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How Howard Zinn change the way we understand history

August 6, 2017 By Syed Ahmad Fathi Syed Mohd Khair Leave a Comment

 

I personally think Howard Zinn is a legend. As far I remembered, the first time I heard of his name is from my younger brother, who studied in Canada and shared his reading on him. But, back then I am not yet interested in his work. As I read many of Chomsky’s books, I get interested in the idea of American Exceptionalism, this is when eventually I discovered Zinn’s lectures over Youtube. His explanation, as always, very clear and simple to understand, he does not shy to said something for what it is, he does not hide important aspect in history behind any euphemism. I literally watch almost all his lecture in Youtube, from his speech in Google, C-span, all the way through his interview with Democracy Now. Ironically, I first found this book in Lincoln’s Corner inside Georgetown’s public library in Penang. After finishing the first chapter, I decided to return the book and get myself a copy.

Howard Zinn served in the US army in WWII, he recalled his experience in bombardment campaign, dropping bombs in small villages in France. He later continues his study in history (minor in political science) and was awarded a PhD. He then was employed by Spelman College where he gets involved in the civil right movement. He also played significant role in anti-war movement to oppose US military campaign in Vietnam and Iraq.

A People’s History of The United States was his most famous and influential book. It was first published in 1980 and quickly gained traction, millions were sold out, and reprinted. In the book, Zinn collected accounts and speeches of people who were disfranchised, massacred, and crushed. He seek to re-tell history not from a victor’s point of view, but from the perspective of the red Indians, black slaves, poor farmers, ordinary soldiers and workers. He wrote:

“My viewpoint, in telling the history of the United States, is different: that we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflict of interest between conquerors and conquered…” (pg. 10)

The book starts with the story of the Arawaks, a tribe who welcome Columbus and his company on their mission to search for gold. Zinn wrote on how the Indians were mistreated, captured and shipped to Europe as slaves, enslaved to mine and work in plantations. As the European came in, they were systematically depopulated. As years passed by, and during the Revolutionary years of the 1760s, the wealthy elite have three main concerns. One is the Indian hostility, second is the black slaves revolts and third was the angry propertyless poor whites. If ever these despised groups combined, the power of the ruling elites would be shaken.

Many Americans during the Revolutionary war were reluctant to fight. Neutral people are forces to duty while the very rich can buy their way out to avoid conscription. The ruling elites understand that war help them navigate through internal trouble, and gave them a more stable and secure position. It was the poor who did much of the actual fighting, during 1775 and 1783 they are the one who suffer the most.

Zinn also noted on how Washington’s first administration, ally them self with the rich, passed tariff to help manufacturers, agreed to pay the war bond holders, and passed law on tax to raise money for tax redemption. Talking on the Founding Fathers, Zinn wrote:

“They certainly did not want an equal balance between slaves and masters, propertyless and property holders, Indians and white.” (pg. 101)

Zinn also recounted speeches from Frederick Douglass when exploring the subject of slavery in 1857. Douglass note that there are no progress without struggle, and if the black slaves want to set themselve free, they should all embrace the struggle, either morally or physically. The later continue that there will be no progress without struggle, he then said “They want rain without thunder and lightning’.

It was thought that Abraham Lincoln fight the American Civil War against the confederate’s forces, as a moral fight to abolish slavery. Zinn debunked this myth, the move to emancipate black slave was a military move to win the war. He recalled one of Lincoln letter where he wrote to Horace Greeley “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery.” (pg. 191)

There are still traces of exploitation even after slavery has been abolished. This new kind of exploitation is very much disguised, it was branded with a fancy name ‘free market’ and ‘free enterprise’. The maldistribution of wealth is concealed, and protected by law, which make it look fair on the outside. The use of law to protect the rich leads to civil unrest, labor strikes and riot. In 1872 working people formed National Labor Union, went on strike and won the eight-hour day. Throughout the book, Zinn portrayed the American history as the history of the working people, fighting for their rights.

Government behavior resembled what Karl Marx has described, as a capitalist state. The government “pretending neutrality, serving the interest of the rich, settle upper-class disputes peacefully, control lower class rebellion and adopt policies that provide long-range stability to the system.” (pg. 258). The policies will never undergo any important change, be it Republican or Democrat who wins the election. Zinn also elaborate on how corporation made donation to both party, in which whoever wins, they have their say in the policies.

On the reason America went on war with Japan, Zinn disputed that Roosevelt was telling the truth. Roosevelt, Zinn said ‘lied to the public’ and misstated the facts. This is an important lesson Zinn always talk throughout many of his lectures, that the presidents have been lying in the history, and when president rush the public into war, it is important for the public to take a step back and analyze the evidence. He also criticized US involvement in El Salvador and put a spotlight to the massacre of civilians in El Mozote by soldiers trained by the US.

