ENVY
What do you do, when you don't have a grass roots movement or a young charismatic leader and your persons of color have failed you?
`Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. `I don't see any wine,' she remarked.
`There isn't any,' said the March Hare.
`Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice angrily.
`It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited,' said the March Hare.
`I didn't know it was YOUR table,' said Alice; `it's laid for a great many more than three.'
`Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.
`You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with some severity; `it's very rude.'
The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he SAID was, `Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'
`Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. `I'm glad they've begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.
`Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said the March Hare.
`Exactly so,' said Alice.
`Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.
`I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know.'
`Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. `You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!'
`You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, `that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'
`You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, `that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'
`It IS the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn't much. (an excerpt)
Alice's Adventure in Wonderland. by Lewis Carroll. Chapter VII: A Mad Tea Party
4 comments:
A lovely parallel!
(You left me a question about the racial mountain. Recently, I stumbled on http://kinemapoetics.blogspot.com/2009/04/poets-repeat-themselves.html.
I was troubled by how race was being read as sexuality, as if they were interchangeable. In away, this is the negating of one discourse for another...without seeing what is being done.
Might interest you, don't know for sure).
Hope you are well,
Thanks.
Race being read as sexuality and race being read as gender has been quite common since the seventies. In the sixties any protest of injustice or inequality was seen as interchangeable with race. The Student as Nigger was a popular pamphlet then. The most recent has been the Gay reaction to the Proposition 8's passage in California, they seeing its passage as a betrayal by black people.
I think it is most disturbing when the arguments tread in moral hierarchy.
What a perfect metaphor!
Jody,
Thanks!
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