|
The Healing Power of Words
By
Raymond Brookter
In the course
of a day at the library, it can be difficult to focus
upon one task with such a myriad of elements awaiting
one behind each shelf. An active library yields
treasures that recall memories of one’s youth, or
resonates themes that one has discovered crossing the
footpaths of others in search of self. The information
available in a library challenges limitations of one’s
knowledge, which in place is the prime cause for one to
prejudge and to remain hostile against the unknown.
Efforts by
our esteemed politicians and many human rights
organizations to control information access,
communication, and thought places the nation at a lofty
precipice as to what words and books represent dangerous
speech. From local governance putting titles and genres
“on trial” to local school boards and councils to the
voluminous Patriot Act, which affirmed that searching
for information could pattern behaviors detrimental to
national security, the right to be informed has never
taken greater precedence as it has in the 21st century.
I am
currently reworking the Vertical Files section of the
reference area. In these often-yellowed sheets and
tattered pamphlets, I am discovering over seventy years
of history and culture of a city, state, and region that
sought to identify itself within social aspirations and
secular assumptions. Although some of the images,
captions, and phrases may seem intolerant and offensive
to many of today’s readers, the totality of the
documents, and the inclusion of scholars, leaders, and
citizens to the debate of “whose Mississippi” would
thrive after civil insurrection and economic strife
provide an opportunity to bring truth to the slogan
promoted over thirty years ago that “Mississippi . . .
it’s like coming home.”
An informed
public represents the highest duty to citizenship.
Whether it is reading the Bill of Rights, leafing
through the local newspapers, tracing one’s family line
through the United States, or writing a local leader to
request specifics about an ordinance that posted for
review in the library, it is the job of the people to
affect change. Like those individuals who fought and
died over the past one hundred years to embody what it
is to be an American, so it also represents one’s
heritage and way of life to be informed and not to
blindly follow those leaders not in touch with your
community’s health.
This is a
challenging time in our nation to define as a people
what we are. Reductive labels serve to keep us on the
defensive but we have come through trials as this before
to bring forth unity from separation. We must through
education and acceptance, which unlike tolerance
initiates an invitation and not a designation, tell our
communities that we are a people not destined to slip
passively into irrelevance while rulers bar the gates.
We must, in every effort, discover and teach to future
generations the lessons of the past with the zeal of
knowing that an honest assessment provides an
opportunity to change and preserve what is right about
our country.
Raymond Brookter,
a
Slidell Katrina refugee, lost his "childhood
home" . . . house and cars . . . books. clothes,
and music went under the sludge."
He is presently a doctoral student and librarian in
Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
posted 20 August 2007* * *
* *
Audio:
My Story, My Song (Featuring blues guitarist Walter Wolfman Washington)
* * *
* *
*
* * * *
The Katrina Papers is not your
average memoir. It is a fusion of many kinds of
writing, including intellectual autobiography,
personal narrative, political/cultural analysis,
spiritual journal, literary history, and poetry.
Though it is the record of one man's experience of
Hurricane Katrina, it is a record that is fully a
part of his life and work as a scholar, political
activist, and professor.
The Katrina Papers provides space not only for the traumatic events but
also for ruminations on authors such as Richard
Wright and theorists like Deleuze and Guattarri. The
result is a complex though thoroughly accessible
book. The struggle with form—the search for a
medium proper to the complex social, personal, and
political ramifications of an event unprecedented in
this scholar's life and in American social history—lies at the very heart of
The Katrina Papers . It
depicts an enigmatic and multi-stranded world view
which takes the local as its nexus for understanding
the global. It resists the temptation to simplify
or clarify when simplification and clarification are
not possible. Ward's narrative is, at times, very
direct, but he always refuses to simplify the
complex emotional and spiritual volatility of the
process and the historical moment that he is
witnessing. The end result is an honesty that is
both pedagogical and inspiring.—Hank Lazer
The Richard Wright Encyclopedia (2008)
is a marvelous resource! It's not like any
encyclopedia I've seen before. Already, I have spent hours reading
through the various entries. So much is there: people, themes,
issues, events, bibliographies, etc., related to Wright. Yours is a
monumental contribution! The more I read Wright (and about him), the
more I am amazed at the depth and breadth of his work and its impact
on the worlds of literature, philosophy, politics, sociology,
history, psychology, etc. He was formidable!
Floyd W. Hayes
updated 24 December 2008 |
