Brother West (22 page)
When bell asked what the essence was of my recently published book,
The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism,
I answered that it was “an interpretation of the emergency, the sustenance, and the decline of American civilization from the vantage point of an African American. It means that we have to have a cosmopolitan orientation, even though it is rooted in the fundamental concern with the plight and predicaments of African Americans.”
I went on to argue “that there are fundamental themes, like experimentation and improvisation, that can be found in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, for example, that are thoroughly continuous with the great art form that Afro-Americans have given the modern world, which is jazz. And therefore to talk about America is to talk about improvisation and experimentation, and therefore to talk about Emerson and Louis Armstrong in the same breath.”
I told the story of the cultural and political significance of the major native philosophic tradition in America best represented by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, Sidney Hook, C. Wright Mills, W.E.B. Du Bois, Reinhold Niebuhr, Lionel Trilling, W. V. Quine, Richard Rorty, and Roberto Unger. My own prophetic pragmatism was the culminating point of the story.
bell and I talked about suffering. I’d once told Bill Moyers that I saw the vocation of the intellectual as an endless quest for truth in which we allow suffering to speak. In that light, I spoke of jazz and blues encompassing “a profound sense of the tragic-comic linked to human agency, so that it does not wallow in a cynicism or a paralyzing pessimism, but it also is realistic enough to project a sense of hope. It’s a matter of responding in an improvisational, undogmatic, creative way to these instances in such a way that people still survive and thrive.”
These were public talks that had us determined to offer ourselves, in bell’s words, “as living examples of the will on the part of both black men and women to talk with one another, to process, and engage in rigorous intellectual and political dialogue.”
“At a time when there are so many storms raging and winds blowing through black male and female relations, it is important to at least take a moment and look, see, examine, question, and scrutinize a particular black male intellectual and a particular black female intellectual who are grappling together, struggling together, rooted in a very rich black tradition but also critical of that tradition such that the best of the tradition can remain alive.”
That was me and bell, talking about everything and everyone from Spike Lee to Eddie Murphy to the songs of Babyface, processing what was happening in our popular culture—and why—as well as trying to understand the profundity of the works of our literary heavy-hitters like Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison. When bell pointed to the grandmother’s sermon on the necessity of love in Toni Morrison’s
Beloved
, I called it “one of the great moments in modern literature. You don’t find that kind of sermon in Wright or Baldwin or Ellison. There’s a depth for black humanity which is both affirmed and enacted that, I think, speaks very deeply to these spiritual issues. And I think this relates precisely to the controversy in the relations between black men and women.”
“Cornel,” asked bell, “what does it mean for a progressive black male on the Left to ally himself with the critique of patriarchy and sexism, to be supportive of the feminist movement?”
“We have to recognize that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence. Now, the degree to which these values are eroding is the degree to which there cannot be healthy relationships. And if there are no relationships then there is only the joining of people for the purpose of bodily stimulation.
“And if we live in a society in which these very values are eroding, then it’s no accident that we are going to see fewer and fewer qualitative relationships between black men and women.
“At the same time—and this is one reason why I think many black men and women are at each other’s throats—there exists a tremendous sense of inadequacy and rage in black men, just as exists a tremendous sense of inadequacy and rage in black women.”
A little later in our dialogue, bell said, “I think we also have to break away from the bourgeois tradition of romantic love, which isn’t necessarily about creating conditions for what you call critical confirmation. And I think this produces a lot of the tensions between heterosexual black men and black women, and between gays. We must think of not just romantic love, but of love in general as being about people mutually meeting each other’s needs and giving and receiving critical feedback.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “We actually see some of the best of this in the traditions of contemporary Africa that has a more deromanticized, or less romanticized, conception of relationship, talking more about partnership. I know this from my loving Ethiopian wife.”
It is dangerous to make broad generalizations about the rich diversity of African culture. But it is safe to say that less romantic conceptions of love do prevail there.
During the winter of 1990, in the courthouse in Rockville, Maryland just north of D.C.—a community known as the Reno of the East—for the third time in my life I asked a woman for her hand in marriage. I was overjoyed when she accepted. I was thirty-seven.
