 |
| Me and Leonard Pitts, Jr. at a book signing. |
Lately I've been writing freelance stories for a publication in Newton, Kan. called Newton Now. It's an upstart paper that started two years ago as an alternative to the official city paper, the Newton Kansan -- a former employer of mine.
When I heard Pulitzer Prize winning Miami Herald columnist and author Leonard Pitts, Jr. was coming to the area, I excitedly volunteered to cover the event. The editor, Adam Strunk, wanted to be there, but had to cover a City Commission meeting. "Looks like you're gonna get your wish," he told me.
If you don't know of Pitts, you would do well to familiarize yourself with his writing. He's an African American writer who says things that need said about things like race, politics and culture.
I didn't get to see him when he came to Wichita a few months back, but I was not going to miss him in North Newton, a small town of around 1,700 people to the immediate north of Newton. Pitts was scheduled to speak at the town's Bethel College, and I would've attended his speech even if I wasn't covering it for the paper. His presentation was entitled "What Now? America in the Age of Trump."
Pitts called Trump and the toxic political climate he has stoked "a new and existential threat."
While not everyone who voted for Trump could be called a racist and misogynist, they (63 million Americans) supported somebody who was, he said.
He talked about the Republican politicians who referred to Pres. Obama as "boy," "uppity," "Chicago thug," referred to the Affordable Care Act as "reparations" for slavery, perpetuated the birther controversy and called his wife, Michelle, an "ape."
"Did this not represent a new low that we haven't seen in modern American history?" Pitts said. "You've heard the phrase 'barbarians at the gate.' Well the barbarians are through the gate, and they have their feet up on the couch."
Pitts' speech was peppered with such quips. He wasn't what I expected. Raised in Los Angeles, Pitts entered college at the University of Southern California at age 15 and graduated with a degree in English at 19. He has taught at schools like Hampton University, the University of Virginia Commonwealth and George Washington University. Hence, I thought his demeanor would be more scholarly, but Pitts was accessible and down to earth.
At the end of his speech, he took questions from the audience for 30 minutes. There was no way I was going to miss my chance to talk to the man.
I took to the microphone and mentioned how the man who introduced him, Mark McCormick, executive director of the Kansas African American Museum in Wichita -- had referred to James Baldwin -- the late writer who has had a resurgence lately through the documentary, I Am Not Your Negro.
"In his book, The Fire Next Time, Baldwin said if we don't have an honest, painful discussion about race, it's going to be a conflagration, Armageddon. But every time an issue about race is brought up, there are white people who cry about 'the race card' or they use Martin Luther King's quote about judging men 'not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character' to shut down any meaningful dialogue about race. How do we get past what seems like an impregnable mountain?"
Pitts talked about how Germany has confronted its Nazi past and South Africa's Truth Commission. If America doesn't get honest about race, he said, "there's gonna be someone standing up here 50 years from now" saying the same things he was about racism.
With all the Confederate memorials, it's like the South won the Civil War, Pitts said -- a subject James W. Loewen dedicated a whole chapter to in his book, Lies My Teacher Told Me. I've been a fan of Pitts' writing for over 20 years, but some things, probably as a white male, didn't come easy for me at first.
Pitts was talking about the racist legacy of Confederate statues back in the '90s, and he was taking on all the nonsense about a noble Southern heritage -- the Lost Cause mythology. He wrote in a column that these Confederate "heroes" might actually be called "traitors" and ended his piece, saying, "Hate is their heritage."
What? "Weren't these just people defending their homeland?" I thought. (I was more moderate than liberal then.) "Wasn't that extreme to say their heritage was steeped in hate?" No, I would say today. Racism was almost universal in America in the 19th century in the North and South. The entire Southern Confederate ideology was predicated on the disgusting premise that black people were inferior and slavery was a Christian God ordained arrangement.
Today, I see where Pitts is coming from. I get him.
Beyond his enlightened views, I'm influenced by Pitts by the fact that he's shown a certain prolific quality, branched out and evolved as a writer. McCormick said his favorite Pitts' book is the non-fiction Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood. I'm interested in how he became a novelist.
I bought his novel, Freeman, because I was interested in the historical research Pitts did about African Americans' lives in the early days after slavery was abolished. This was the book I would have Pitts autograph for me. Later, I want to read his novel, Grant Park, about white supremacists who kidnap a black columnist and plan to bomb Barack Obama's Presidential inauguration. I understand it's based on horrifyingly true events.While standing in line waiting for an autograph, I got into a conversation with a woman named Lori who had driven from Wichita to see Pitts. She took part in the Women's March in Topeka and regularly takes part in demonstrations.
When I got to the desk where Pitts was sitting, I opened the book for him to sign. "Would you like me to personalize it?," he asked. "Yeah, please personalize it," I said and gave him my name.
"I'm a writer too," I said. "I have a blog. A few years ago, I sent you a piece I wrote about Trayvon Martin. You didn't respond, but I know you get thousands of emails."
"I do."
He signed the book and told me, "Good luck with the writing."
Leonard J. Pitts, Jr. speaking at Bethel College.
