“Black people know for a fact what you, their leaders, fear to face. Black people know your plans for legislation, litigation, and protest cannot prevail against the tradition of sacrificing black rights. Indeed, your efforts will simply add a veneer of face-saving uncertainty to a debate whose outcome is not only predictable, but inevitable. Flying in the face of our history, you are still relying on the assumption that whites really want to grant justice to blacks, really want to alleviate onerous racial conditions.”
“Professor Golightly,” the chairman interrupted, “the time we have allotted you has almost expired. The delegates here are weary and anxious to return to their homes so that they can assist their families through this crisis. The defense plans we have formulated are our best effort. Sir, if you have a better way, let us hear it now.”
Golightly nodded. “I promised to be brief, and I will. Although you have labored here unselfishly to devise a defense against what is surely the most dangerous threat to our survival since our forebears were kidnapped from Africa’s shores, I think I have a better way, and I urge you to hear it objectively and without regard to our past differences. The question is how best to counter an offer that about a third of the voters would support even if the Space Traders offered America nothing at all. Another third may vacillate, but we both know that in the end they will simply not be able to pass up a good deal. The only way we can deflect, and perhaps reverse, a process that is virtually certain to result in approval of the Space Traders’ offer, is to give up the oppositional stance you are about to adopt, and forthrightly urge the country to accept the Space Traders’ offer.”
He paused, looking out over the sea of faces. Then there was a clamor of outraged cries: “Sell-out!” “Traitor!” and “Ultimate Uncle Tom!” The chairman banged his gavel in an effort to restore order.
Seemingly unmoved by the outburst, Golightly waited until the audience quieted, then continued. “A major, perhaps the principal, motivation for racism in this country is the deeply held belief that black people should not have anything that white people don’t have. Not only do whites insist on better jobs, higher incomes, better schools and neighborhoods, better everything, but they also usurp aspects of our culture. They have ‘taken our blues and gone,’ to quote Langston Hughes4—songs that sprang from our very subordination. Whites exploit not only our music but our dance, language patterns, dress, and hair styles as well. Even the badge of our inferior status, our color, is not sacrosanct, whites spending billions a year to emulate our skin tones, paradoxically, as a sign of their higher status. So whites’ appropriation of what is ours and their general acquisitiveness are facts—facts we must make work for us. Rather than resisting the Space Traders’ offer, let us circulate widely the rumor that the Space Traders, aware of our fruitless struggle on this planet, are arranging to transport us to a land of milk and honey—virtual paradise.
“Remember, most whites are so jealous of their race-based prerogatives that they oppose affirmative action even though many of these programs would remove barriers that exclude whites as well as blacks. Can we not expect such whites—notwithstanding even the impressive benefits offered by the Space Traders—to go all out to prevent blacks from gaining access to an extraterrestrial New Jerusalem? Although you are planning to litigate against the Trade on the grounds that it is illegal discrimination to limit to black people, mark my words, our ‘milk and honey’ story will inspire whites to institute such litigation on the grounds that limiting the Space Traders’ offer to black people is unconstitutional discrimination against whites!
“Many of you have charged that I have become expert at manipulating white people for personal gain. Although profit has not in fact motivated my actions, I certainly have learned to understand how whites think on racial issues. On that knowledge, I am willing to wage my survival and that of my family. I urge you to do the same. This strategy is, however risky, our only hope.”
The murmurs had subsided into stony silence by the time Golightly left the podium.
“Does anyone care to respond to Profesor Golightly’s suggestion?” the chairman finally asked.
Justin Jasper, a well-known and highly respected Baptist minister, came to the microphone. “I readily concede Dr. Golightly’s expertise in the psychology of whites’ thinking. Furthermore, as he requests, I hold in abeyance my deep distrust of a black man whose willing service to whites has led him to become a master minstrel of political mimicry. But my problem with his plan is twofold. First, it rings hollow because it so resembles Dr. Golightly’s consistent opposition in the past to all our civil rights initiatives. Once again, he is urging us to accept rather than oppose a racist policy. And, not only are we not to resist, but we are to beg the country to lead us to the sacrificial altar. God may have the power, but Dr. Golightly is not my God!”
The Reverend Jasper was a master orator, and he quickly had his audience with him. “Second, because the proposal lacks truth, it insults my soul. In the forty years I have worked for civil rights, I have lost more battles than I have won, but I have never lost my integrity. Telling the truth about racism has put me in prison and many of my co-workers into early graves.
“The truth is, Dr. Golightly, that what this country is ready to do to us is wrong! It is evil! It is an action so heinous as to give the word betrayal a bad name. I can speak only for myself, but even if I were certain that my family and I could escape the threat we now face by lying about our likely fate—and, Dr. Golightly, that is what you’re asking us to do—I do not choose to save myself by a tactic that may preserve my body at the sacrifice of my soul. The fact is, Dr. Golightly, until my Lord calls me home, I do not want to leave this country even for a land of milk and honey. My people were brought here involuntarily, and that is the only way they’re going to get me out!”
