Both Sorj Chalandon, in his novel “Enfant de salaud”, and Régis Jauffret in “Papa” try to grasp the enigmatic personality of their father. Sorj Chalandon’s father is said to have been a Resistance fighter and a traitor at the same time, while Régis Jauffret’s father is said to have been filmed coming out of a Gestapo interrogation session, terror on his face. Where does the truth lie? Who are these fathers really?
In a previous text, I presented the book “Enfant de salaud”. Now it’s the turn of the novel “Papa” by Régis Jauffret.
As one might expect with Régis Jauffret, the writing style differs radically. The author is the winner of the Goncourt short story prize (2018) for his novel “Microfictions 2018”. His sense of synthesis, black humour and even cynicism makes this return to the father’s past a literary as well as historical adventure. The reader quickly understands that the author takes pleasure in presenting his discoveries. He even adds a bit of fiction when necessary.
True to my habit when it comes to Régis Jauffret, I will present his book through selected quotes. Indeed, the interest of the book lies as much in the content as in the way Régis expresses himself to enlighten his subject. Here are a few quotes (translated as best as possible) that may help to grasp the tone of the book:
“I took communion.
Someone pointed out to me on the way out that I wasn’t a believer.
– That’s right, a wafer or chips.
I smiled, but after this blasphemy I was not very happy. When you have been educated religiously, you always keep the terror of God in the back of your mind”.
“He had just had a stroke which, far from handicapping him, seemed to have cheered him up”.
“She told me that the moisture had blown away the veneer [of the coffin]. All that was left was a box of blackened boards. I wasn’t in a good enough mood to call the funeral home lady to invoke the eternal guarantee that such metaphysical products undoubtedly enjoy”.
“One of those happy memories that make you feel good that you never went to a gun shop to buy something to shoot yourself in the head”.
“Alfred was instructed to clench his teeth during coitus without sighing, while she remained as stoic as when the dentist teased one of her molars with the tip of his drill without anesthesia”.
“Through the vast copper bell of a gramophone perched on a pedestal whose statue had been stolen, Édith Piaf shouted ‘J’ai dansé avec l’amour’ (I danced with love) while the cries of the martyrs rose from the basement”.
“Writing about oneself is a form of incontinence”.
“We are condescending to deaf people without status or talent, but we prefer to deal with them sparingly. When you haven’t seen them soon enough to have hidden behind a construction machine or a bulky man, you greet them from afar as you walk away”.
“If I had not seen these images, you would have remained in the sewers of my memory”.
“If I last as long as Madeleine, I will be a centenarian who will unexpectedly ruminate on his father in his dried-up brain like a currant while an orderly built like a colossus swings my emaciated body in the air to change my diaper”.
“Pitiful descendant of protozoa that have become multicellular beings with brains, humanity has no reason to show off”.
“It is heroic in times of war to assume the role of the executioner, even if it means being wrong sometimes, because in extreme situations doubt never benefits the accused”.
“He talked from morning to night. Anyone he met on the street was showered with language like a careless person on a pier on a stormy day by a surge of water. In his office, everyone was soaked. So much so that people ran away from him, but he always managed to find someone who was kind enough to let himself be flooded”.
“I never heard him talk about his day either. The weather had been fine, it had snowed, it had rained, a chamois had crossed the trail in a tail, a man hit by a storm had burst into flames, a lady had fallen into a crevasse while singing a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach”.
“During this time, Jean-Jacques and Honoré undertook the sisters red as blue meat to find themselves in the presence of two boys whose pants in the fashion of the time moulded the genital apparatus of which they dreaded in advance the sting”.
“Enfant de salaud” means “Bastard’s child” in English. Author Sorj Chalandon is a journalist and worked for decades for the French newspapers Liberation and Canard Enchaîné. During his career, he received numerous awards: Albert-Londres (1988), Médicis (2006), Grand Prix de l’Académie française (2011), Goncourt des lycéens (2013) and most recentlyGoncourt 2021 des lecteurs de 20 Minutes.
