A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond (32 page)

In any event, here’s what I think. I know you don’t care, but I do. I know you don’t want me doing anything ahead of you. But what happens when you aren’t doing a thing? Am I supposed just to wait? Add it up, ace. Looks to me like doing things that way is no way. Nothing would ever get done.

Therefore.

What do you think of this rough outline for the book?

Part I: Political History

a. Strom on Slavery

b. Strom on the War

c. Strom on Reconstruction

d. Strom on the KKK

e. Strom on The Dixiecrats

f. Strom on Civil Rights

g. Strom on Washington generally—amusing musings on blacks in politics and non-blacks too

h. Strom on our contemporary world and the blacks in it

Part II: Cultural History

a. Strom on blacks and music—real music, not gangsta rap

b. Strom on blacks and the theater

c. Strom on blacks and the domestic arts (making quilts—shit like that)

d. Strom on blacks and painting (? Query: have there ever been any?)

e. Strom on blacks and the dance

f. Strom on blacks in film, television, radio, journalism

g. Strom on black fashion models

h. Strom on blacks and sports

Part III: The People

a. Strom on blacks and the family

b. Strom on blacks and the schools—here’s a real strong suit

c. Strom on blacks and public transportation

d. Strom on blacks and food—what they eat and how

e. Strom on blacks and religion—maybe we should write this for him?

f. Strom on blacks and domestic décor

g. Strom on blacks and dirt farming h. Strom on blacks and criminality

I have some misgivings about IIIh. Don’t you?

Hey, but isn’t this a masterful idea? Masterful. We’ve got 3 Parts, 8 sections each, 15 pages a section, with some illustrations, it’s over with. I can write 15 pages in one day on any subject. All we need’s some hints from Strom and we can finish this book by the end of the term—easy.

Don’t thank me.

Blesings on you,

Jim

F
ROM THE
D
ESK OF
P
ERCIVAL
E
VERETT

March 8, 2003

Dear Jim,

I WILL thank you, buddy. This is a very good outline. And when did I ever criticize you for displaying initiative? Never, that’s when. Never had occasion to. Initiative, you see, is very different from blind panic and aimless flailing, both of which you are prone to. But this outline is by-Jesus initiative, Jim, and don’t let them tell you any different.

As for the outline, the general idea seems fine to me. I’m not quite sure we want to separate “Cultural History” from “The People,” as if The People didn’t figure in culture. And do we want Strom writing on black cuisine? That seems odd, doesn’t it? I mean, many of the things in Part III seem better suited to almost any other author.

Also, don’t we want “blacks and literature” under cultural history? That, after all, was what Barton suggested to us.

I have a few other suggestions, but we can work these out later and fit them in—or not. I do like your idea, Jim.

Strom on blacks in literature

Strom on blacks in the waste disposal profession

Strom on blacks and penis size

Strom on blacks and their fondness for rape

Strom on famous black scientists

Strom on diseases caused by blacks

Strom on ebonics

Again, no matter what you say, I DO thank you.

Best,

P

March 9, 2003

Dear Juniper,

So nice talking to you, dearie. To hear that your job is so much better makes me glow, though I wonder if you’re not shifting it into the sunlight to keep me from worrying. Anyhow, the pay is good; and as for the St. Patrick’s Day party, well, you’ve had experience fending off Martin before. I worry about you, but here’s some advice: just keep your body sideways to his. That way he can’t do any real damage. Do you know Mother once told me exactly that? I was about 13, and I swear I didn’t know what she was talking about. I still don’t. I wonder if she knew.

I wanted to ask you a terrible favor, Juney. You remember my friend Septic? The one who has had such a hard time of it, such a time as you and I will probably never even have to glimpse. But that’s just the point: our unwillingness to take a look, much less a sympathetic look, at the world of Septic is an evasion that, however understandable, is also too easy for us. By looking away, we allow this horrible world to roll along, grinding up bodies and lives, especially the bodies and lives of the weak and innocent.

Septic, as you know, took on her name—it is her only name—as a form of protest, an ironic reversal, she calls it. I think myself, without her authorization, that the name is used a bit as “Queer” or “Black” are—throwing it in our faces. But anyhow, Septic has somehow remained gentle-hearted through it all.

