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On Tyranny

Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century
Jun 07, 2018
Toni Morrison gave three lectures at Harvard University in 1991 entitled “Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination” (published in 1993). She writes – There seems to be a more or less tacit agreement among literary scholars that, because American literature has been clearly the preserve of white male views, genius, and power, those views, genius, and power are without relationship to and removed from the overwhelming presence of black people in the United States… The tacit agreement is made about a population that preceded every American writer of renown. With the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Willa Cather, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemmingway, and others, Toni Morrison illustrates how the consensus works. She also notes that some powerful literary critics in the United States have never read, and are proud to say so, any African-American text! Fast foreword – 26 years later there is this book “On Tyranny: 20 lessons from the 20th century” by an American historian. Centuries of slavery are missing (Rosa Parks gets a mention). How many millions killed? Centuries of dispossession of Indigenous peoples are also left by the wayside. How many millions killed? Apparently, there are no lessons to be learnt from American experiments in democracy on this continent. In any century. There is a list of recommended readings on pages 61-63 featuring nearly 20 writers and texts. Only two are women. The Bible concludes the list. There are no African-American writers, men or women. There are no Indigenous writers, men or women. What happened to libraries filled with these authors? What happened to Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Ida B Wells-Barnett, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King? Apparently these writers/activists, some world-famous, have nothing to say about tyranny. Try EPL for a start... Exploring Reconciliation is one gateway to people, books, talks, and web resources. Many thanks to EPL for this series. As Howard Zinn noted, there’s nothing like a library (in his lecture “Three Holy Wars”, 2009). Here are a few suggestions that would make for a more enlightening conversation on tyranny. They are listed in alphabetical order by first name. Most are available at EPL. >> Bryan Stevenson – Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption >> Cornel West – many books. Listen to his 2006 lectures – The Gifts of Black Folk in the Age of Terrorism >> Dawn Lavell-Harvard and Jennifer Brant – Forever Loved: Exposing the Hidden Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada >> Lisa Monchalin – The Colonial Problem: An Indigenous Perspective on Crime and Injustice in Canada >> Michelle Alexander – The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness >> Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele – When They Call you a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir >> Reni Eddo-Lodge – Why I’m no Longer Talking to White People about Race >> Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz – An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States >> Tanya Talaga – Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death and Hard Truths in a Northern City >> Thomas King – many books including The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative There are others – Angela Davis, bell hooks, Bill Bigelow, Biloine Young, Brittney Cooper, Carl Anthony, Claudia Rankine, Colin Kaepernick, David Stannard, Eduardo Galeano, Edward Said, Franz Fanon, Harry Belafonte, James Anaya, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kimberle Crenshaw, Michael Eric Dyson, Muhammad Ali, Paul Gilroy, Paul VanDevelder, Serena Williams, Sylviane Diouf, Ta-Nehisi Coates, W.E.B. Dubois... this can be a long list. Add your own selections. Finally, the focus of “On Tyranny” on European tyranny in Europe also leaves out the European powers’ exercise of tyranny in Africa, Asia and South America. But then why should writers from all those countries with visible minorities be allowed to have a voice in this little book?