“Enfant de salaud” is the true story of the author who tries to shed light on his father’s extremely nebulous past during World War II, in the German-occupied France.
Having had access to official archives, he gradually discovers that his father went through the war by enlisting in five armies, which he all deserted. He served the enemy in every way, but always made sure that the few things he was doing for Francewere listed somewhere in case of an investigation after the war.
The head of the Sûreté nationale de Lille who questioned the father after the war said of him: “This individual is a liar endowed with an astonishing imagination. He must be considered very dangerous and treated as such.”
Between the reflections and the discoveries of the son on the past and the psychology of the father, the reader participates in parallel to the trial of Klaus Barbie , psychopath and great war criminal, who died in prison in France in 1991. Passages of the book are blood curdling, although we know what to expect when it comes to Nazis, SS and members of the Gestapo.
When the survivor Isaac Lathermann takes the stand during the Barbie trial, he announces: “[in the concentration camps], at breast height, there was no more bark on the trees, everything had been eaten. No more grass either. Eaten too.” (p. 238)
The reader discovers the resistantLise Lesèvre who, even tortured by Klaus Barbie for days, doesn’t give up a single name: a phenomenal example of courage and patriotism.
“Enfant de salaud” is the author’s decades-long inner journey. The fact that he relates a real-life story further reinforces the intensity of the narrative.
Non fiction comic book “Mégantic – Un train dans la nuit”.
We have all heard of the tragedyexperienced by the inhabitants of Lac-Mégantic in 2013, when a driverless oil train from the CP railway companypulling hundreds of cars of explosive petroleum derails in the middle of the night, explodes and kills 47 inhabitants of the city.
The comic book (or graphic novelaccording to some) “Mégantic – Un train dans la nuit” adds to the information that we already knew about this tragedy. It also exposes several key pieces of information overlooked by the media.
Author Anne-Marie Saint-Cerny worked for years on the file and, in order to convey the content and the emotions in images, enlisted the help of Christian Quesnel. The result is extremely interesting. The formula works: the drawings are very precise, the layout leaves room for the reader to reflect on the events, the colours are appropriate.
In the train explosion in Lac-Mégantic, there are multiple factors to consider, among others:
1) Executives of the CP company making catastrophic choices.
2) As always, a desire to meet the demands of shareholders. There is a reduction in staff and the company self-assesses when it comes to safety.
3) One driver only is allowed for a train carrying hundreds of tanks of explosives.
4) Politicians agree to the new cuts proposed by the company.
5) There is some magical thinking involved: if something goes wrong with the driver, the train stops on its own thanks to a mechanism which, however, is always likely to fail eventually.
6) Dated rails.
7) The transport of dangerous goods is granted to the MMA, a company with a dubious reputation .
8) The DOT-111 tanks are too fragile for hazardous materials and targeted in more than 25 surveys.
9) There is an agreement to tamper with the oil bill of lading. Instead of indicating the code PG1 (the most dangerous, the most explosive) as it should be, it is instead PG111 (not dangerous) that is written.
10) The lead locomotive is terribly worn.
11) The driver reports a problem with his old locomotive. He is ordered to continue on his way.
12) In Lac-Mégantic, the train is heating up. The driver is ordered to apply the brakes and let the engine run. The driver is then allowed to leave the premises and go to bed. This is one of the repercussions of allowing a single driver on a train.
13) During the night, a fire starts on the lead locomotive, the one that had problems. The firefighters shut down the engine. “By turning off the engine, the air pressure in the air brakes is released. Eventually, the train will start to move on its own and descend the slope towards Lac-Mégantic.”
With just one driver gone to sleep somewhere, there are now 5,000,000 litres of explosivesstarting to move on the rails and no one will stop them.
“Firefighters believe they are fighting low flammable oil. They are unaware that the CP and World Fuel have falsified the papers, camouflaging their oil classified as the most explosive and dangerous.” There are 47 dead, including several suicides.
