Much later, it must have played a role in my decision to study philosophy, and to find my way within philosophy to the work of Immanuel Kant, that dry Prussian professor who wrote the metaphysics of universal justice.
That was the major tenet of my mother’s homespun theology. Jews had been slaves in the land of Egypt and, as such, were obliged to liberal solidarity with other oppressed peoples. If we could not be reckoned to the perpetrators, neither did we consider ourselves victims. My mother’s involvement in the campaign to desegregate Atlanta’s public schools was sufficient to earn her a photo in Look magazine and a number of late-night calls from the Klan. My parents had moved from Chicago to Atlanta shortly before my birth in 1955. The temple where my family worshipped had been firebombed, and most of the Jewish community kept their heads down. Still, she ended our friendship after hearing that the Jews had killed Jesus.
We had a lot in common: a preference for building tree houses over playing with Barbie dolls, a love of books whose games in the woods often revolved around searching for a door to Narnia. If I was black, I’d be gone.” When I was eight years old, my best friend solemnly declared she could no longer play with me. “If I was Catholic and I lived in the South, I’d be worried. “There’s an old saying,” Reverend Wheeler Parker, who was Emmett Till’s cousin, told me. The question of whether Jews should count as white people was not quite settled in the South where I was born. Lest you suppose I’m tracing an arc that strides the space from perpetrator to victim, let me complicate the story. I began life as a white girl in the segregated South, and I’m likely to end it as a Jewish woman in Berlin. STANLEY CAVELL, Must We Mean What We Say? History will not go away, except through our perfect acknowledgment of it. JAMES BALDWIN, “As Much Truth as One Can Bear” Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. The moral power to resist contains the protest, the revolt against reality, which is rational only as long as it is moral. This sentence is just as true as it is hostile to morals and intellect. If you believe the copy of this ebook you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us./piracy. Copyright infringement is against the law. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. Or visit us online at us./newslettersignup For email updates on the author, click here. To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases and other great reads, sign up for our newsletters. Begin Reading Table of Contents A Note About the Author Copyright Page Thank you for buying this Farrar, Straus and Giroux ebook.
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