In his critics to the Reagan’s policy to cut funding for children, he quoted Marian Wright Edelman from Children’s Defense Fund. She said “our misguided national and world choices are literally killing children daily” (pg. 610).

My favorite chapter of the book is ‘The coming revolt of the guards’ where Zinn sum up many of his perspectives, giving a glimpse of the solution and gave us the hope for change. He discussed about how the ordinary working people are the guardian of the current system, and if they are awaken, if they suddenly believe that what they are doing is morally wrong, and if they stop working, the system will fall apart. The power, according to Zinn, rest on the people.

When discussed about the state of economy, Zinn’s offer another perspective. When the government spending to maintain military machine constantly high, when the trade multiplied, the top corporation recorded an increase in profit, but the wages of people are in steady decline, can we said that the economy is healthy? His answer, depend on which group of people you are referring to.

Zinn constantly questioned the need of war and the abandonment of diplomacy. Asking hard question whether the lucrative commercial gain in supporting undemocratic tyrant abroad justify the human cost suffer by the population. He examines several of US unilateral intervention, and emphasized on the non-military option which can solve the conflict at the same time saving the innocent lives in the process. He called for ‘non-militant’ solution for the world problems.

Through his writing I felt that the ideal world to live in is not beyond reach. A reasonable way to govern a nation is not something so utopian, it is within reach if we are bold enough to make some radical changes. In the afterword, Zinn envisaged a thinking to wiped out national boundaries in our thought. This will made our decision much clearer, and we will no longer see the need for war, for war is always against the children. In the absent of national boundaries, Zinn said “indeed our children” (pg. 685)

Redefining patriotism – is one of the important contributions of this book. I felt that this review is incomplete without a quote from Eugene Debs which he said “They tell us that we live in a great free republic, that our institutions are democratic, that we are free and self-governing people. That is too much, even for a joke. Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars, the subject class has always fought the battles.” It is not unpatriotic to denounce war, as Noam Chomsky has suggested when questioned how to end terrorism, he said “stop participate in one”.

Filed Under: Book Review

To be a super-dad

July 1, 2017 By Syed Ahmad Fathi Syed Mohd Khair 137 Comments

 

When you enter a marriage, many thought that their life will change drastically. In many cases, it is not the case. Life continue in usual rhythm except for minor twist and tweak here and there. But when life gave you, your first child – that is when your life will turn upside down. That is when you cease to live life with many personal time.

The first few month will take you on a roller coaster. You will learn how to sleep 2 hours a day – or no sleep at all. The quiet house will be bless with a background music of a crying baby, either hungry for milk, have a wet dryers or simply want a hug and feel the warmth of your body. This is also a period when you start seeing the true color of your partner, how she handle the pressure, how she think when problem arise – as a husband, you also will slowly show your true nature – the limit of your patience.

Luckily you are not alone. Fatherhood has been a common misery (or blessing, depending on your view) for men since the beginning of time. One way of understanding this turbulent period of life is by talking to fellow fathers. This is where ‘The Councils of Dads’ written by Bruce Feiler came in handy. Written with a very funny phrases, you will understand that what you endure is nothing but normal. Every father have their own experience handling that cute little monster, and by sharing stories and experiences, we will be more equipped physically and mentally to handle them.

This article is a review on a book title ‘The Council of Dads: A Story of Family, Friendship & Learning How to Live’ by Bruce Feiler. Published by William Morrow, 2011.

Filed Under: Book Review

How to become an effective dictator, to steal and remain in power

June 19, 2017 By Syed Ahmad Fathi Syed Mohd Khair Leave a Comment

 

This book is cleverly written. If you have read Freakonomics, this book follows similar method but applied it onto politics. It gave reader practical understanding using simple argument which make sense and does not elaborate much on theory. It debunked the conventional wisdom and presents the problem in a much simpler way. I think this is the quality of good books, they talk about complex topic in a simple way which make sense.

In the introduction, Mesquita and Smith introduced a simple way of thinking, politics is about getting into power and staying in power. To rule one need a loyal circle, nobody rule alone. They argue that we should stop thinking about politics from the view of national interest, state does not have any interest, people does. Every action of a leader will be best understand as a way he want to maintain his power.

As what  Machiavelli have thought us, this book share similar value. Mainly, we should see politics on how it works not what we think how it should work. We think that politic should work to serve the people, but we have to accept like it or not, it will not work like what we want.