Now that there has been a disaster, those involved directly or indirectly are passing the buck, as is the custom in tragedies. The graphic novel mentions, at the political level, the names of Denis Lebel, Lisa Raitt, John Baird and later Marc Garneau. At CP, the author mentions Hunter Harrison. The MMA’s CEO Edward Burkhardt is also mentioned.
Changes happen, but not the ones you would think…
Naomi Klein analyzes the “shock strategy” devised by Milton Friedman. In step 1, “we take advantage of what the population while it is still dazed: they will not be able to oppose what we want to impose on them.” The zoning is being quickly changed to include the expropriation of houses that are totally outside the disaster-affected area. There are some people who are interested in these properties…
In step 2 of the “shock strategy”, we “use the excuse of mandatory decontamination to wipe out the Old World. Excluding the population from the scene of the tragedy, so that they cannot cling to it, so that there is no going back. “
Finally, step 3: “Faced with a population whose shock has been exacerbated by the destruction of its landmarks and habits, we can launch a reconstruction or reinvention which will be received with resigned acceptance“. We have the case of people living in Fatima, a remote area spared by the disaster: owners must quickly sign their expropriation or they shall lose everything. When the former owners are finally gone, a Jean Coutu pharmacy comes to settle on the vacated land.
On the legal side, the small players are targeted and the investigation is limited as much as possible. Takeovers are carried out and returns to shareholders multiplied.
The book flaunts some of the political and entrepreneurial maneuvers aimed at protecting the railway companies. Even at the dawn of 2022, eight years later, the rails still pass through downtown Lac-Mégantic.
“MMA-Canada, essentially bankrupt, has paid nothing and has not been sued.“
“Nothing has changed in rail laws in Canada since the tragedy: companies self-regulate, self-monitor and, in the event of an accident, self-investigate. Thus, it was the CP itself that investigated the deaths of three of its employees in an accident in February 2019 in British Columbia. The CP investigator, prevented from investigating, denounced his employer and called for an independent investigation by theRoyal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Transport Safety Board (TSB), an investigation immediately accepted by the chief investigator responsible for the case at the TSB. That same day, this TSB investigator was dismissed from his post. The CP investigator concluded on a CP no-fault.”
In the foreground, two women are discussing and a man is paying full attention to his cell phone while, behind, the preacher and his devotees do what they can, through a religious discourse, to bring the citizens back in the right path: two worlds exist in parallel in this Boston park. If “the message is the medium”, as Marshall Mc Luhan once said, the communication method should possibly be reviewed, as the medium does not seem to work very well!
While searching high and low in various bookstores in Quebec, I often make very interesting discoveries. I recently found a book by Robert Seethaler, originally published in German under the title of ,, Ein ganzes Leben ” and which in English is translated by “A whole life“.
It is a small book of only 145 pages, but the concise writing has the power to immediately propel the reader into the early 1900s, in the middle of the Austrian mountains. It was the period when the construction of the first cable cars began, a period that would change the whole dynamic of the society by gradually allowing more and more tourists to occupy a territory that was once sparsely inhabited.
The author tells the story of Andreas Egger, a simple and endearing man whose strength of character allows him to stand up to any ordeal. He is not distinguished by his intelligence, which is quite ordinary, but rather by his ability to survive and his desire to always move forward. He is a human being that we love and wish only good for.
Here is what the publisher said about Robert Seethaler: “A whole life, elected book of the year (2014) by bookstores across the Rhine, thus confirms the depth of his talent as a writer, capable of leading with great simplicity his reader as close as possible to his emotions”.
Even though World War II is over and the armistice was signed in 1945, four Japanese soldiers continue to hide on Lubang Island in the Philippines, awaiting official orders from their superior to surrender. They have been forgotten there in the jungle and continue to survive as best they can, dodging the patrols that have gone looking for them to tell them the war is over. They continue to accumulate information on the island for the intelligence services, hoping to be useful when a possible Japanese landing takes place that will drive the Americans out of the island. Years pass and there will be only one Japanese soldier left, Hiro Onada, who will finally surrender in 1974, thirty years later!
