The Ethiopian Prophecy in Black American Letters

Conclusion. Reading and Refiguring the Figures of Ethiopia

Conclusion Reading and Refiguring the Figures of Ethiopia A given of modernity is that subjects of knowledge precede objects of knowledge, that subjectivity is prior to reading. This not only puts the proverbial “cart before the horse,” but more importantly, it erases the eventfulness of reading and makes the subject an ahistorical or transcendental abstraction. The positing of an always already subject effaces the asymmetry of the subjectless, non-situated reader and the historical subject that emerges from the eventfulness of reading. This book argues that subjects are historical and that identities are figures of reading that have been transformed into narratives, but they are not ahistorical substances. The figures of Ethiopia in this study are figures of reading, images of thought that emerge with the engagement between readers and a single biblical verse: “Princes shall come out of Egypt; / Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.” The effects of reading are the following : Readers are deictically situated as historical subjects. They become, if only for a moment, tangible presences. As historical subjects, anchored readersactintheworldandinteractwithotherhumanandinhumanintelligences , such as writing, by counterphrasing or riposting a phrase to the one they have given voice to as readers. In addition, the agency of time contained within the figure provides readers with the possibilities to not only experience the intensities of life, but to invent counternarratives and new stories to live. For example, Wheatley’s historical subjectivity and its engagement in “the world” are spiritual rather than physical in nature. SheisconcernedwiththeunconvertedandunsavedAfricansoul.According to Wheatley’s view of the world, the Negro in the New World and England has access to the Gospel and the possibility of conversion and 216 / The Ethiopian Prophecy in Black American Letters salvation. Nevertheless, the Negro in Africa is bereft of the benefits of the Gospel due to the sheer dearth of Christians in Africa. This is a state of emergency that demands immediate attention and the establishment of Christianized Negroes in Africa. Douglass’s historical subjectivity during slavery understands Psalm 68:31 as a call to form literate and educated free people of color into a critical mass to undo slavery. Nearly two decadeslater ,Douglassdisfiguresthe figure of Ethiopiato critique the freedmen and their lack of initiative. Linking phrases oriented black readers toward Psalm 68:31, other grámmata (silent written signs), the world, and the human beings in it. Anchored as articulations between phrases, black readers became part of the ever-expanding social, political, religious, and linguistic fabrics of America, Africa, and the world. A Return to Reading Since the seventeenth century and George Fox’s inclusion of the Negro within the divine story of God’s grace, the figure of Ethiopia has been a collection of stories attempting to meet a human need: the quest for adequate stories to educate, entertain, make sense of the world and events, and most importantly, to produce time, or lived experience—what German philosophy calls Erleben as opposed to Erfahrung [conceptual experience ]—for readers to live and act. All readers of Psalm 68:31, not merely Wheatley and Douglass, emerge as historical subjects, deictically anchored in the world, and from their situatedness, engage the world with an oppositional riposte. Psalm 68:31 is not a magical verse that uniquely produces historical subjects. Every event of reading does this. But this obscure verse from a poem over twenty-five hundred years old, written in a foreign script and translated into English in modernity, has been one of the principle vehicles that situated black readers in time and space so they could interact with their world. From readers situated in time and space emerge stories, narratives to make sense of their historical subjectivity. To understand the figures of Ethiopia in black American letters, one needs to see them as stories that attempt to be adequate for their moments. When stories no longer make sense, they are no longer told. As an investigation of the figure of Ethiopia in black American letters, this book is a particular tracing of larger human activities: reading and telling stories. Despite all the hype and propaganda Conclusion: Reading and Refiguring the Figures of Ethiopia / 217 about the naturalness or providential nature of the figures of Ethiopia in black American letters, in all of their articulations they are nothing but stories; or to be more exact, a collection of stories derived from reading Psalm 68:31. This is not to denigrate the figures of Ethiopia or stories...