To break the idea into simpler form which readers can relate, they break supporter to any leader into 3 main categories, which were the interchangeable, influential, and essentials. The idea which is very interesting that I would like you to read for yourself to explore more. The best part of the book, as I dive more into it, was a vast examples and case studies been put forward. They studied Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in Cuban power struggle, the fight between Gorbachev and Yeltsin in Russia, and even the struggle of Damasus to become the Pope. It does not stop there, business structure also been scrutinized and analyzed closely. They also explain the differences on the challenges to seize power and the challenges to remain in power.

Observing democracy, they analyzed why in multi-party system, there are many parties but at the end every time, only one party won. This is not a coincidence, smaller fringe parties are allowed not because of freedom, but because they break the oppositions vote and serve the interest of the dominant party.

We often wonder why nation with abundance natural resources ended up being poor and undeveloped. This is called resources curse. Leader needs money to operate their administration. This was usually achieved by taxation, but in order to tax, the population need to work and some liberal policy need to be put in place. This policy might pose a strategic threat to a leader politically. When natural resources is abundance, leader can generate revenue and depend less on taxation. Extracting resources from the earth is fairly straight forward, it can be done using a small labor and exclude the general population, leaving them to remain poor.

The book also explain the logic why democratic government did not promote democratization of other states. This is because democratic state can easily buy foreign policy from autocratic dictatorship, rather than from democracies. They documented how US facilitated the overthrowing of leaders elected democratically, including Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic, Salvador Allende in Chile, and Mosaddeq in Iran. This logic also explain why Saudi Arabia and many middle east countries which are US ally, never democratize. They also explain how foreign aid was used to salvaged despotic regime while maintaining the people in misery.

The book offer different perspective to understand politics, instead of using moral, ideology, and national interest, the book takes us on different road. To look into politic in the sense of power struggle, by which leader behave to make sure that they have the power and stay in power. The idea is very much like what Machiavelli proposed, looking at politics simply as the game of political survival. Some people might argue that its an inhumane way on looking into politics. But in the end, politics played by its rule, not by what we want it to be, and if we fail to accept it, we will most probably fail.

This article is a review of a book title ‘The Dictator’s Handbook : Why Bad Behavior Almost Always Good Politics’ written by Bruce Bueno De Mesquita and Alastair Smith. Published by Public Affairs, 2011.

 

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The fictional reality we created

June 10, 2017 By Syed Ahmad Fathi Syed Mohd Khair 24 Comments

What is the similarity between a banana and a government?

It turns out that both of them exist as a reality. Banana is a physical reality. We can touch it, taste it, and eat it – and it’s also occupy physical space. Government in contrast exist, albeit fictionally. We know that government exist, we fear them we can read about them in the news. But government unlike banana is a fictional reality, government is a concept which was created and overtime accepted as a reality. If all people cease to believe they exist, it will cease from existence.

This is the sort of question Yuval Noah Harari explored in his famous book Sapiens: A brief history of humankind.

He explored why human species thrives while other species went extinct. In term of physical characteristic, other species were far more superior than us. Cheetah has a stronger leg muscle and run faster than us, gorilla have a stronger and bigger arm, fish can breathe inside waters. Yet, something is missing from them which left them inferior than us.

What missing according to Harari is the ability to trust and collaborate between each other. When we took our morning bus to office, we barely know the driver, yet we trust that they will drive us safely to our destination. When we eat at a cafe, we never knew the cook personally, but we trust that what they prepared for us is safe for consumption. Many of ideas put forward by Harari are simple yet profound. What he write will radically change what we thought about human species.

 

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Why People Still Reading The Communist Manifesto in 2017

June 4, 2017 By Syed Ahmad Fathi Syed Mohd Khair 1 Comment

 

This article is a review of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Re-published by Penguin Classics in 2015

Many thought that Communism has failed as a political system, it is perceived as an evil ideology and always associated with dictatorial regime. When we speak of Communism, what come into our mind is the brutal regime under Joseph Stalin in Soviet Union, people also will associate Communism with Mao Zedong in China. People always overlooked that actually Communism, particularly Marx’s idea has a contribution, which is very essential.

The work and thinking of Marx has a profound contribution, namely ‘the capitalist system has problems’. The solution however, as suggested by Marx in his manifesto might seems less feasible. The abolition of family, religion and private property as a solution suggested by Marx have been tested and failed, but through his thinking capitalism has been reformed significantly. Capitalism as we know it today, have changed significantly, it is not the same capitalism which exist at the time of Marx and Engels. So the question we want to look at is, why there are still significant interest in his work today? As we seen, Soviet Union has collapsed while China has embraced capitalism in their business practice.