The bookis a lesson in survival in a hostile environment. The discipline and resourcefulness that are required to survive and ensure their safety is extremely impressive. Onada, even as he gradually sank into an alternate reality, shows a remarkable tenacity.
Here is a passage that shows the reality of the jungle. I translated it as best as I could: “[…] There are also a lot of bees on the island. Huge swarms fly in the bushy areas at the foot of the mountains. I saw some that were thirty meters wide and a hundred long, flying here and there with unpredictable changes of direction. If we encountered one of these swarms, the only thing to do was to go back to the woods or, if we did not have time, to cover our heads with the canvas of our tent or our clothes and lie down on the ground. If we made the slightest move, they would attack. We had to breathe as gently as possible, until the swarm had passed. “(P.216)
In 1957, bombardments in the neighborhood reassured them that the war continued. But these were military exercises by the Philippine Air Force, not an American attack.
Onada et Qanon
As the years pass, there will be countless opportunities for those soldiers to realize that the war is over. They even had access, for a while, to a radio. It did not matter: whatever was read, heard or discovered by chance was, according to them, only the fruit of disinformation from the enemy.
On reading this real life story, it is possible to make a connection between Onada’s testimony and a follower of Qanon: both cannot accept defeat and believe in an almost divine mission. As Onada himself put it so well: “At that time, Kozuka and I had developed so many fixed ideas that we were unable to understand everything that differed from them. If something did not fit our vision, we interpreted it to give it the meaning we wanted “(p.192).
When a person is gradually made to believe in an alternate reality and decides to cling to it for their mental or physical health, or both, the same conclusion remains: regardless of the evidence, the rhetoric or the new realities that will be presented, that person will continue to persist with his line of thinking. It will take some dramatic event in his life for him to decide to change course and come back to a more objective reality.
Have a good read!
Click on the link for more books on war in my blog.
During the turbulent times that United States is going through, it is appropriate to remember the Third Basic Law of human stupidityas defined by Carlo M. Cipolla : « Is stupida person who causes a loss to another person or a group of other persons while not deriving any benefit for himself and possibly even inflicting losses on himself ». Losses can be of all kinds, such as a rapid decrease in the support network, a greater difficulty in accessing financial resources, loss of credibility or even possible civil lawsuits for inappropriate acts.
According to Mr Cipolla, « the destructive potential of stupid people depends on two main factors. First, the genetic factor […] and second, the position of power and eminence in society ». « Essentially, stupid people are dangerous because people have difficulty imagining and understanding unreasonable behaviour ».
Guy Delisle took fifteen years to write this graphic novel. He tells the story of the kidnapping for ransom (K&R) in 1997 of a French citizen, Christophe André, while he was working for a medical NGO in the Caucasus region.
Faithful to his habits, this author born in Quebec City offers us a fascinating and humane narrative. A work that looks at a real life story often adds tension, when properly put together. This is what happens with the work of Guy Delisle. Hostage is a 428-page graphic novel that can be read in one sitting. As it often happens in dramatic events, humans discover an unsuspected character and strengths that enable them to cope with abuse, loneliness and stress.
Hostage by Guy Delisle interior page
The pace and the quality of the drawings and the script make it easy for the reader to dive into the story and imagine themselves in the place of the captive. Would the decisions made by the hostage also have been made by the reader? Would he have used other means to deal with his captivity?
I discourage the reader from trying to discover the conclusion of this story before starting to read the book. Resist this temptation, the read is worth the effort!
Our transatlantic flight, by Sir John Alcock and Sir Arthur Whitten Brown
Newfoundland
Before 1949, Newfoundland was called Dominion of Newfoundland and was part of the British Commonwealth . In 1949, it became a Canadian province.
The first non-stop flight eastward across the Atlantic.
