to me again. At least nothing that I want to feel.
There could be something wrong with me because I see Negroes neither better nor worse than any other race. Race pride is a luxury I cannot afford. There are too many implications behind the term. Now, suppose a Negro does something really magnificent, and I glory, not in the benefit to mankind, but in the fact that the doer was a Negro. Must I not also go hang my head in shame when a member of my race does something execrable? If I glory, then the obligation is laid upon me to blush also. I do glory when a Negro does something fine, I gloat because he or she has done a fine thing, but not because he was a Negro. That is incidental and accidental. It is the human achievement which I honor. I execrate a foul act of a Negro but again not on the grounds that the doer was a Negro, but because it was foul. A member of my race just happened to be the fouler of humanity. In other words, I know that I cannot accept responsibility for thirteen million people. Every tub must sit on its own bottom regardless. So “Race Pride” in me had to go. And anyway, why should I be proud to be a Negro? Why should anybody be proud to be white? Or yellow? Or red? After all, the word “race” is a loose classification of physical characteristics. It tells nothing about the insides of people. Pointing at achievements tells nothing either. Races have never done anything. What seems race achievement is the work of individuals. The white race did not go into a laboratory and invent incandescent light. That was Edison. The Jews did not work out Relativity. That was Einstein. The Negroes did not find out the inner secrets of peanuts and sweet potatoes, nor the secret of the development of the egg. That was Carver and Just. If you are under the impression that every white man is an Edison, just look around a bit. If you have the idea that every Negro is a Carver, you had better take off plenty of time to do your searching.