In the manifesto, Marx noted that the capitalism foster a culture that always seek to satisfy want, new want emerged causing destruction of old industries and the birth of new industries, and to sustain itself this trend need to be continuous. Many of the post-soviet generation feels that this was true. We saw today, advertised in front of our very eyes everyday. New shoe, new fashion, new car, as if new product equals to good products. Instead of using what we have that is still operating, we are urged to throw it away and buy new product instead. This culture of consumerism which was fostered by capitalism led to fast depletion of natural resources and destruction of the environment in industrial scale.

The crisis capitalism brought, as highlighted by Marx is over-supply and over-production. Most people will ask, whats the bad thing if we have more than enough to feed ourselves? The answer to that question is the distribution of wealth. On state level, we can see that many of the rich people live their life lavishly, they throw away foods which is still consumable. On the same time, we have the poor people, who barely have anything to eat for the entire week. This problem does not confine to specific state or nation only, globally we can see some nation are very rich, while others are very poor. The system does not distribute wealth sensibly.

Marx also highlighted on how the system enriching few people, while wages decline. “Extensive used of machinery and division of labor” destroyed what Marx identified as “charm for the workman”. In other words, they were forced to do things without much thinking, and the value of workmanship has been lost. In the old time, carpenter build a furniture, he can saw his labor transform raw material into finished products. He can have a sense of satisfaction seeing his workmanship. This is not the case today, where the division of labor has been applied on a global scale. Take computer. The chip might be manufactured in Israel, the screen might be outsourced to a company in Malaysia, the keyboard might been design in Germany and manufactured in Vietnam. All of these parts then shipped and assembled in China. Workers from each of the countries can’t see the finished product, they did not shared the feeling of satisfaction as their ancestors did.

The clash Marx noted, is always arises from ‘class antagonism’ where in many places workers club together to form union to demand for their right. Often the struggles broke into riots. Capitalism often concern with profit and capital gain from any mode of adventure and manufacture. If a job can be outsourced somewhere with less labor cost, this is good in capitalist point of view. It does not concern on the wellbeing of workers of impact to society.

These are the reasons why people still looking into Marx’s thinking today. While he might don’t have a feasible solution, Marx diagnosed the Capitalist system and show us the flaws. Through his writing we saw what was needed to be look into more detail. While he has open the way, it is up to us today to find the suitable remedy.

Filed Under: Book Review

Raising Unselfish Children in a Self-Absorbed World

June 3, 2017 By Syed Ahmad Fathi Syed Mohd Khair 2 Comments

Book written by Jill Rigby, published by Howard Books, 2008.

Many people gave negative review about the book. Saying that there isn’t anything much in the book that they already know. I kinda agree, but I think its not that real bad, its still readable. The book argue that we does not need a children with high self-esteem, instead we need children with manners, humble and compassionate. Rigby argued that, this can be achieved using religion.

In the book, Rigby highlight parent who being a Deflector who asked children make decision which they are net yet capable doing. For example for kid in 3-years old, they should not asked to decide what they want to eat, instead parent have to decide for them. Then there are Depriver parent, who always help their children doing things. Rigby argue that if the children already capable of doing something, we should not do it for them instead. If we do, we deprive them necessary life skill which they should be learning. Children should learn life skills such as cleaning, cooking and money management.

To nurture necessary life skill, children should be given task and chores appropriate with their age. For example for 3 years old, they should learn how to put their dirty clothes in laundry basket and put their toys in the box. For 6 years old for example, they should be given task to wash fruits and vegetables. As they getting older, they should help buying groceries, cleaning the house, cook for the family.

Rigby also pointed out the need to develop tradition in the family to keep them intact and foster togetherness. Dinner for example, should be a compulsory family time, where all members of the family will sit together and all the electronics should be put away. Broken family bears children who would join illegal arm and drug gang. In this gang they try to find their sense of ‘family’.

After finishing this piece, I strongly believe that the title should be ‘Raising Christian Children’ instead of the current title, the book was heavily accompanied with passage from scripture. But, in all, it does give some good and sensible recommendation on how we should re-think our parenting style. Even if you are not really into religion, this book surely will gave you some good recommendations.

 

Filed Under: Book Review

Long Walk To Freedom vol. 1

June 3, 2017 By Syed Ahmad Fathi Syed Mohd Khair Leave a Comment

 

This article is a review on ‘Long Walk To Freedom’ volume 1 written by Nelson Mandela which was an autobiography of his life from 1918 to 1962. The book was published by Abacus in 1994.

The book started with a lot of African names of places and people that will puzzle you. Mandela describe his early life living in a village called Mvezo in Transkei. He was born to Xhosa tribe which is a part of Thembu people. His father was a councilor for King Dalindyebo. After the passing of the King, his father suggested Jongintaba as a successor, which then accepted by the local leadership and British ruler.