The book « Our transatlantic flight » tells the story of the historic flight that was made in 1919, just after the First World War, from Newfoundland to Ireland. There was a 10,000 £ prize offered by Lord Northcliffe from Great Britain for whoever would succeed on the first non-stop flight eastward across the Atlantic.
A triumph for British aviation
Sir John Alcock and Sir Arthur Whitten Brown , respectively pilot and navigator, wrote the story of their successful flight in this book which was published in 1969. The followings are pilot quotes from the book : « For the first time in the history of aviation the Atlantic had been crossed in direct, non-stop flight in the record time of 15 hours, 57 minutes. » (p.13) « The flight was a triumph for British aviation; the pilot and navigator were both British, the aircraft was a Vickers-Vimy and the twin engines were made by Rolls-Royce. » (p.13)
Sir John Alcock and Sir Arthur Whitten Brown
As with all great human achievements, a very good flight planning and some luck was needed to make this flight a success. If there was an engine failure during the flight, even if the planning was excellent, there was only one outcome : downward.
In order to make the flight, Alcock and Brown boarded a ship from England bound to Halifax. They then headed to Port aux Basques and finally arrived in St.John’s. There, they joined a small group of British aviators who had arrived a few days before and who were also preparing for the competition. « The evenings were mostly spent in playing cards with the other competitors at the Cochrane Hotel, or in visits to the neighbouring film theatres. St.John’s itself showed us every kindness. » (p.60)
Maritime transport was used to carry the Vickers-Vimy biplane to Newfoundland on May 4th. It was assembled in Newfoundland. « The reporters representing the Daily Mail, the New York Times, and the New York World were often of assistance when extra manpower was required. » (p.61).
While the aircraft was being built, there were more and more visiters coming to the site. Brown says : « Although we remained unworried so long as the crowd contented itself with just watching, we had to guard against petty damage. The testing of the fabric’s firmness with the point of an umbrella was a favourite pastime of the spectators […]. » (p.61)
The Vickers-Vimy is being reassembled at Quidi Vidi in Newfoundland.
It was difficult to find a field that could be improvised into an aerodrome : « Newfoundland is a hospitable place, but its best friends cannot claim that it is ideal for aviation. The whole of the island has no ground that might be made into a first-class aerodrome. The district around St.John’s is especially difficult. Some of the country is wooded, but for the most part it shows a rolling, switchback surface, across which aeroplanes cannot taxi with any degree of smoothness. The soil is soft and dotted with boulders, as only a light layer covers the rock stratum. Another handicap is the prevalence of thick fogs, which roll westward from the sea. » (p.59)
They flight tested the airplane on June 9th at Quidi Vidi. During the short flight, the crew could see icebergs near the coast. They did a second trial on June 12th and found that the transmitter constantly caused problems. But, at least, the engines seemed to be reliable…
The departure
The two men left Newfoundland on June 14th 1919. In order to fight the cold air in flight, they wore electrically heated clothing. A battery located between two seats provided for the necessary energy.
The Vickers-Vimy departs from Newfoundland in 1919
The short take-off was very difficult due to the wind and the rough surface of the aerodrome. Brown writes : « Several times I held my breath, from fear that our under-carriage would hit a roof or a tree-top. I am convinced that only Alcock’s clever piloting saved us from such an early disaster. » (p.73)
It took them 8 minutes to reach 1000 ft. Barely one hour after departure and once over the ocean, the generator broke and the flight crew was cut off from all means of communication.
As the airplane consumed petrol, the centre of gravity changed and since there was no trim on the machine, the pilot had to exert a permanent backward pressure on the joystick.
Flying in clouds, fog and turbulence.
