Ekemini Uwan

“Let me seek not so much to be understood, as to understand.”
~ a saint

“I will Never Understand, yew!”
~ an angry moderate

I mean, I can only react to, and even read, this book as a white guy, you know. (And an introverted white guy! “I’m dead!”) If I were a Black guy or a Black girl, I would have a different perspective. And though I like to understand as much as I can, and indeed I take it as a sort of duty to understand not just myself, but also other people and other groups, in terms of reviewing and expressing opinions, some things clearly aren’t my business, even if I would never say that None of it is my business, you know.

Not every tear has been wiped away yet, you know….

And I guess that when people are assaulted from their early youth, they tend to feel the need to defend themselves, you know, to guard their integrity and dignity. Of course, there were also times when they could clearly lay claim to being moderates, if you see that as a good thing, and perhaps one of them in particular was more universalist-inclined at times, saying things that aren’t the business only of Black people, but I won’t name that person as obviously that could be read as creating a division, you know. And I mean, I find certain things to be more pleasant, but then other people might not have that experience, so, I don’t know.

And I mean, I could talk about some of the more psychological things that are discussed in the book, along with a few very cool and universalistic lines, but that would probably come across as underlining my disengagement with the more sociological themes of the book, you know. I probably come across as a little patronizing as it is.

I mean, I had a lot of trouble reading “The Color Purple”! (I’m white! I’m introverted! I’m dead!) But then, sometimes I am limited by my background, you know. I may be an introvert, but I don’t have perspective-less omni-science. (Such a cool word. Omni-science, Omni-Science….)

So, I don’t know.

…. They are radical in a sense of course, and talk about a lot of things that are basically taboo because of men and especially white people, you know. Still, they are and at one point acknowledge to the reader that to be a Christian, at least in the West/the USA, in this time is to be a little bit old-fashioned, every once in awhile. They don’t like traditional colonial Christianity and try to decolonize their practice, but again at one point with sadness note that ‘many people are decolonizing themselves right out of the church’. There’s a lot of pain in trying to change and make moral something so resistant to everything; the pain can make you drop it. So it’s become with me: though I never imagined, at the time, that I would want to be less traditional/more decolonized than three proud, radical Black women, you know. I don’t say that to brag—in a way, like I said, it’s easier; it’s just prudence: drop the pain. But it’s surprising, you know. Man plans: the gods laugh.… (meer)