His Father however were then sacked after refusing to obey order from British magistrate, he lost his fortune and power. Mandela then lived with his mother in Qunu village. The name ‘Nelson’ was his English name given to him by his teacher when he was 7 years old. His birth name was Rolihlahla. His father died when he was 9. He was then lived with Jongintaba which act as Regent for Thembu people, he was considered as the Regent’s own son and lived in the royal residence in Mqhekezweni.

Mandela witness how the regent organized meeting with his tribal leader. The meeting thought Mandela that democracy means that every voiced. He witnessed how the regent will allow everybody to speak and organized succession meeting if consensus cannot be achieved. Mandela then further his studies at Clarkebury college, his worldview back then was still attached to Thembuland, he was aspired to be local councilor and nothing beyond that. He then went to Fort Hare to pursue his BA.

Fort Hare was the first place where his principle was tested. During the final year, Mandela was elected as a Student Representative Council (SRC) but he join other representatives in a boycott to press for more right. He was then summoned by the principal and given an ultimatum, to accept the SRC election result or to be expelled, he chosen the latter and get expelled. The regent then arrange a marriage for him, which he disagree and ran away to Johannesburg, where he started working and being politicized.

Mandela wrote “A man involve in the struggle was a man without a home life”. As his involvement with African National Congress (ANC) went deeper, he realized that much of his time with his family have to be sacrificed, later Mandela broke up with his wife, as she does not shared his political enthusiasm. One of the problem that have been discussed extensively in book is the cooperation of ANC with other group with different ideologies and racial background, particularly with the communist and Indian congress. He noted that although South African problem are special, it is not unique, it must be viewed on a larger context which is to join forces to eradicate human prejudice in the world.

In his book, he stressed out on how education is a vital component to lift society to a higher level. Education, Mandela wrote can turn “a child of a farmworkers to become the president of a great nation”.  The ANC struggle to ensure that the then-Nationalist government provide similar education to African people as what have been received by the white. On the emergence of ANC rival group, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), Mandela wrote that one have to be mature and suppress his own personal feelings. He wrote “to be a freedom fighter one must suppress many of the personal feelings that make one feel like a separate individual rather than part of the mass movement”.

The first volume described how the leaders of the opposition were put on a Treason Trial for their non-violent protest. The state however lost the legal battle, and they were released. Mandela have been banned for attending any meeting and gathering several time, after the treason trial he went underground and help organized arm resistance against the state. But he was captured again in 1962 and put to trial, he deliberately refused to call any witnesses for his defense and turn the plea into his political speech. The first volume of the book ends with Mandela sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment.

 

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How Starbucks Saved My Life

March 20, 2017 By Admin 137 Comments

I discovered this book in the pantry of my office. The title was very appealing, although its sounds like an ads campaign for Starbucks. Most of the goodreads review is very negative on this book, some said that it just a boring piece which talked about different type of coffee. But after reading through the pages, I found that it was not that bad. In fact, for me personally, it was a genuinely amazing story.

The story start when Mike was ousted from his high paying job at a corporate advertising company. Mike who came from a privileged white upper-middle class family now jobless. He then have an affair with other women and divorced with his wife. To add more complication, he was then diagnosed with a small tumor behind his brain which caused a hearing problem to his left ear. So in his late sixties, he was broke, jobless, divorced and living with health problem. It was then, he met Crystal, a young African American manager who offer him a job at Starbucks.

In his new job he learn many values, and made many friends from different social classes. He learn that at Starbucks, respect is an uphold principle, not just a written word. He used to be a boss now realized that in his new job, no one order him to do anything. Instead all partner ( how Starbucks address colleagues), will ask politely “can you do me a favor?”. This practice struck Mike strongly, he find no such example in his previous high position.

In his journey to re-discover his life, Mike summon F. Scott Fitzgerald’s quote, “work was dignity”. He learned that he can be happy doing menial job, and that there is nothing wrong doing job cleaning a toilet. He might not afford living in huge mansion, but the job help him afford a small apartment, which is enough for him.

He also discover friendship with many other American in the lower class from where he is from, he learn how to respect them, he learn that they also done their part for the economy. These people were very far from him when he held a high corporate post, they were untouchable. Now they share the same work space with him, now they commute the same morning train to work everyday. Mike learn that his high social status now was useless, his former friends now distance themselves knowing he work at Starbucks as baristas.

