Ishmael Reed - Mumbo Jumbo

You are all we had. Against them. Against the Legendary Army of Marching Niggers against the Yellow Peril against the Red Man. We didn’t have what you had and so when you appeared before the world with your coronations and your ritual they imitated you all over the world and marched like you talked like you and made their national anthems “Finlandia” or “God Save the Queen.”

But…but…

Musclewhite won’t allow Thor Wintergreen to say a word.

It was then that we realized you were all we had, the way you had cultivated a theater to keep us from them, a theater with scene shifts and a changing cast of characters but always squeezing out the Bronx cheer from your bought-off claque. Then we found out what you were doing. But we didn’t let on, we decided that we would imitate you. America was our chance, a caste built upon money. We want to protect you though, you are our finest. Son, why do you make it hard for us?

Because this looting of the world’s art treasures can’t go on. That’s why. When I was in Egypt a guide told me that the Egyptians would never think of removing their dead like the foreign museums had. How would you like it if someone disturbed your dead, dug up their bones and put them on display, melted down the sacred jewelry of your ancestors as they did in Mexico, and destroyed your stone idols.

Now you listen to me, Musclewhite fires back. If it’s a bunch of precious stiffs you think you’re after, then my name is Joe E. Lewis. Look pal, it’s time we came clean with each other. Don’t you think I know why you’re in this? Don’t you think I used to listen to that fancy radio station you were on. The Franz Liszt Birthday Specials, the Tolstoy Marathons, you never did that for the nigger musicians or writers. No, they died in the East River while you talked about some great books and serious works of art, a code for White. Right? So come off of your high horse, buster, and stop this pretending…

Look, Thor answers, rising. They are my friends. I believe in their way and reject yours. I can’t sleep at night for the thoughts of your foul deeds. Feeding the Tasmanians to dogs, for food…

Nerts! So you’d just say why bother about a civilization which is in need of young men? So you’d just fink out upon our glorious Western civilization; you would say why bother putting it back in stock? It makes me so mad I want to cry. You, a young Prince of Our Ways, running with a band of…of…of Mu’tafikah. Them loafers, ne’er-do-wells, nihilists throwing pineapples at us. Look son. Don’t you think I want to see every man a king, a chicken in every pot, every child fed clothed and sheltered in America? Warren Harding himself presided at a celebration of their achievements the other day at the Lincoln Memorial. Son, we don’t mind digging in our pockets and pitching in for the underprivileged, the insulted and injured, but son, this Berbelang is different. This is a nigger gone berserk. A nigger the planters kept from other niggers so they wouldn’t catch what he had. The insolent freeman who will sit in the front of the bus and look about as if to say “Who don’t like it?” Berbelang was on the ship the Flying Dutchman, the slaver under the cruel master captain. He put something on the captain so his sailing around the world forever became legendary. Berbelang’s not 1 of these automatons marching well dressed in an anti-lynching parade; he is aware of his past and has demystified ours.

Son, this is a nigger closing in on our mysteries and soon he will be asking our civilization to “come quietly.” This man is talking about Judeo-Christian culture, Christianity, Atonism whatever you want to call it. The most noteworthy achievements of anybody anywhere in the…the…whole universe. A…haha…haha…hahahaha.

His head in his hands, Biff Musclewhite begins to sob quietly.

Stop it stop it, Thor says, pacing the room nervously.

I’ve seen them, son, in Africa, China, they’re not like us, son, the Herrenvolk. Europe. This place. They are lagging behind, son, and you know in your heart this is true. Son, these niggers writing. Profaning our sacred words. Taking them from us and beating them on the anvil of BoogieWoogie, putting their black hands on them so that they shine like burnished amulets. Taking our words, son, these filthy niggers and using them like they were their god-given pussy. Why…why 1 of them dared to interpret, critically mind you, the great Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick!!

Stop it! Thor sits down on the bench and begins to cry.

Musclewhite, seeing that he has made a dent, continues. That’s what it comes down to, son. They’re the 1s who must change, not us, they…they must adopt our ways, producing Elizabethan poets; they should have Stravinskys and Mozarts in the wings, they must become Civilized!!!!

Thor, crying, continues to sit at the table.

Musclewhite. Softly. Gently. Son come and untie me, son, and together my young valiant prince we will do battle with the dragons of Jes Grew, Helen and Mu’tafikah too. You know how she is: fickle, unreliable. You remember what Goethe said: Helen goes the way of Euphoria.

No, he said Euphorion.

Yes of course son, you know the bitch. My Great Book hasn’t arrived this month. The mails are slow.

Thor finishes untying Musclewhite. Musclewhite rises from the chair and begins to massage his wrists.

O.K. son, I’m going to call my bulls. We’ll wait here until he returns. When is he due?

Thor is crying at the bench where he has returned to sit. 8 o’clock…, he answers.

Musclewhite walks over to the bench and removes from his pocket a key chain. The charm on the key chain is Charlemagne. The Crowned Head of Charlemagne done in gold.

There, son. It will soon be over.

He gives the chain to Thor who begins kissing it and handling it as the devout do that Sufi invention, the rosary.

S.R.: THE WALLFLOWER ORDER INDUCES ITS RUNNING DOG MEDICAL SOCIETIES AND ITS JACKANAPE PUNK FREUDIANS TO ISSUE A REPORT WHICH “SCIENTIFICALLY” PROVES THAT JES GREW IS HARD ON THE APPENDIX… THE SHIMMY, THAT DESCENDANT OF THE NIGERIAN SHIKA DANCE, IS OUTLAWED…DOCTORS IN YAKIMA WASHINGTON ANNOUNCE THAT “THE SOURCE OF MAN’S WICKEDNESS IS A ‘TORRID ZONE’ IN THE BRAIN, AN INCH AND A HALF THICK FROM THE EARS UP.…” *

Jazz did a number of things to popular music as well as to metropolitan life. It sped up the tempo of things. Whether it was a cause, or the effect of a still more general cause, is here beside the point. Once the new musical spirit had come, it rapidly spread into daily — and nightly! — activities. It was not long before the old type of musical comedy began to appear outmoded. “Pep” was heard in the land. Once we had “ragged” words; now we “jazzed up” everything.

Isidore Witmark & Isaac Goldberg From Ragtime to Swingtime

* This Fabulous Century: 1920–1930, vol. 3-Time-Life Books.

SLIGHT-OF-BUILD, WIRY, SINEWY and melancholy, resembling the drawings of Charles Cullen, Nathan Brown walks down the steps of Salem African Methodist Episcopal where he comes to meditate about the Black Christ. Black-caped, he is impervious to the rain. The poet whose work commingles Death and Nature in haunting ways reaches the corner of the street. He sees upon a building’s wall a foreboding shadow closing in behind him. He turns to see a regally dressed, elderly gentleman wearing a black seal coat. He is carrying a cane and wearing a top hat.

I didn’t mean to startle you…I admire your collection of poetry Dark Crepuscule. It’s solidly in the Western tradition and convinces me that you are the foremost bard of your race. It’s about time they produced such a bard!

If you will excuse me, sir, I have another engagement, answers Brown, rather embarrassed, looking down at the pavement.