Renowned writer and Professor of Creative Writing John Edgar Wideman shook the audience Friday night with the powerful images of suffering in his writing and raised questions about race, identity and community in contemporary America as part of the Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice's workshop series.
"Slavery depended on race and race depends on slavery, and since we still have race as a primary way of understanding our reality and understanding our relationships, there can be no doubt that the legacy of slavery still lives and it impinges upon us every minute of every day," Wideman said.
Before plunging into the problems of racism, oppression and prejudice, Wideman showed a sense of humor when he thanked the audience for coming out on a Friday night. "I hope we are not a gathering of the lonely and dateless," he said.
In an excerpt from his novel-in-progress, Wideman read of "people drinking and shooting up" in the streets of Pittsburgh, alongside scenes of teenage Algerian boys killing their French friend in colonial Algeria.
"Wideman imagines worlds in which oppositions between self and other, black and white, rich and poor, past and present are always collapsing," said Rolland Murray, assistant professor of English, as an introduction to Wideman's reading.
The novel is about two people, both of whom Wideman calls heroes: Frantz Fanon, the anti-colonialism revolutionary, psychiatrist and author of "Black Skin, White Masks" and "The Wretched of the Earth," among other works, and Wideman's mother.
Fanon is a hero because he fought against the oppressive institution of colonialism while "determining within himself to treat others as human beings first and foremost," Wideman said. Working as a psychiatrist at an Algerian clinic, Fanon treated both the Algerians tortured by the French and the French soldiers who had psychological trauma from being torturers.
Wideman's mother, on the other hand, is a hero in her role as storyteller, as a source of intelligence and as a reservoir of experience for the five children she raised, Wideman said.
Seeking to create a conversation across time and culture, Wideman pointed out the underlining similarity and codependency of public and non-public heroes. "The work of a man like Fanon, of those of us who are trying to find our voices, depends on these people like my mother," he said.
In a staggering parallel with the flooding in New Orleans, the character based on Wideman's mother in the novel speaks of "the whole insides of houses floating away."
In his address to the audience, Wideman also used the flood in New Orleans as an example. The problem of racial division as a legacy of oppressive institutions like slavery has "become a burden, a form of oppression that perhaps we have grown used to and can't even see anymore even when it comes floating in our faces through the street of New Orleans," he said.
Wideman also suggested that the question of reparations is premature because of pressing contemporary realities. "It's not a question of assessing damage that has been done with some kind of tagline. It's first stopping the bleeding and then maybe we can make some rational use of our resources," he said.
As a conclusion, Wideman prescribed that "any beginning of a solution, any attempt to deal with these issues cannot in any way bring forward race, and foreground race and repeat race as part of the solution."
For Graham Cumberbatch '07, the idea of evading the perpetuation of racial distinction stood out as the most interesting idea from the lecture, but he questioned its plausibility.
"It was interesting, but from my standpoint it seems impossible," he said.
Other members of the audience were affected more by Wideman's craftsmanship as a writer. "I am in awe of the vivid imagery he paints," said L'Merdie Frazier, director of education at the Museum of Afro-American Art in Boston.
Wideman spoke to a crowd of about 40, few of whom were students, in Smith-Buonanno 106.