Expectations tend to make life much more hard and un-happy. At 64 years old, he told himself to stop taking his life seriously. He should follow the flow, take whatever opportunity he had and survive. This is a very important thinking. We often live life to please expectations from people, from families, friends, society, and we fail, we feels like we are worthless and not up to standard. This should not be the case. There is no success or failure in life, life is not a game or competition. You should just live, survive, and be happy at what you’re doing. When he have less expectation, we will live a happier life.

The book was written by Michael Gill. Published by HarperCollins in 2008. You can get a copy from Amazon from below link. Photo credit to Westchester.

 

 

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Upwardly Minded: The Reconstruction Rise of a Black Elite

February 3, 2017 By Admin 1 Comment

THE ORIGINAL BLACK ELITE
Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era
By Elizabeth Dowling Taylor
Illustrated. 498 pp. Amistad/HarperCollins Publishers. $27.99.

As I learned years ago as an African-American student at Harvard Law School, it is a disturbing exercise to review the anti-black legislation that this nation drafted and enforced during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Our elected leaders not only exercised their power to liberate and protect certain groups, they also used it to punish those same groups when the larger citizenry began to fear or resent their mere presence. It was evident when the country took the land and the lives of a once-thriving Native American population, and again when the government endorsed the internment of innocent Japanese-American families during World War II; it can be seen again today, as a new president uses rhetoric that demonizes Muslim American citizens. In her brilliantly researched “The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era,” Elizabeth Dowling Taylor recounts the rise of African-Americans during the time of Reconstruction and their fall during the subsequent decades, when legislation was advanced in order to again segregate, impoverish and humiliate a population that many whites believed had gained too much.

By tracing the ascent of Daniel Murray, the wealthy black civic leader, businessman and assistant librarian at the Library of Congress, Taylor reveals how black Americans after the Civil War benefited from opportunities afforded by Reconstruction policies. Out of this environment of tolerance grew a strong and dignified black community in Washington, where the black elite could advance in prominent jobs, build successful businesses, pursue education for themselves and their children, and purchase imposing homes.

Although Daniel Murray was born free in 1851 — his father was a black lumberyard worker who had been manumitted in 1810, and his mother was a free woman of color — in Taylor’s prologue we are first introduced to a 48-year-old Murray. By 1899, he was already a prominent government appointee, who had worked at the Library of Congress for more than 25 years and then served as one of its second-highest-ranking officials, assistant librarian. Murray had a seat on Washington’s Board of Trade, a group of otherwise white businessmen that advised the government on taxation in the nation’s capital. His wife, Anna Evans, was a confident black socialite who taught at local schools, attended Oberlin College and happened to be related to the highly regarded black United States senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi. Murray had sons who would later attend Harvard and Cornell. He had the ear of white co-workers and business leaders, and he often met with white congressmen and their staffers who needed his guidance when researching legislative history in the library’s archives.

On the morning of Oct. 2, 1899, Murray — dressed in a silk top hat and a Prince Albert coat — had just descended the steps of his three-story red-brick home in northwest D.C. and was on his way to board a plushly outfitted train car. The 40-some passengers — all white, except for Murray — made up a special welcoming committee appointed by President William McKinley, on the occasion of honoring Admiral George Dewey for his victory in Manila Bay. Despite an initial picture that suggests Murray embraced clichés of racial tranquillity, Taylor makes clear throughout her book that Murray and most of his black elite friends “did not crave the company of white people.” Taylor, an independent scholar and the author of “A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons,” understands the mind-set of the black elite, and she quickly points out that despite his own rise to the top, “Daniel Murray was ‘a race man to the core’ ”:

“If he took any pride in being the first black man to join this organization or the only one to be invited to that social occasion, his greater goal, his long-range vision, was to be in the vanguard of merit-based recognition for every American of color. The rise of those in Murray’s black elite circle was realized rather than potential. Its members had attained high levels of education, achievement, culture. . . . They were living proof that African-Americans did not lack the ability to become useful contributors to mainstream society.”

As Taylor traces Murray’s pre-Civil War childhood in Baltimore and his subsequent move to Washington, it becomes clear that his success — getting hired and promoted for his government job, purchasing real estate and building a reputation in the business community — was due to timing, connections and his ability to network with both whites and blacks. His older half brother, Samuel Proctor, was not only a successful Washington caterer whose client list included President Abraham Lincoln, but also the proprietor of one of the two restaurants in the Capitol. Because the restaurant, known as “the Senate Saloon,” was located in the Senate wing, Murray was afforded the chance to make casual acquaintance with senators and members of their staffs once he began working there in 1869, when he was 18. It was opportunities like this — in a more liberal, Republican-led government — that aided Murray’s rise. And unlike many other cities with large African-American populations, Baltimore and Washington provided the ideal environment for upwardly mobile blacks. At the time of Murray’s birth, 90 percent of the blacks living in Baltimore were free, giving it the largest free black population in the country. Washington, for its part, was a hub for the black elite because of the large number of government jobs and the establishment of Howard University, a magnet for black intellectuals and civic leaders.

