St. Wendell—The Hidden Wound

Posted by Ty Fischer on Feb 25, 2009 11:20:29 AM
February 24, 2009 
 
I finished this short book—

Berry

’s first essay published in 1968—this morning. For any fan of

Berry

or for anyone interest in race or anthropology, I would highly recommend reading it even though it is out of print. Find it. Purchase it used. It is worth it. All of

Berry

’s full blown anthropology is evident. His economic analysis which ends in some sort of radically community oriented version of capitalism is there. All the pieces are on the board and he is beginning to move them masterfully. His analysis of race and racism is striking, convicting and overwhelming. Most convicting, perhaps, is that he traces racism back to its roots. Here is a sample:

 
I believe then, and I believe more strongly now, that the root of our racial problem in

America

is not racism. The root is our inordinate desire to be superior—not to some inferior or subject people, though this desire leads to the subjections of people—but to our condition.  We wish to rise above the sweat and bother of taking care of anything—of ourselves, of each other, or of our country. We did not enslave African blacks because they are black, but because their labor promised to free us from the obligation of stewardship, and because they were unable to prevent us from enslaving them. They were economically valuable and militarily weak.

 
Berry

, like Dante, points out the horrible sin of racism is even worse than we think. . . .

It is motivated according to him by a deeper desire to “UN-be”—to avoid being humans in a world made the way God made this one. We are continually about the task of shirking our job of caring for the garden. This sin harms the victim races, but it also harms the victimizers by freeing this from the natural and normal tasks of being human—or by causing them to imagine that they can rise above the mundane human lives that we lead. Reading this book on the heels of Stephen Nichols symposium on the blues helped me to understand some of the deep problems faced by white culture (or the lack thereof) in

America

. Culture rises up from the earth. Whites (sometimes through racial slavery; sometimes through industrialism) cut themselves off from the ground—from the life of the world. Having been cut off, they wither—like a cut flower. Slave culture in the South produced the blues and jazz. Modern European culture—far from being advanced—is unable to produce great art or music. Why? It is cut off from the ground. It is refusing to be human. Sadly, both blacks and whites—all races really—have bought into this lifeless definition of success. They deem themselves or their race successful if more of them are cut off from the ground. Thankfully, the Amish and Mennonites here have retained some sense of this. Perhaps we could learn a little from them—and plant a garden.