The Jewish woman and I froze the moment the singing began. The gentile woman placidly ate her meal. Eventually the singers left and the Jewish woman said: "We have to do something about this." "Yes," I said. The gentile woman said: "What's the matter?"
The Jewish woman explained it to her.
And she said: "Oh, I noticed they were singing loud, but when I realized it wasn't anything against women, I just ignored them."
As we made our objections to the restaurant manager ("Well, one of those women works here and that's just one of the songs we have in the songbook we hand out here") the gentile woman continued to look perplexed. Whereas the Jewish woman seemed about to start swinging with her pocketbook.
But this is only part of the story.
Several months ago, when Israel "annexed" the Golan Heights, a Jewish friend of mine visited that country. Upon his return he explained that Israel needed that land to protect itself from the possibility of enemy shells, apparently lobbed off its cliffs, into Israel.
"But doesn't that land belong to people?" I asked.
"They're not doing anything with it," he replied.
I thought: I have a backyard I'm not 'doing anything with.' Does that give you the right to take it?
He continued telling me the glories of Israel, but I found it hard to listen: Crazy Horse, Lame Deer, and Black Elk stoppered my ears. He sounded like a typical American wasichu (a Sioux word for white men, meaning fat-takers) to me. It seemed only incidental he was a Jew.
I think I am glad Letty Pogrebin has added her article to the necessary and continuing discussion of anti-Semitism in the women's movement. As a black gentile, encountering black anti-Semites is always distressing, because what history clearly shows, if nothing else, is that anti-Semites are never happy. But also because black people, to keep faith with their own ancestors, must struggle to resist all forms of oppression--and it is this necessity that so often brings them to the side of people like the Palestinians, as well as to the side of Jewish Israelis. And this middle ground is where most black people who think about the Middle East at all seem to me have been, until a few years ago. Before that--and perhaps I am merely tracing my own personal history--most black people sided emphatically with Israel.
I remember Egypt's attack on Israel in 1967 and how frightened my Jewish husband and I were that Israel would be--as Egypt threatened--"driven into the sea." When Israel won the Six-Day War we were happy and relieved. I had little consciousness of the Palestinian question at the time. All I considered was the Holocaust, the inhuman fact that Jews were turned away by virtually every country they sought to enter, that they had to live somewhere on the globe (there had been talk by the British during the forties of settling them in Uganda, where Britain had already "settled" thousands of its own citizens) and I had seen the movie Exodus, with its haunting sound track: "This land is mine, God gave this land to me." Over the next several years--thanks largely to a Jewish woman friend who visited Palestinian camps and came home with a Palestinian name--I became more aware. When I tried to talk to my husband about the Palestinians, however (all the Palestinians, not just those in camps or those in the PLO), he simply shut down. He considered my friend a traitor to Jews, and any discussion that questioned Israel's behavior seemed literally to paralyze his thoughts. I understood his fear, and shared it. But when he said, "Israel has to exist," I could only answer, "Yes, and so do those other folks."
One thing that troubles me greatly is how in Pogrebin's article the word "imperialism" is hardly used. It is like reading nineteenth-century European history and seeing the word "colonialism" once or twice.
"After the great outcry against Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights," she writes, "I heard a woman joke, 'Israel is Hitler's last laugh on the Jews'--as if Menachem Begin's ultra-nationalism [my italics: denoting Pogrebin's equation of an ideology with an act] would destroy the Jewish people better than Hitler could."
"Ultra-nationalism" in this case should read "imperialism." For what can you call Israel's establishment of colonies on other people's territories if not imperialism? Regardless of what other folks, like the Americans and Russians, are doing (imperialists both) I think it would help our dialogue if we could say, for instance: Yes, Israel must exist--because Jews, after heinous world maltreatment, deserve affirmative action (as Pogrebin describes it), but when it moves into other people's lands, when it establishes colonies in other people's territories, when it forces folks out of their kitchens, vineyards, and beds, then it must be opposed, just as Russia is or as America is. And, as with those countries, I think there has to be some distinction made between Jews per se and the Israeli government. (Many Americans will undoubtedly say that the settlement of Israel was itself an imperialistic act on the part of the British, and that on that basis it should not exist, but those Americans will have to concede the same thing about America, and answer the question Am I ready to leave and give it back to the Indians?)