Taylor knows how to weave an emotional story of how race and class have long played a role in determining who succeeds and who fails. We get to meet many of Murray’s friends and acquaintances, other members of the black elite. Howard’s law school dean Richard T. Greener was a successful attorney after attending Phillips Academy and then Harvard University; he became Harvard’s first black graduate in 1870. James Wormley owned the Wormley Hotel, a luxury establishment that opened in 1871 and catered to affluent white visitors. (In a bitter irony, it was also the reported site of the Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877, which marked the end of Reconstruction.) The newspaper publisher Pinckney Pinchback served as lieutenant governor and acting governor of Louisiana, and owned a mansion near the Chinese Embassy. Calvin Brent was Washington’s first African-American architect. The civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell graduated from Oberlin College in 1884; her father was recognized as the first black millionaire in the South, and her husband was the first black municipal court judge in Washington. We also meet the United States senator Blanche Bruce of Mississippi, who later served appointments under four presidents.

But the reader shouldn’t expect a happy ending in “The Original Black Elite.” The rug of opportunity and dignity was abruptly pulled out from under the nation’s African-American population. Murray and his circle watched nervously as white politicians and their own neighbors betrayed them. Angry white Southerners and the Ku Klux Klan claimed that blacks had come too far; Jim Crow laws denied African-Americans access to specific jobs, public facilities, restaurants, transportation; and cynical politicians galvanized white support by publicly demonizing African-Americans. After taking office in March 1913, Woodrow Wilson oversaw the segregation of federal offices, demoting and firing black employees; the few who were allowed to stay were suddenly required to use “colored only” bathrooms and eating areas.

Murray’s life spanned the beginning and the end of an era. While he enjoyed many years of integrated experiences in Washington, just 12 years after Wilson’s inauguration and 74 years after he was born, Taylor writes, “Daniel Murray died in a segregated hospital and was buried in a segregated graveyard.”

Filed Under: Book Review

Songs of Themselves

February 3, 2017 By Admin 50 Comments

The observation that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture” has been attributed to everyone from Martin Mull to Frank Zappa to Thelonious Monk. It’s famous enough that it’s almost hackneyed by now, yet it’s as good a description as any for the nearly impossible task of using words to describe the sacredly wordless. Get bogged down in technical terms like diatonic interval and chromatic diesis and you risk sounding gratingly wonkish. Indulge in platitudes like “lyrical melody” and “haunting chords” and you’re a pathetic lightweight, a philistine.

So you’ve got to hand it to musicians who put down their instruments long enough to write entire books. Classical musicians, especially, carry a set of burdens that can make cross-genre endeavors uniquely challenging. They are confined to practice rooms for hours, days and years on end and tyrannized by necessary perfectionism; their achievements in many ways rest on their ability to shut out the noise of the outside world and play the same set of notes again and again. And while that can yield fine results, it doesn’t always lend itself to the kind of divine hubris required to put your thoughts in print and expect anyone to care enough to read them.

In a memoir published last year and two forthcoming this month, an oboist, a concert pianist and a guitarist set out to map the intersections of their musical lives and the much thornier vagaries of life in general. For Marcia Butler, the oboe was a protective garment and a ticket to the world, though both applications came at a steep price. As an awkward, antisocial preadolescent in 1960s Long Island, Butler is coerced into “a binding and sickening pact” with her father; if she confers sexual arousal by sitting on his lap, he will drive her to oboe lessons. “My father was my epic Wagnerian Wotan,” Butler writes in THE SKIN ABOVE MY KNEE: A Memoir (Little, Brown, $27), referring to Richard Wagner’s ruthless patriarch. “I was his dutiful daughter Brünnhilde.”

Butler wins a scholarship to the Mannes College of Music, where she undergoes the perfunctory comeuppances of high-level music study, including an assignment to go back to the basics and practice nothing but long tones for three mind-numbing months. Long tones are notes held until you run out of breath, and anyone who’s ever seriously studied a wind instrument (I played the oboe with varying degrees of resolve from childhood through college) will experience traumatic flashbacks reading about Butler’s stages of grief around this situation. “The time spent crying could be used for playing the long tones,” she writes. “You do as you’re told.”

Outside the conservatory, it’s 1970s New York City, and Butler by default embarks on the hero’s journey particular to that time and place, stealing food and spare change from a roommate, riding the subway with fake tokens and sleeping with an assortment of grungy ne’er-do-wells, including one who winds up at Rikers Island for what Butler later learns was a rape at gunpoint. In one especially affecting scene, Butler plays a Harlem church gig and is discreetly acknowledged by a congregant who recognizes her from the bus to Rikers.