The Reverend Jasper received a standing ovation. Many were crying openly as they applauded. After thanking them, the minister asked everyone to join in singing the old nineteenth-century hymn “Amazing Grace,” which, he reminded them, had been written by an English minister, one John Newton, who as a young man and before finding God’s grace, had been captain of a slave ship. It was with special fervor that they sang the verse:
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come.
’Twas grace that brought me safe this far,
And grace will lead me home.5
With the hymn’s melody still resonating, the coalition’s members voted unanimously to approve their defensive package. The meeting was quickly adjourned. Leaving the hall, everyone agreed that they had done all that could be done to oppose approval of the Space Traders’ offer. As for Golightly, his proposal was dismissed as coming from a person who, in their view, had so often sold out black interests. “He’s a sad case. Even with this crisis, he’s just doing what he’s always done.”
Again, as after the President’s cabinet meeting, Golightly sat for a long time alone. He did not really mind that none of the delegates had spoken to him before leaving. But he was crushed by his failure to get them to recognize what he had long known: that without power, a people must use cunning and guile. Or were cunning and guile, based on superior understanding of a situation, themselves power? Certainly, most black people knew and used this art to survive in their everyday contacts with white people. It was only civil rights professionals who confused integrity with foolhardiness.
“Faith in God is fine,” Golightly muttered to himself. “But God expects us to use the common sense He gave us to get out of life-threatening situations.”
Still, castigation of black leadership could not alter the fact. Golightly had failed, and he knew it. Sure, he was smarter than they were—smarter than even most whites; but he had finally outsmarted himself. At the crucial moment, when he most needed to help his people, both whites and blacks had rejected as untrustworthy both himself and his plans.
4 January. In a nationally televised address, the President sought to reassure
both Trade supporters that he was responding favorably to their strong messages, and blacks and whites opposed to the Trade that he would not ignore their views. After the usual patriotic verbiage, the President said that just-completed, end-of-the-century economic reports revealed the nation to be in much worse shape than anyone had imagined. He summarized what he called the “very grim figures,” and added that only massive new resources would save America from having to declare bankruptcy.
“On the face of it, our visitors from outer space have initiated their relationship with our country in a most unusual way. They are a foreign power and as such entitled to the respect this nation has always granted to the family of nations on Earth; it is not appropriate for us to prejudge this extraplanetary nation’s offer. Thus, it is now receiving careful study and review by this administration.
“Of course, I am aware of the sacrifice that some of our most highly regarded citizens would be asked to make in the proposed trade. While these citizens are of only one racial group, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to indicate that the selection was intended to discriminate against any race or religion or ethnic background.
“No decisions have been made, and all options are under review. This much seems clear: the materials the Traders have offered us are genuine and perform as promised. Early estimates indicate that, if these materials were made available to this nation, they would solve our economic crisis, and we could look forward to a century of unparalleled prosperity. Whether the Trade would allow a tax-free year for every American, as some of our citizens have hoped, is not certain. But I can promise that if the Trade is approved, I will exercise my best efforts to make such a trade dividend a reality.”
Early that morning, the leaders of Fortune-500 businesses, heads of banks, insurance companies, and similar entities boarded their well-appointed corporate jets and flew to a remote Wyoming hunting lodge. They understood the President supported the Trade, despite his avowals that no decision had been made. They had come to discuss the Trade offer’s implications for big business.
5 January. Not content with just closing the doors on their meetings as the Anti-Trade Coalition had, the corporate leaders of America gathered for an absolutely hush-hush meeting. They were joined by the Vice President and some of the wealthier members of Congress. The surroundings were beautiful, but the gathering of white males was somber. Corporate America faced a dilemma of its own making.
Media polls as well as ones privately funded by businesses all reported tremendous public support for the Trade—unhappy but hardly unexpected news for the nation’s richest and most powerful men. First, blacks represented 12 percent of the market and generally consumed much more of their income than did their white counterparts. No one wanted to send that portion of the market into outer space—not even for the social and practical benefits offered by the Space Traders.
Even those benefits were a mixed blessing. Coal and oil companies, expecting to raise their prices as supplies steadily decreased, were not elated at the prospect of an inexhaustible energy source; it could quickly put them out of business. Similarly, businesses whose profits were based on sales in black ghetto communities—or who supplied law enforcement agencies, prisons, and other such institutions—faced substantial losses in sales. The real estate industry, for example, annually reaped uncounted millions in commissions on sales and rentals, inflated by the understanding that blacks would not be allowed to purchase or rent in an area. Even these concerns were overshadowed by fears of what the huge influx of gold to pay all state debts would do to the economy or to the value of either the current money supply or gold.