I do not believe black people want Israel to "commit suicide," because so many of them still hope the war will slacken enough for them to visit, but any person who has experienced occupation or colonialization will have a hard time condoning Israel's establishment of "settlements" it controls in areas where indigenous people already live. Looking at Israel's "settlements," I think of all those forts that dot the American plains. Israel's "settlements" look chillingly familiar and American to me.
Andrea Dworkin's comment that "I resent the expectation that, having been oppressed, Jews should exercise a higher morality running their country than anyone else" makes me realize I have expected exactly that: I have an identical problem with African countries (and just as frequently face disappointment). That Israel would not be a little America or a little Russia (Idi Amin not be a black Andrew Jackson). That it would not seek to enlarge its empire through the acquisition of "satellites," "protectorates," "colonies," or "states." This was obviously foolish on my part, and I reluctantly accept that. But if Jews are going to behave exactly like other folks (and notably like white Christian men), what then is their Jewishness if not simply their belief in their right to occupy a chosen piece of land? Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.
To many people in the Third World, Zionism doesn't equal racism so much as it equals Israeli imperialism. (Though when Pogrebin quotes someone as saying most Israelis are dark-skinned Jews--and Zionists--one does wonder why none of them seem to be in the Knesset or ever shown as the majority of Israelis when Israelis are presented to us on TV.) And they are against it not because they hate Jews (though some of them may) but because they recognize and condemn imperialistic behavior. When Third World people condemn American or Russian imperialism (and they do) I know perfectly well they are not talking about those millions of Americans or Russians who abhor virtually every political action our respective governments make. If I am appalled by Menachem Begin's policies (and I am, and many Israelis--including soldiers in the Israeli army--are, and many American Jews are) my response is not that Israel should cease to exist, but that Israelis should stop electing him to power.
I felt even closer to my Jewish friend after she went to visit the Palestinian camps. She did not assume Palestinian women "wished her dead," and she was happily surprised to discover they did not. She did discover she looked a lot like them (dark and Semitic: "Cousins my ass," she said, "sisters, or somebody's mirror is lying"), that they shared many historical and cultural similarities, and that Palestinian women were no more wedded to the notion of violence than she was. But this was during the sixties, and perhaps everything has changed since then. Unlike my husband, who considered her a traitor to Jews because she got all intimate with "the enemy," I thought (in my naive, "positively stereotypical" way) that her action was very Jewish. It showed courage, a sense of humor, an incorrigible one-worldism, and a faith in her own perception of reality. It took--how you say--chutzpah. She knew something I, too, deeply believe: to find out any part of the tr
uth, women must travel themselves where they hope to find it. In my opinion and experience, imperialists of all nations and races will tell us anything to keep us fighting. For them.
There is a brilliant essay by the writer June Jordan in her book Civil Wars that black and Jewish feminists might consider using as a consciousness-raising piece. In it she describes what happened when a Jewish woman friend of hers read an essay Jordan had written denouncing the murder of a young black man in Brooklyn by Hassidic Jews. Her friend gave her a book about anti-Semitism so Jordan could "recognize her problem." Anyone familiar with Jordan's work (as her friend must have been: they worked together for years) would know Jordan never hesitates to denounce anyone she feels deserves it; and just as she denounces all kinds of murder, she denounces murder by Jews. This does not make her anti-Semitic; it makes her impartial.
