By Goth Grammarist:
Cleaver was born into and lived in a segregated world and didn’t question it. Once segregation was made illegal*, he realizes the world he was in, writing “Prior to 1954, we lived in an atmosphere of novocain. Negroes found it necessary, in order to maintain whatever sanity they could, to remain somewhat aloft and detached from ‘the problem.’ We accepted indignities and the mechanics of the apparatus of oppression without reacting by sitting-in or holding mass demonstrations.” (Cleaver, 4-5) Most of the African American writers I have read either grew up before segregation ended or after.
He writes that “America has been a schizophrenic nation. It’s two conflicting images of itself were never reconciled, because never before has the survival of its most cherished myths made a reconciliation mandatory.” It was only when segregation was abolished that white America had to learn to share space with black America. And this, as Cleaver notes, allowed black people to become angry. This was when people were able to acknowledge those feelings some had kept ignoring. What is incredibly frustrating about Cleaver’s writing, is that it’s still relevant. He wrote over 1/2 a century ago and he was pissed off (rightly so) and demanded change. I wish he sounded dated. I wish his anger sounded unnecessary. But his words, his rhetoric could be written today.
More here. (Note: In honor of Black History Month, at least one post will be devoted to its 2025 theme of “African Americans and Labor” throughout the month of February)
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