During the flight with much clouds and fog, Brown, having almost no navigation aid, had real problems to estimate the aircraft’s position and limit the flying errors. He had to wait for a higher altitude and for the night to come to improve his calculations : « I waited impatiently for the first sight of the moon, the Pole Star and other old friends of every navigator. » (p.84). The fog and clouds were so thick that at times they « cut off from view parts of the Vickers-Vimy. » (p.95)
Without proper instruments to fly in clouds, they were relying on a « revolution-counter » to establish the climbing or the falling rate. That is pretty scary. « A sudden increase in revolutions would indicate that the plane was diving; a sudden loss of revs would show that she was climbing dangerously steeply. » (p.176)
But that was not enough. They also had to deal with turbulence that rocked the plane while they could not see anything outside. They became desoriented : « The airspeed indicator failed to register, and bad bumps prevented me from holding to our course. From side to side rocked the machine, and it was hard to know in what position we really were. A spin was the inevitable result. From an altitude of 4,000 feet we twirled rapidly downward.[…]. « Apart from the changing levels marked by aneroid, only the fact that our bodies were pressed tightly against the seats indicated that we were falling. How and at what angle we were falling, we knew not. Alcock tried to centralise the controls, but failed because we had lost all sense of what was central. I searched in every direction for an external sign, and saw nothing but opaque nebulousness. » (p.88)
« It was a tense moment for us, and when at last we emerged from the fog we were close down over the water at an extremely dangerous angle. The white-capped waves were rolling along too close to be comfortable, but a quick glimpse of the horizon enabled me to regain control of the machine. » (p.40).
De-icing a gauge installed outside of the cockpit.
Snow and sleetwere falling. They didn’t realize how lucky they were to continue flying in such a weather. Nowadays, there are many ways to dislodge ice from a wing while the aircraft is in flight. Here is what Brown says about their situation : « […] The top sides of the plane were covered completely by a crusting of frozen sleet. The sleet imbedded itself in the hinges of the ailerons and jammed them, so that for about an hour the machine had scarcely any lateral control. Fortunately, the Vickers-Vimy possesses plenty of inherent lateral stability; and, as the rudder controls were never clogged by sleet, we were able to hold to the right direction. » (p.95)
After twelve hours of flying, the glass of a gauge outside the cockpit became obscured by clotted snow. Brown had to deal with it, while Alcock was flying. « The only way to reach it was by climbing out of the cockpit and kneeling on top of the fuselage, while holding a strut for the maintenance of balance. […] The violent rush of air, which tended to push me backward, was another discomfort. […] Until the storm ended, a repetition of this performance, at fairly frequent intervals, continued to be necessary. » (p.94)
In order to save themselves, they executed a descent from 11,000 to 1000 feet and in the warmer air the ailerons started to operate again. As they continued their descent below 1000 feet over the ocean, they were still surrounded by fog. They had to do some serious low altitude flying : « Alcock was feeling his way downward gently and alertly, not knowing whether the cloud extended to the ocean, nor at what moment the machine’s undercarriage might touch the waves. He had loosened his safety belt, and was ready to abandon ship if we hit the water […]. » (p.96)
The arrival.
They saw Ireland at 8.15 am on June 15th and crossed the coast ten minutes later. They did not expect a very challenging landing as the field looked solid enough to support an aircraft. They landed at 8 :40 am at Clifden on top of what happened to be a bog; the aircraft rolled on its nose and suffered serious material damages. The first non-stop transatlantic flight ended in a crash. Both both crewmen were alive and well, although they were dealing with fatigue…
The transatlantic flight ends up in Ireland in a soft field
Initially, nobody in Ireland believed that the plane arrived from North America. But when they saw mail-bags from Newfoundland, there were « cheers and painful hand-shakes » (p.102).
First page of the Sunday Evening Telegraph in 1919.
They were cheered by the crowds in Ireland and England and received their prize from Winston Churchill.
John Alcock chaired by the crowd
Winston Churchill is presenting the Daily Mail Check to the two pilots.
Their record stood unchallenged for eight years until Lindbergh’s flight in 1927.
The future of transatlantic flight.