What her friend wanted from her, it seems to me, is silent and uncritical loyalty to Jews, no matter what they do. But many black women feel that silent, uncritical loyalty is something you don't even inflict on your child. In the sixties some black women swerved out of our historical path of challenging everything that looked wrong to us to keep mum while black men "ran the black nation." This was psychically crippling to a generation of black women (and black people in general) and we say, Never again. We deeply appreciate the value of alliances and coalitions, but we come complete with our mouths. It is when we are silent that there is cause to worry.
Every affront to human dignity necessarily affects me as a human being on the planet, because I know every single thing on earth is connected. It depresses me that Pogrebin imagines Jewish women's work for "civil rights, welfare rights, Appalachian relief" was work that did not "necessarily affect [their] own lives." Meaning, logically, that this work was charity, dispensed to the backward, the poor, and the benighted, and that Jewish feminists should now be able to expect "payment" in the form of support. Fortunately I have worked with too many Jewish women in social movements to believe many of them think this--rather than that any struggle against oppression lightens the load on all of us--but if they do, we are worse off than I thought.
Jewish feminists will have to try to understand people of color's hatred of imperialism and colonialism: we who have lost whole continents to the white man's arrogance and greed, and to his white female accomplice's inability to say no to stolen gold, diamonds, and furs. And yes, I suspect Jewish feminists will have to identify as Jews within feminism with as much discomfort as they identify as feminists within Judaism; every other woman of an oppressed group has always experienced this double bind. And people of color will have to try to understand Jewish fears of another Holocaust and of being left without a home at all. That is our story too. The black person who honestly believes "being anti-Semitic is one way blacks can buy into American life," has the perception of a flea, and a total ignorance of historically documented, white American behavior. As for those who think the Arab world promises freedom, the briefest study of its routine traditional treatment of blacks (slavery) and women (purdah) will provide relief from all illusion. If Malcolm X had been a black woman his last message to the world would have been entirely different. The brotherhood of Moslem men--all colors--may exist there, but part of the glue that holds it together is the thorough suppression of women.
*In solidarity with the children and mothers of Atlanta.
1983
WRITING THE COLOR PURPLE
I DON'T ALWAYS KNOW where the germ of a story comes from, but with The Color Purple I knew right away. I was hiking through the woods with my sister, Ruth, talking about a lovers' triangle of which we both knew. She said: "And you know, one day The Wife asked The Other Woman for a pair of her drawers." Instantly the missing piece of the story I was mentally writing--about two women who felt married to the same man--fell into place. And for months--through illnesses, divorce, several moves, travel abroad, all kinds of heartaches and revelations--I carried my sister's comment delicately balanced in the center of the novel's construction I was building in my head.
I also knew The Color Purple would be a historical novel, and thinking of this made me chuckle. In an interview, discussing my work, a black male critic said he'd heard I might write a historical novel someday, and went on to say, in effect: Heaven protect us from it. The chuckle was because, womanlike (he would say), my "history" starts not with the taking of lands, or the births, battles, and deaths of Great Men, but with one woman asking another for her underwear. Oh, well, I thought, one function of critics is to be appalled by such behavior. But what woman (or sensuous man) could avoid being intrigued? As for me, I thought of little else for a year.
When I was sure the characters of my new novel were trying to form (or, as I invariably thought of it, trying to contact me, to speak through me), I began to make plans to leave New York. Three months earlier I had bought a tiny house on a quiet Brooklyn street, assuming--because my desk overlooked the street and a maple tree in the yard, representing garden and view--I would be able to write. I was not.
New York, whose people I love for their grace under almost continual unpredictable adversity, was a place the people in The Color Purple refused even to visit. The moment any of them started to form--on the subway, a dark street, and especially in the shadow of very tall buildings--they would start to complain.
"What is all this tall shit anyway?" they would say.
I disposed of the house, stored my furniture, packed my suitcases, and flew alone to San Francisco (it was my daughter's year to be with her father), where all the people in the novel promptly fell silent--I think, in awe. Not merely of the city's beauty, but of what they picked up about earthquakes.
