🧵: Outside of the few racist (and I use that word intentionally) emails/replies I got yesterday (it really amazes what people will admit), the ones that actually interested me were when people took issue with my reading JE in light of Baldwin and Berry.
As a historian, I find this thinking often in the classroom. “This is a history course,” says the student, “why am I reading fiction or philosophy or whatever.” I think people really believe history is simply about dates and such and not a full-orbed effort to analyze a subject.
Some of those replies also assumed Berry and Baldwin wouldn’t approve. Now, I can’t speak for Baldwin. I’ve only met him through his words. And I try to share his challenging and eloquent words with others every chance I get.
But I’ve spent a fair amount of time with the Berrys in and around their home. We maintain a regular correspondence. I’ve talked specifically and often with both of them about “history” and more than a few of my thoughts in that essay come from those explicit conversations.
So, the assumption WB wouldn’t approve of being in the conversation is wrong. He has been and so has Tanya, his wife. And, frankly, such an assumption also shows an ignorance of his work. He loves conversation and uses that image often.
In fact, I’m grateful for the “long conversation” I’ve begun with the Berrys and the ways they’ve individually and collectively complicated my own thinking about many things—including the discipline of history.
And that’s why I brought WB and Baldwin into the essay, which was about history NOT about reading JE (which historians have little problem doing, though I won’t attempt to speak for theologians or others).
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
