James

by Percival Everett

Waiting is a big part of a slave’s

“That would be the correct incorrect grammar.”

Safe movement through the world depended on mastery of language, fluency.

“The only ones who suffer when they are made to feel inferior is us. Perhaps I should say ‘when they don’t feel superior.’

“Don’t make eye contact,”

“Never speak first,”

“Never address any subject directly when talking to another slave,” she said. “What do we call that?” I asked. Together they said, “Signifying.”

we must let the whites be the ones who name the trouble.”

“Because they need to know everything before us. Because they need to name everything.”

Mumble sometimes so they can have the satisfaction of telling you not to mumble. They enjoy the correction and thinking you’re stupid. Remember, the more they choose to not want to listen, the more we can say to one another around them.”

“There is no God, child. There’s religion but there’s no God of theirs. Their religion tells that we will get our reward in the end. However, it apparently doesn’t say anything about their punishment. But when we’re around them, we believe in God. Oh, Lawdy Lawd, we’s be believin’. Religion is just a controlling tool they employ and adhere to when convenient.”

the better they feel, the safer we are.”

“Da mo’ betta dey feels, da mo’ safer we be.”

peckerhead

There was nothing that irritated white men more than a couple of slaves laughing. I suspected they were afraid we were laughing at them or else they simply hated the idea of us having a good time.

the real source of our rage had to go without address, swallowed, repressed.

How strange a world, how strange an existence, that one’s equal must argue for one’s equality, that one’s equal must hold a station that allows airing of that argument, that one cannot make that argument for oneself, that premises of said argument must be vetted by those equals who do not agree.

am called Jim. I have yet to choose a name. In the religious preachings of my white captors I am a victim of the Curse of Ham. The white so-called masters cannot embrace their cruelty and greed, but must look to that lying Dominican friar for religious justification. But I will not let this condition define me. I will not let myself, my mind, drown in fear and outrage. I will be outraged as a matter of course. But my interest is in how these marks that I am scratching on this page can mean anything at all. If they can have meaning, then life can have meaning, then I can have meaning.

At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them, sounding them out or comprehending them. It was a completely private affair and completely free and, therefore, completely subversive.

“Way I sees it is dis. If’n ya gots to hab a rule to tells ya wha’s good, if’n ya gots to hab good ’splained to ya, den ya cain’t be good. If’n ya need sum kinda God to tells ya right from wrong, den you won’t never know.” “But the law says…” “Good ain’t got nuttin’ to do wif da law. Law says I’m a slave.”

I chose the word enemy, and still do, as oppressor necessarily supposes a victim.

“Folks be funny lak dat. Dey takes the lies dey want and throws away the truths dat scares ’em.”

“White folks watch us work and forget how long we’re left alone in our heads. Working and waiting.” I smiled. “If only they knew the danger in that.” “I don’t believe they even know we talk to each other,” Easter said. “They can’t accept it. They won’t accept it. And they’re always surprised.

It’s never occurred to them that we might find them mockable.”

“They were shooting at us,” Norman repeated. “You can’t work a dead slave. Why would they shoot?” “They hate us, Norman.”

Hope is funny. Hope is not a plan. Actually, it’s just a trick. A ruse.”

I had never seen a white man filled with such fear. The remarkable truth, however, was that it was not the pistol, but my language, the fact that I didn’t conform to his expectations, that I could read, that had so disturbed and frightened him.