To the love of my life, my precious wife
Elleni Gebre Amlakheir
of a great family and civilization of faith
and harbinger of hope to come
T
HIS WAS THE DEDICATION IN THE BOOK
I wrote called
Keeping Faith:
Philosophy and Race in America
, published in 1993 and recently reissued as a Routledge Classics. The experience of recommitting myself to the courtship of Elleni was a long process but one that I could never abandon. We had broken up before I began seeing Kathleen, but when that relationship proved impossible on a longrange basis, I realized that I couldn’t forget Elleni. I had loved her once. I had, in fact, never stopped loving her. I had to see her. I started flying down to Tampa, where she was working as a waitress and was still in hiding from her obsessed suitor. I flew to Florida every two weeks. I begged her to relocate somewhere closer to me. She agreed to Rockville, a reasonable drive from Princeton. We were back together at last. Soon I was able to convince her to leave Maryland, and marry and live with me in New Jersey.
Heaven. This was the marriage. This was the woman. This was the soulmate I had been seeking. This was the spouse with whom I would share my life. This was domestic stability, romantic excitement, and spiritual fulfillment. This was right.
As an Eastern Orthodox Ethiopian, Elleni wanted us to travel to her motherland and be married in church. I was all for it. By the late ’80s, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front had mostly collapsed. The country had been ravaged by economic catastrophe and political corruption, not to mention deadly retribution to all those who opposed the Communist regime. There was reason to be hopeful, and it seemed that we would be welcome in Addis Ababa, former home of my wife and her mother. The plan was to hold the ceremony in the grand Coptic cathedral known as Haile Selassie Church. Two thousand were to attend. Naturally I was bringing over my family. The plans were coming along beautifully until I was told, a mere ten days before our wedding day, that it couldn’t happen.
“You’ll have to convert to Ethiopian Orthodoxy.”
The speaker was the highest official of the church who, ironically, had a Ph.D. in theology from Princeton. He was a learned man whom we thought would marry us.
I had some background on his religion. I understood how Eastern Orthodoxy broke down along regional lines. You’ve got Greek Orthodoxy, Egyptian Orthodoxy, Armenian Orthodoxy, and, along with many others, that deep, deep Russian Orthodoxy. Among these divisions, though, Ethiopian Orthodoxy is the most ancient. It goes back to the caves. It isn’t about theological texts— it’s about how the priest filters the spirit. The holy men live exemplary lives. In other words, they don’t give answers in books. They show you how to live by the way
they
live, by their fleshified response to suffering.
I have great respect for the tradition, but I had to tell the man, “No way I’m converting from
my
tradition. I
love
my tradition. I
am
my tradition.”
“Then you’ll have to cancel the wedding.”
“Can’t cancel now,” I said. “Plane tickets have been bought. I got my family flying in from California. Then there’s all the work that’s been done by my wife’s brother, Sirak, one of the loveliest men to ever walk the earth. He’s been organizing wedding plans, along with the rest of his family and prominent citizens in Addis Ababa, for months. Ain’t no stopping us now, my good brother.”
“I will not permit a marriage in our sacred cathedral when one of the parties is not of our faith.”
“We’re going to have to talk this out,” I said. “No way in the world I’m going to disappoint Elleni’s dear mother, Harigewain Mola. After all, she’s a relative of Menilik II, the founder of your nation.” And my dear Brother Sirak, Elleni’s brother, had already paid for all the wedding events.
“That’s part of the problem, Professor West. The Emperor’s throne is in that very sanctuary where your ceremony will take place. The throne cannot and will not be desecrated by a marriage that is not sanctioned by the church. I strongly suggest that you formally convert.”
“I already said that’s out of the question,” I said.
“I don’t see why. You’re a sophisticated scholar. You must understand that Christianity in America means nothing. It’s shallow. It’s little more than a commercial on television, a superficial non-theology espoused by preachers looking for fame and wealth. You become an Ethiopian Orthodox, Professor West, and you’ll have the most glorious wedding in the history of modern Ethiopia.”