Though seldom acknowledging the fact, most business leaders understood that blacks were crucial in stabilizing the economy with its ever-increasing disparity between the incomes of rich and poor. They recognized that potentially turbulent unrest among those on the bottom was deflected by the continuing efforts of poorer whites to ensure that they, as least, remained ahead of blacks. If blacks were removed from the society, working- and middle-class whites—deprived of their racial distraction—might look upward toward the top of the societal well and realize that they as well as the blacks below them suffered because of the gross disparities in opportunities and income.
Many of these corporate leaders and their elected representatives had for years exploited poor whites’ ignorance of their real enemy. Now, what had been a comforting insulation of their privileges and wealth, posed a serious barrier to what a majority saw as a first priority: to persuade the country to reject the Trade. A quick survey of the media and advertising representatives present was not encouraging. “It would be quite a challenge,” one network executive said, “but we simply can’t change this country’s view about the superiority of whites and the inferiority of blacks in a week. I doubt you could do it in a decade.”
Even so, the corporate leaders decided to try. They planned to launch immediately a major media campaign—television, radio, and the press—to exploit both the integration achieved in America and the moral cost of its loss. White members of professional and college sports teams would urge rejection of the Trade “so as to keep the team together.” Whites in integrated businesses, schools, churches, and neighborhoods would broadcast similar messages. The business leaders even committed large sums to facilitate campaigning by pro-choice women’s groups who were strongly anti-Trade. In a particularly poignant series of ads, white spouses in interracial marriages would point out that the Trade would destroy their families, and beg the public not to support it.
Newspaper and magazine publishers promised supportive editorials, but the Vice President and other government representatives argued that the immediate political gains from accepting the Trade would translate into business benefits as well.
“With all due respect, Mr. Vice President,” he was told, “that argument shows why you are in politics and we are in business. It also shows that you are not listening very closely to those of us whose campaign contributions put you in office.”
“We need your financial support,” the Vice President admitted, “but our polls show most white voters favor the Trade, and the administration is under increasing pressure to do the same. And, as you know, pro-Trade advocates are promising that with all government debts paid, every American would get a year without any taxes. Believe it or not, some liberal environmentalists are thinking of giving their support to the Trade as the lesser of two evils. Of course, the prospect of heating and air-conditioning homes without paying through the nose is very appealing, even to those who don’t care a hoot about the environment.”
“However enticing such benefits of the Trade may be,” interjected a government census official, “the real attraction for a great many whites is that it would remove black people from this society. Since the first of the year, my staff and I have interviewed literally thousands of citizens across the country, and, though they don’t say it directly, it’s clear that at bottom they simply think this will be a better country without black people. I fear, gentlemen, that those of us who have been perpetuating this belief over the years have done a better job than we knew.”
“I must add what you probably already know,” the Vice President broke in, “that the administration is leaning toward acceptance of the Space Traders’ offer. Now, if you fellows line up against the Trade, it could make a difference—but, in that case, the President may opt to build on the phony populist image you provided him in his first election campaign. He knows that the working- and middle-class white people in this country want the blacks to go, and if they get a chance to express their real views in the privacy of a polling place, the Trade plan will pass overwhelmingly.”
“Bullshit!” roared a billionaire who had made his fortune in construction. “I’m sick of this defeatist talk! We need to get off our dead asses and get to work on this thing. Everyone says that money talks. Well dammit, let’s get out there and spend some money. If this thing goes to a public referendum, we can buy whatever and wh
oever is necessary. It sure as hell will not be the first time,” he wound up, pounding both fists on the long conference table, “and likely not the last!”
The remainder of the meeting was more upbeat. Pointedly telling the Vice President that he and the administration were caught in the middle and would have to decide whose support they most wanted in the future, the business leaders began making specific plans to suspend all regular broadcasting and, through 16 January, to air nothing but anti-Trade ads and special Trade programs. They flew out that night, their confidence restored. They controlled the media. They had become rich and successful “playing hard ball.” However competitive with one another, they had, as usual, united to confront this new challenge to their hegemony. It was, as usual, inconceivable that they could fail.
6 January. Although the Television Evangelists of America also owned jets, they understood that their power lay less in these perks of the wealthy than in their own ability to manipulate their TV congregations’ religious feelings. So, after a lengthy conference call, they announced a massive evangelical rally in the Houston Astrodome which would be televised over their religious cable network. They went all out. The Trade offer was the evangelists’ chance to rebuild their prestige and fortunes, neither of which had recovered from the Jim and Tammy Bakker and the Jimmy Swaggart scandals. They would achieve this much-desired goal by playing on, rather than trying to change, the strongly racist views of their mostly working-class television audiences. True, some of the preachers had a substantial black following, but evangelical support for the Trade would not be the evangelists’ decision. Rather, these media messiahs heralded it as God’s will.
Dark Matter Page 41