“That was the thing about being a girl who played the oboe and had a boyfriend in the clink,” Butler explains, in what is surely the only time such a sentence has ever been committed to paper. “It was easy for me to separate the two realities and carry on as if all were harmoniously blended.”

If the colluding forces of her father’s abuse, her relentless self-discipline, and her love of opera and similarly concupiscent classical works split Butler into two discordant and ultimately incompatible halves — dutiful nerd on one side, hot mess on the other — James Rhodes’s dysfunction broke him into the proverbial million little pieces. A late-blooming British virtuoso pianist who found celebrity in part by styling himself as a sort of rock ’n’ roll bad boy of the classical world — his albums have titles like “Razor Blades, Little Pills and Big Pianos” — Rhodes never landed in jail. But reading INSTRUMENTAL: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music (Bloomsbury, $27), you get the sense he wishes he could claim such dramatic levels of bottoming out. If his first love is music, his second is his own destruction. As a child he endured sexual abuse by a teacher that was horrific enough to result in long-term physical disability as well as psychological damage that led to promiscuity, substance abuse, dissociative identity disorder, suicidal ideation and self-injury. At one point, he takes off his shirt and shows his wife that he’s carved the word “toxic” into his arm with a razor blade.

Rhodes would like us to know that he’s in good company. Musicians, even powdered-wig types like Bach and Mozart, are notorious for making train wrecks of their personal lives. As proof, Rhodes splices his own story with interstitial mini-bios of great composers, leaning heavily on the tortured nature of their genius and attendant psychosis. Schubert was “a walking, talking car crash,” Beethoven’s family was “riddled with alcoholism, domestic violence, abuse and cruelty,” and Schumann, a failed suicide, died “alone and afraid” in an asylum, but not before writing “Geister (Ghost) Variations,” a piece “so called because he said that ghosts had dictated the opening theme to him.”

Butler’s book also contains italicized interstitial sections, which she deploys to show the grueling process of learning a piece of music, making reeds or the cobbled-together life of a working musician. But while “The Skin Above My Knee” is overwritten in places (it would appear the author never met an adjective she couldn’t find a job for), it ultimately succeeds because it leaves readers knowing a thing or two about an esoteric world they probably never thought about before. “Instrumental,” for its part, hews desperately to the well-trod conventions of the well-trod genre known as Portrait of the Artist as a Young, Self-Hating Narcissist.

Quoting from “Instrumental” is tricky, since Rhodes drops an unprintable-in-a-family-newspaper epithet at least once a page. He is quite good at articulating the often intractable dimensions of shame as experienced by sexual abuse survivors. But he seems almost chemically dependent on the F-word and its innumerable iterations. His use is excessive even by the standards of the digital age, according to which “voicey” writers on the web reflexively opt for lazy vernacular as a way of branding themselves as insouciant badasses. The effect, however, is nearly always tedious and soporific, the verbal equivalent of a weary double-reed player blowing nothing but remedial long tones.

An antidote, at least of a sort, can be found in Andrew Schulman, whose earnest but affable memoir, WAKING THE SPIRIT: A Musician’s Journey Healing Body, Mind, and Soul (Picador, $25), uses the author’s own story as the first movement rather than the entire symphony. In 2009, Schulman was placed in a medically induced coma following a cascade of post-surgical complications and thought to be near death until his wife, Wendy, pressed an earbud to his head and played Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion.” Within hours, his vital signs stabilized, his life saved by “the passion of Wendy and Bach.”

Once recovered, Schulman pursues a second career as a volunteer “medical musician,” enrolling in the hospital’s music therapy program and eventually returning to the same intensive care ward where he was once a patient. If Schulman seems a little too dazzled by the notion of his own healing powers — several scenes show patients taking miraculous turns as he strums his guitar next to their beds — he redeems himself with his willingness to take on some real research and reporting. He talks with neuroscientists and psychiatrists and explores the legacy of Pythagoras, the ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher who was among the first to recognize the healing properties of music. Along the way, Schulman posits that the relationship between the pain we feel and the songs and compositions we love has its roots in a tender, transcendent form of symbiosis. “Artists who used their music to alleviate their own suffering composed some of the greatest music ever written,” Schulman writes, “which in turn has the effect of ameliorating the suffering of others.”

Not that there will ever be a cure for the suffering that music can sometimes inflict on the very musicians playing it. But, hey, it’s nice work if you can get it.

Filed Under: Book Review

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