She’s written a kind of novel/essay. I think you might call it a fictional polemic. It is very experimental in its form. I think it’s important. Excuse me for taking so long to get to the subject of her work, which is a grind-your-nose-in-it look at the worlds of prostitutes and pimps. It’s very provocative in its ideas on prostitution, sex in general, money, and class issues. The novel, appropriately (well, I hope so), is entitled CLASS ASS.

Yes, Septic has been both a pimp and a prostitute; has both sold and taken drugs; has acted in and directed porn (adult and child); has committed robbery, assault (several times), burglary, arson, and, though in a botched way (it makes the one comic part of the book), counterfeiting. That’s just it: she fits none of the stereotypes. Maybe nobody does.

The book is a little long and wants editing. I can hear you screaming. But I think you might have something like Jack Abbott here. Septic seems to me absolutely authentic and dear.

How would you feel about (a) looking at it and (b) meeting her? You think I put in (b) knowing you would reject that and thus making it harder for you to say no twice. Why, Juniper! Would I do a thing like that?

Much love,

Sis

S
IMON
& S
CHUSTER
, I
NC
.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

March 10, 2003

Dear Barton,

The past is very cruel, humiliating. But you know, Barton, I sometimes wonder if it’s the past that’s at fault or our memory and the way we tell ourselves stories about the past. You know what I mean? For me, the past is really pretty malleable, and I can dredge up from it stories for all occasions and moods. It’s not, for me, a matter of lying (though I’m sure I fill up my quota there) but of finding ways to tell a tale or run a movie in my head that makes the past fit what I want. I don’t do this consciously; it just works out like that.

My own favorite literary character, Humbert Humbert, puts it this way: “When I try to analyze my own cravings, motives, actions, and so forth, I surrender to a sort of retrospective imagination which feeds the analytical faculty with boundless alternatives and which causes each visualized route to fork and re-fork without end in the maddeningly complex prospect of my past.” (I don’t have this memorized. I’ve been reading LOLITA as fall-asleep material.)

Anyhow, Barton, I wonder if your memories of your own past and the desolation you see there doesn’t say more about now than about then? You unconsciously form the past to fit the present. Don’t you think so?

But look at it this way. First of all, you do have friends. I am your friend, and Kincaid and Everett, I know, think very highly of you. Senator Thurmond, this temporary rupture aside, is also your friend, I am sure. And there are others too, of course. The thing is this, Barton: you are in politics, surely the most unstable and wretchedly selfish endeavor known to man. Friendships are probably impossible to form there. Any person possessed of sensitivity and depth of thought would find the whole environment harrowing, empty. It’s the place, Barton, not you. Anyone who fits there would never have acted to save my job, could not have written that letter you then sent me.

You’ll excuse me being so aggressively intrusive. Of course I know little about Washington and the political life. Still, I’ll bet I am not wrong. Put yourself in any other area and you would not only shine but gather around you many friends eager to share your energy and luminosity.

Count on me to say nothing to K and E about the shortlived misunderstanding there. You’re right: it would just throw them off the track. We’ll go on just as we have been, and that way things will progress as fast as they can.

By the way, my impression is that K and E are really pretty enterprising fellows. I may be wrong, but my guess is—I’m a regular fortune-teller tonight—that they’ve been working hard and will probably spring something on you when you least expect it.

I’ve got to run. I have this neighbor, a very sweet old woman, who has taken it into her head that I love to watch a certain television program. I am ashamed to say I was about to skip the name, just so I wouldn’t look like a dumb-ass. But it’s one of those reality programs, teenagers in a house nagging and niggling. I would have thought they’d be doing drugs and wallowing in the bliss of all that young flesh; but no. They complain about who uses the phone too long, who cleans up, who is defensive, who alludes unkindly to the fat girl’s fatness, as if those things were life. What a waste. And it’s on MTV. My neighbor must be 80, which is what trapped me. You see, I thought it was really commendable that she would find something of interest on MTV, so I talked with her about it. I had never seen the show and am sure I said nothing either way about it, but she misread my blab as addiction to these dreadful teens. Now I must go over every week and watch with her. She fixes elaborate toastie things—toast rounds with various toppings that testify to her highly reckless ingenuity. I’m becoming addicted to the toasties, to Margaret, and (what a thing to admit) the show and the kids on it.

For the truth is I enjoy it all at least as much as she. Two weeks ago I took wine, which we (she) finished before the show was half over, so last week I took two bottles. Who knows? This may be love!

Your friend,

Juniper