Thursday, December 10, 2015

"But most white folks don't care much to read about Negroes, and most Negroes can't read."


Sarah's mind once again slipped wistfully into the past, to that One Hot Summer in 1957 in Madison County...

"Miss Sarah, I'm gonna write a book! I figures I don't needs no white college to write a book."

"Oh, Mandingo. That is adorable, you thinking you can write a book and all. What would this book be about?"

"I was thinking I'd write about a Negro who was the only Negro in a small town. He'd live in a tin shack behind the junkyard and he falls in love with a White Woman."

"Mandingo, that sounds a lot like it would be your autobiography."

"No, Miss Sarah: there won't be much about autos in it at all."

"Even if you could write such a book who on Earth would ever want to read it?"

"You wouldn't want to read it, Miss Sarah?"

Of course I'd read it, Mandingo, on account of it being you. But most white folks don't care much to read about Negroes, and most Negroes can't read. So I don't know who would ever read your book."

"Maybe one day, fifty years later maybe, someone would read it to better understand how life was like right now."

"I'm sure people in the future will have better things to do than read a book written by a Negro."

"That makes me sad, Miss Sarah."

"Oh, don't let it discourage you, my Mandingo. If writing a silly little book helps give purpose to your small Negro Life then I say do it."

"I knew you'd support me, Miss Sarah! I knew it!

"Of course, my Mandingo: I want you to be the best little Negro you can possibly be..."

I am Laslo.


http://althouse.blogspot.com/2015/12/but-scalias-arguments-became-quite.html

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