“I’m afraid, my good brother, that you have a misunderstanding. I’m very serious about being a black Baptist. Fact is, I’m as serious about being a black Baptist as you are about being an Ethiopian Orthodox.”
“But surely you see that in America, Professor West, Christianity is just another consumer choice. I saw it in the seminary. I saw black seminarians switch back and forth from one denomination to another like children trading candy. It meant nothing. It was a whimsical and thoughtless process.”
“Yes,” I said, “there’s more denominational mobility in America because we have more choice than, say, you have in Ethiopia. And in many parts of the country religion doesn’t cut as deeply as I would like. No argument there. I could critique American Christianity all day long—and I have. But your description of the folks you encountered in seminary does not fit this Negro at all. This Negro is a believing Baptist. And this Negro, with or without your help, will marry Elleni Gebre Amlak in that grand church in Addis Ababa.”
My man backed down a bit. “I won’t do it, but if you can find a priest who will, then I’ll drop my objections.”
So I went on a hunt to find the righteous priest to do the job. It was something like locating a Philip Berrigan, the left-wing Roman Catholic renegade. In Ethiopia, though, such rugged individualists within the church do not have the public profile that they do in the U.S. No matter. I found such a priest, and the wedding was on.
T
HE WEDDING WAS SOMETHING TO BEHOLD
.
Blessings, blessings, blessings. Blessing surrounded me. My brother Cliff, my best man. My precious mom. My precious dad. Elleni’s magnificent mother. And in the center of it all, my radiant bride. The grand Coptic cathedral, which had been closed tight during that most brutal of communist regimes, was recently reopened. It was a time of celebration and gladness. The wedding itself was organized by a committee of leading Ethiopian citizens. The throne of Haile Selassie was brought out. Crowns were placed on our heads. I was given an honorary Amharic name: Ficre Selassie, “Spirit of Love.”
The blessed event, though, was not without tension. Within Elleni’s family, there were a group of rebellious cousins who violently opposed our union. We were never clear about the reasons behind their opposition, only that they considered my marriage to Elleni an outrage. Then came alarming reports: the rebels were set on assassinating the newlyweds. I had to send Mom and Dad home early. Cliff stayed by our side. Elleni and I slept with guns by our pillows, a militia guarding the house. Then we had to go underground. It was a serious situation. Our lives were on the line, even as our lives turned impossibly and extravagantly beautiful. Catastrophe shadowed joy, fear fought with faith. Finally, the threats subsided. We came back to the United States, determined to spend at least two months a year in Ethiopia. Despite everything, Africa had become my second home.
What I saw in Ethiopia was a people who have never been colonized by Europeans with the exception of Eritrea. They’re free of the mind manipulations engineered by white supremacists. They’ve never been fooled into believing that they’re less than human. The result is a feeling of self-assurance. They understand the value of their deep culture and unique civilization. Their history is one of epic struggle—against every conceivable kind of negative power and corrosive force, from soil erosion to corrupt tyrants. Yet their humanity persists, strong, steady, clear of the self-doubting notion implanted by cultures that considered themselves superior.
Ethiopia nourished me. Ethiopia changed me. It gave me a new and compelling point of view of what it means to be both African and American. I crossed back and forth between two cultures, and in doing so found myself immersed deeper in both.
I particularly enjoyed trying to reform the humanities curriculum at Addis Ababa University after the collapse of communism. In my deliberations and my lectures I suggested large doses of Plato, Dewey, Chekhov, Du Bois, and Morrison.
A year after our wedding, Elleni and I were in Addis Ababa for another ceremony, one in which Elleni’s mother transferred her house to us. Another amazing ritual, this one lasted five hours. Elleni’s family told stories about their own struggles—and the struggles of their nation—that had split them apart and brought them together. The narratives were riveting, epic tales of an ancient line of patriarchs and matriarchs who had fallen and risen, only to fall and rise again. We laughed uproariously, we wept openly, we exposed our hearts and, at the end, we kissed the feet of Harigewain Mola, Elleni’s brave and steadfast mother.