We had our seminar on The Autobiography of Malcolm X today, and, though I hardly expected it, I have become so compelled by his book, and so moved by his life story, that I can understand how it has been said that no one, regardless of his or her colour, comes away from his book unchanged.
This class had an added resonance, coming, as it did, on the heels of the death of Rosa Parks at 92. Forty or fifty years after these events, I’m not sure we can even access the true weight and nature of what people like Malcolm X and Ms. Parks stood for and went through. However, that shouldn’t stop us from seeing how much they can inspire in us in terms of doing what is right, not just what is easy.
As you can see, this topic can get me a little passionate. I am fascinated by the role that people (not governments, you see, but PEOPLE) can play in not only change and personal ethics, but even simply exploring and exposing the traditional and unquestioned discourses alive today in race relations and citizenship issues. To me, that is the greatest font of humanity and democracy. It makes me get a little loud, and it sends me scurrying for the Soap Box Pulpit.
Well, there was rooted my downfall today.
So excited by Malcolm X’s book, and so hyped up on the documentary we watched (he is much more compelling in person than on paper), as well as a lot of coffee and very little sleep, I got waaaaaay too wrapped up in discussion… I was talking about my view that the true value of Malcolm X’s work was the way in which he tried to de-colonize the black mind, and to call for the erasure of the system in which black children were made to grow up hating themselves compared to a socially constructed idea of white beauty. Thus, it was not in his attempts to change the “normal” white system that he triumphed, but rather in his attempts to change the black sub-culture in America.
This links up with my own interests in post-colonial racial mimicry, in my investigation into why Jews are now “acceptable” minorities, and whether or not we should be interested in taking on that label (as opposed to holding on to generations of pain and dehumanization, and just bugger off). That is, should Jews want to be white when it was offered only after 6 million of us died? Part of me wants to tell the "establishment" to stick it up their ‘ooters.
Anyway, in unofficial post-class discussion, I got onto all this, and how intermarriage narratives in films brainwash Jews into hating their “Jewishness” by teaching audiences that Annie Hall, in all her blonde and Protestant beauty, is what Jews should want. Stuff that I can get very vocal about.
However, being high on righteousness and caffeine is no protection against biological limitations, and my voice simply died.
Gone. Nothing. I felt a sharp pain, a strangling sensation in my chords, and a burning dryness, and no sound came out. I have finally managed to render myself mute with a bad case of excess stridency.
Now, before I get a dozen emails asking if I am fine, I can assure you I will seek medical attention if it gets too bad, but for now I am coddling my voice to help it heal. I am as aware of the seriousness of this as is anyone, and I am no more eager to have my speaking career destroyed by a silly string of preaching than is anyone else. I still have a bitch of a sore throat, but I am getting plenty of liquids down there, and am keeping my throat warm and un-exerted.
However, I am still proud of myself. Even after the pop, I managed to finish my thought (in a very raspy and painful way) before I chocked off…
Now, that is dedication.
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