Towards the end of the book, the authors risk a prediction on the future of transatlantic flight. But aviation made such a progress in a very short time that, inevitably, their thoughts on the subject was obsolete in a matter of a few years. Here are some examples :
« Nothwithstanding that the first two flights across the Atlantic were made respectively by a flying boat and an aeroplane, it is evident that the future of transatlantic flight belongs to the airship. » (p.121)
« […] The heavy type of aeroplane necessary to carry an economical load for long distanceswould not be capable of much more than 85 to 90 miles an hour. The difference between this and the present airship speed of 60 miles an hour would be reduced by the fact that an aeroplane must land at intermediate stations for fuel replenishment. » (p.123)
« It is undesirable to fly at great heights owing to the low temperature; but with suitable provision for heating there is no reason why flying at 10,000 feet should not be common. » (p.136)
The Air Age.
There is a short section in the book on the « Air Age ». I chose two small excerpts on Germany and Canada :
On Germany’s excellent Zeppelins : « The new type of Zeppelin – the Bodensee – is so efficient that no weather conditions, except a strong cross-hangar wind, prevents it from making its daily flight of 390 miles between Friedrichshafen and Staalsen, thirteen miles from Berlin. » (p.140)
On Canada’s use of aeroplanes : « Canada has found a highly successful use for aeroplanes in prospecting the Labrador timber country. A group of machines returned from an exploration with valuable photographs and maps of hundreds of thousands of pound’s worth of forest land. Aerial fire patrols, also, are sent out over forests.» (p.142) and « Already, the Canadian Northwest Mounted Police [today the RCMP] have captured criminals by means of aeroplane patrols. » (p.146)
Conclusion
The Manchester Guardian stated, on June 16th 1919 : « […] As far as can be foreseen, the future of air transport over the Atlantic is not for the aeroplane. It may be used many times for personal feats of daring. But to make the aeroplane safe enough for business use on such sea routes we should have to have all the cyclones of the Atlantic marked on the chart, and their progress marked in from hour to hour. »(p.169)
Title : Our Transatlantic Flight
Authors : Sir John Alcock and Sir Arthur Whitten Brown
Cover page of the book Black Detroit by Herb Boyd.
As the author Herb Boyd writes, « this is the first book to consider black Detroit from a long view, in a full historical tableau. » (p.14). If you are looking for a significant black person that influenced Detroit’s history, he or she is in the book.
The author covers the arrival of Blacks in Detroit through the Underground Railroadthe type of work they could find, the music they created, their need to have their own church to avoid racism, the work at Ford, the influence of trade unions, the poor housing conditions, etc.
Of course, there are several paragraphs on racism, police repression and useless violence, the problems caused by the KKK and how a few individuals dealt with it, the Smith Act, the American Civil War and the desire the end slavery, the presence of Rosa Parks in the city and Nelson Mandela’s visit in Detroit in 1990.
There is not only something on the past history and development of Detroit but also thoughts on the future of the city and how it will have to deal with the fact that there are so many people choosing to live in the suburbs instead of in Detroit itself.
Since the fight for equal rights, racism, police repression and the useless deaths of so many black individuals have continued to be an important problem in United States, I have chosen a few quotes from the book on those subjects.
I also chose a paragraph on Nelson Mandela’s visit in Detroit. When Nelson Mandela left United States to fly back to South Africa, his plane had to do a stopover in Iqaluit, in Canada’s Arctic. I was working as a flight service specialist (FSS) at Iqaluit in 1990, so I could see him and Winnie attending an official ceremony in the middle of the night at the airport’s terminal. You can read the real life stories in Iqaluit on my website.
Detroit and Canada.