"It's pretty," they muttered, "but us ain't lost nothing in no place that has earthquakes."
They also didn't like seeing buses, cars, or other people whenever they attempted to look out. "Us don't want to be seeing none of this," they said. "It make us can't think."
That was when I knew for sure these were country people. So my lover* and I started driving around the state looking for a country house to rent. Luckily I had found (with the help of friends) a fairly inexpensive place in the city. This too had been a decision forced by my characters. As long as there was any question about whether I could support them in the fashion they desired (basically in undisturbed silence) they declined to come out. Eventually we found a place in northern California we could afford and that my characters liked. And no wonder: it looked a lot like the town in Georgia most of them were from, only it was more beautiful and the local swimming hole was not segregated. It also bore a slight resemblance to the African village in which one of them, Nettie, was a missionary.
Seeing the sheep, the cattle, and the goats, smelling the apples and the hay, one of my characters, Celie, began, haltingly, to speak.
But there was still a problem.
Since I had quit my editing job at Ms. and my Guggenheim Fellowship was running out, and my royalties did not quite cover expenses, and--let's face it--because it gives me a charge to see people who appreciate my work, historical novels or not, I was accepting invitations to speak. Sometimes on the long plane rides Celie or Shug would break through with a wonderful line or two (for instance, Celie said once that a self-pitying sick person she went to visit was "laying up in the bed trying to look dead"). But even these vanished--if I didn't jot them down--by the time my contact with the audience was done.
What to do?
Celie and Shug answered without hesitation: Give up all this travel. Give up all this talk. What is all this travel and talk shit anyway? So, I gave it up for a year. Whenever I was invited to speak I explained I was taking a year off for Silence. (I also wore an imaginary bracelet on my left arm that spelled the word.) Everyone said, Sure, they understood.
I was terrified.
Where was the money for our support coming from? My only steady income was a three-hundred-dollar-a-month retainer from Ms. for being a long-distance editor. But even that was too much distractio
n for my characters.
Tell them you can't do anything for the magazine, said Celie and Shug. (You guessed it, the women of the drawers.) Tell them you'll have to think about them later. So, I did. Ms. was unperturbed. Supportive as ever (they continued the retainer). Which was nice.
Then I sold a book of stories. After taxes, inflation, and my agent's fee of ten percent, I would still have enough for a frugal, no-frills year. And so, I bought some beautiful blue-and-red-and-purple fabric, and some funky old secondhand furniture (and accepted donations of old odds and ends from friends), and a quilt pattern my mama swore was easy, and I headed for the hills.
There were days and weeks and even months when nothing happened. Nothing whatsoever. I worked on my quilt, took long walks with my lover, lay on an island we discovered in the middle of the river and dabbled my fingers in the water. I swam, explored the redwood forests all around us, lay out in the meadow, picked apples, talked (yes, of course) to trees. My quilt began to grow. And, of course, everything was happening. Celie and Shug and Albert were getting to know each other, coming to trust my determination to serve their entry (sometimes I felt re-entry) into the world to the best of my ability, and what is more--and felt so wonderful--we began to love one another. And, what is even more, to feel immense thankfulness for our mutual good luck.
Just as summer was ending, one or more of my characters--Celie, Shug, Albert, Sofia, or Harpo--would come for a visit. We would sit wherever I was sitting, and talk. They were very obliging, engaging, and jolly. They were, of course, at the end of their story but were telling it to me from the beginning. Things that made me sad often made them laugh. Oh, we got through that; don't pull such a long face, they'd say. Or, You think Reagan's bad, you ought've seen some of the rednecks us come up under. The days passed in a blaze of happiness.
Then school started, and it was time for my daughter to stay with me--for two years.
Could I handle it?
Shug said, right out, that she didn't know. (Well, her mother raised her children.) Nobody else said anything. (At this point in the novel, Celie didn't even know where her children were.) They just quieted down, didn't visit as much, and took a firm Well, let's us wait and see attitude.