Response to George (Christine)


Dear George,

I get what you’re going through. I really do. I left Mississippi, where I worked the fields, too, for Chicago in 1937. The last straw for me was when Mr. Edd, our landowner, beat my dear cousin for stealing a turkey from his land … He didn’t steal the turkey. Ice cream lines, turkeys, it’s all the same. Senseless, tragic violence. I know you think you need to escape. I can see you’re a smart man, you have thought about your options. But please, George, don’t make this decision lightly. The north brings its own kinds of racism and violence. I hope your education is your ticket to freedom, but beware of how you will get off the train once you get on.

I was also married at sixteen and am the mother of three. I can’t sympathize with you too much about how your rage caused you to marry Inez. She’s a woman, George, and you can’t treat her like an object or a consequence of your mistake. Don’t go and get yourself a better life at the expense of hers.

I’ll be curious to hear how your journey goes. You have a friend in Chicago if you choose to come north.

Sincerely,
Ida Mae

Comments

  1. Allyson HobbsMay 8, 2018 at 12:55 PM

    Beautifully written! I especially like the line, "I hope your education is your ticket to freedom, but beware of how you will get off the train once you get on." Very nicely done!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Respone to Sadhana Week 6

Sadhana, In your response to Wilkerson you note the connection between "the act of leaving and the act of creating newness." You discuss the way that migration and creating a new beginning can become. in and of themselves, acts of resistance. I am similarly fascinated with Wilkerson's preoccupation with these themes. For me, the most provocative argument in the book is Wilkerson's framing of the Great Migration in relation to the "classic" narratives of European immigration and pursuit of the American Dream. As she puts it in the final paragraph of the epilogue, "By their actions, they did not dream the American Dream, the willed it into being by a definition of their own choosing. They did not ask to be accepted but declared themselves the Americans that perhaps few others recognized but that they had always been deep within their hearts." Wilkerson's narratives intentionally resonate with European immigrants' American Dream stories. Why...
Read more

Week 10 Response

As Professor Hobbs named this class "Racial Identity in the American Imagination , " I want to explore the reasons why the word imagination was used. This class could have, in fact, been called "Racial Identity in America." Was imagination used to underscore the fact that race is a construct? Does thinking of racial identity through the lens of imagination color our reading of texts or understandings of the history of race in America? For instance, I think The Hemingses of Monticello would be interesting to think through in terms of imagination in individual actors in comparison to American Racial Imagination as a whole.
Read more

Quarter Review BlogPost

The thing that I am most struck by going back and rereading my blog posts is how much I have learned throughout this quarter both in class and by doing the readings.  It is sometimes hard for me, in the thick of it, to realize how much it is!  I'm always caught up in the day to day of working, seeing friends, eating, but this class has truly been extraordinary.  The amount and scope of reading (and watching and of course, discussing) we have done is incredible.  I think back to the first day of class, I didn't anticipate how much this class would change me, but it has.  I think I still have a lot of questions.  There are many untied ends. Can someone be transracial and was Rachel Dolezal treated unfairly?  How can we understand the era of our nation's founding today?  How can we write history about it, when there are so many narratives that are virtually impossible to tell with the sources we still have?  How should we treat the Founding Fa...
Read more