« In 1795, Detroit was still under British jurisdiction, and the city was a de facto part of Upper Canada. » (p.22)
« Judge Woodward stipulated in a later ruling that if black Americans were to acquire freedom in Canada, they could not be returned to slavery in the United States. “Two of Denison’s children […] took advantage of this ruling by escaping to Canada for a few years and then returning to Detroit as free citizens”. Theirs was a landmark case and would be cited as a precedent in a number of appeals for emancipation by enslaved African Americans. (p.25)
The Smith Act
“The Smith Act, was written so that labor organization and agitation for equal rights could be construed as sedition and treason, the same as actually fighting to overthrow the government by force” (p.162)
Police repression and brutality
“[…] Twenty-five blacks had been killed in Detroit while in police custody in 1925, eight times the number killed under police supervision that year in New York City, whose black population was at least twice as large” (p.112)
“During STRESS’s (Stop the Robberies and Enjoy Safe Streets) first year as a death squad – cum – SWAT team [near 1970], the city’s police force had the highest number of civilian killings per capita of any American police department. During its three and a half years of existence, STRESS officers shot and killed 24 men, 22 of them African American.[…] Among the STRESS officers, none was as seemingly problematic as crew chief Raymond Peterson. Before he was assigned to STRESS, he had amassed a record number of complaints. During his first two years on the squad, he took part in nine killings and three nonfatal shootings. Bullets from Peterson’s gun killed five of the victims. No charges were brought in any of these cases.” (p.226-227)
The policeman Raymond Peterson and a murder charge in Detroit in the seventies.
“[Around 1999] gentrification was one thing to worry about, but police brutality was a far more menacing immediacy for young black Detroiters. They were keenly aware there was little mercy awaiting them from the police, nor from school conselors or employment agencies, and certainly not from the drug dealers” (p.292)
“[Around 2001] Detroit, according to reports from several local papers, had the highest number of fatal shootings among the nation’s largest cities” (p.300)
“Throughout the nation over the previous decade, from 1999 to 2009, gun violence had taken the lives of thousands of young black men and women, and hundreds of them were unarmed victims of unwarranted police violence. Few of these terrible tragedies were as heart-wrenching as the killing of seven-year-old Aiyana Jones by a police officer in May 2010. It was around midnight and Aiyana was asleep on the couch with her grandmother nearby watching television. Neither of them had time to react to the thud at the door nor the flash-bang grenade tossed into the living room by the police at the start of the raid.
Officer Joseph Weekley immediately began firing his MP5 submachine gun blindly through the window into the smoke and chaos. One of the bullets entered Aiyana’s head and exited through her neck. She was killed instantly. The SWAT team had come looking for a murder suspect who lived upstairs but left with only a dead child. […]. » (p.327-328).
Education
“Ethelene Crockett, having raised three children, earned a medical degree from Howard University in 1942. She completed her internship at Detroit Receiving Hospital, and because no Detroit hospital would accept an African American woman physician, she did her residency in New York City. Finally in 1952, she was accepted at a hospital in Detroit, becoming the first black woman in her field of obstetrics and gynecology to practice in the state.” (p.163)
No middle-class for young blacks.
“With the traditional routes to middle-class success closed, young black Detroiters sought other means of survival, mainly via the underground economy.” (p.254)
Nelson Mandela in Detroit
“In the summer of 1990, Nelson Mandela toured the United States after spending twenty-seven years in prison. […] When Mandela and his wife, Winnie, emerged from the plane [in Detroit], one of the first people they recognized was Rosa Parks. Nelson Mandela stated that Parks had been his inspiration during the long years he was jailed on Robben Island and that her story had inspired South African freedom fighters’” (p.268).
Detroit’s future
“Most Detroiters live in neighborhoods, and in these areas, development is uneven. There are some flashes of improvement, but by and large, communities are still struggling with unemployment, crime, and low-achieving schools. Detroit is a city with large expanses of uninhabited land and is sprinkled with thirty-one thousand vacant and dilapidated houses. In various pockets throughout town, community-based organizations have worked tirelessly to maintain their respective areas against a tide of neglect and disinvestment. The current mayoral administration has tried to use an assortment of methods to arrest the decline of the neighborhoods, with moderate success. This gargantuan task has been assisted with massive aid from the Obama administration, but the city still has major hurdles ahead with a large poor, unskilled, and semiliterate population.” (p.342).
