What if today, as we live, Sojourner Truth...
Harriet Tubman...
Martin Luther King, Jr....
Malcolm X.
and..... hmmmm .....Michael Steele (LOL!)
came together in one room for a shmooze.
While together they began discussing various topics and the situation of BF and what to do about it. The topic at hand was education and there happened to be a young BW who was recording the whole thing!
Here's how it would go...
MLK, being ever so bold, broached the topic. "Our children need an education! They are ranking pretty badly in the public school system."
Malcolm X: "What do you expect? We need to establish our own school system."
Harriet Tubman: " We BF appreciate education, even though we were not allowed an education, somehow we learned and had to keep it a secret. Now we think we are allowed, but must still learn on our own and perhaps keep it secret..."
Michael Steele: "Forget any sort of education! Just vote for me should I run for anything, okay?"
MLK: "I still say we must use the current system and do better in IT."
So they all agreed to use the current system at hand, however, they would fortify it with extracurricular after school school for those who want.
This "RULING" would be called their "mishnah"
So, the BW who recorded this took these opinions and published it in her book called The Mishnah. The book became so popular because people learned to process information, concepts based on these people's way of thinking -not to mention their wisdom and reasonings. Then the BW got interviewed and she confessed that there were some comments that didn't get published into her book. She showed one such comment, it was Michael Steele's.
Someone else compiled a list of the comments that didn't make it into BW's "mishnah". These extras were also studied.
Time passed...
People became unsure...
Now, when Tyrone Benhood wants to study his Mishnah, he studies both MLK's words and Michael Steele's word with the same intensity because he's in the dark as to know who is more valid or what's more relevant. He feels like he's in Babylon, not his home and not too sure what's the right thing to do. "I know," thinks Tyrone, "I'll go to the regular system, cuz that's what MLK said...and I'll also go to a special school for BF , cuz that's what Malcolm X said...and there are no schools cuz that's what Harriet Tubman said...and finally, I'll vote for Michael Steele should he run for anything!"
This way, Tyrone satisfied every opinion listed in the Mishnah and felt safe. He didn't have to weigh one opinion over another, he was politically correct and democratically safe. True, it gave him more to do and to consider, but at least he felt that he couldn't go wrong like this.
Then comes along his friend, Emmett Yesod. He knows what's up and can be discriminatory as to whom he should learn from in what topic. He decided to see what was written about education and took the BW's Mishnah --let's give her a name, Keila). Emmett reads all the opinions and stops at Michael Steele's. "Hmmmm..." thinks Emmett, "I'm going to have to reject this idea because it doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't sound logical nor relevant to school issues." So he rejected that idea. So, in the end he decides to "rule" like the Mishnah does. Sure, some may disagree with him for not placing all the players on equal stage. But because he had more clarity on who was involved and what the goal of the topic was, he was able to discriminate.
A bunch of Tyrone benHood mulling over these rulings would be called a gemorrah. The Mishnah plus that gemorrah would be their Talmud which is -not really in the same degree- like the Babylonian Talmud.
A bunch of Emmett Yesod mulling over these rulings would also be called a gemorrah. The Mishnah plus this gemorrah would be their Talmud which is --again, not really in the same degree-- like the Jerusalem Talmud.
***************************************
Is it a crazy idea for BF to try and create a "Talmud"? Is there already something like this? A collection of opinions of various leaders divided into topics and subjects such as education, politics, health, etc.?
10 comments:
Miriam,
Seriously? LOL! Are you writing a book or something?
Harriet Tubman and Sojourner would be in tears over what is going on with the BW.
The BW is in crisis. When are we going to acknowledge that fully?
The problem though is that you can't have a Talmud without a Har Sinai and a Torah. i.e. a place, a situation, and a group of people who all agree to accept the initial binding laws for a nation. You also can't have a Talmud without rulings from the original Mosaic court. All of which was a system that the ENTIRE people agreed to accept.
Without that a Mishnah or a Talmud would be meaningless. Thus the framework that a MLK would present would not work for a Malcom X type. The frame work for a Malcom X type would not work for a Michael Steele type.
Thus Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth would easily represent something different than all of the men mentioned before because they come from a different time frame. They also easily represent a different mindset. If an agreed upon national structure had been created during their time then that would have been a different story.
Hi Grata - I agree that BW is in crisis. But there is a way out, its just the inertia energy seems like a turn off to most. lol.
Ehav - Well, I don't really mean exactly like the Talmud as we have. But there is what to gain from just gathering great thinkers and instead of having separate books for their biographies, having a compilation of their thoughts sectioned into subjects (education, health, politics, gentrification, etc, etc)
This way, people can analyse their way of thinking vs what their compatriots are thinking. And reason out why those people see it the way they see it.
Also, even in our Talmud, the sages weren't all really living at the same time span. Many of their opinion was carried over long after they passed away so the time span is not such a barrier.
Truly, it won't be a hard and fast rule since it wouldn't be a "ruling" per se. But a great intellectual excercise and a great teaching tool for analytical thinking.
Hello Miriam,
I think you misunderstood what I meant. I wasn’t talking about the Talmud, what I was talking about was Har Sinai. I.e. the basis for all Talmudic discussion, debate, etc. was for all Israelis to know what their national, legal, and religious responsibilities are as it has come down from the one pivotal event that created the nation….Har Sinai. The importance of this point is because Har Sinai is where the entire people who were at Har Sinai accepted the Torah. We are told they ALL accepted it as if ONE person accepted it, and they accepted it for themselves and their descendants.
So what I am getting at is that for African Americans I don’t know of any such event where ALL African Americans of one era accepted upon themselves a national mandate that would govern themselves and their future descendants. This is important, in my eyes, because there are already books that compile the various writings of numerous African American thinkers. So in a sense, an African American Talmud does exist and said information is highly accessible to anyone who wants to read it.
What I see missing is all OVERALL standard of acceptable and unacceptable AA behavior that was accepted by the ancestors of ALL African Americans. Thus, in my view, the divisions exist because in one form or the other they have ALWAYS existed. That is not to say that such a thing can’t be coordinated in the present or the future.
@Miriam: "A collection of opinions of various leaders divided into topics and subjects such as education, politics, health, etc.?"
I don't know if such a compilation of parallel thought exists -- extracted from the writings, or spoken words of various black leaders--but it would be an interesting read.
Thanks for suggesting it. You have one helluva imagination.
I think this can be done. If not the actual writings, then a nexus of names and sources where people could find the writings they want. A wiki could accomplish this, and the benefit is that it would be free, and easily accessible worldwide.
Specifically about the wiki: there's free software at tiddlyspot. The wiki can be hosted on the server and client side, and also passworded. If nothing else, at least the wiki could point to the urls of specific post by an author you've asked to participate. The wiki can be tagged to both author and topic, to make it easier to navigate (this can be done with current wiki functionality.)
HI Anna,
The only thing is that it would be better in a book, not with links to authors because the purpose would be to study it and analyse it.
I fear that just linking wouldn't make for intense study.
Then again, I could be wrong.
But mostly, it would be beneficial if it was at hand and no search necessary.
Anna, I realized the best example to use to explain what I mean would be the comment sections on blogs.
Imagine if the commentors on various blogs were "experts" in their fields and there were no Trolls (or the trolls' comments would be not included).
Taking a photo copy of that would be just what I mean -except by known figures.
(Apologies for the late reply)
Maybe inviting authors to write about a particular topic in which they were the expert, and compiling that into an ebook? So it's an edited book, primarily electronic (eliminates the setup cost) but could be printed in paper if the person wished. This could be done in MS publisher, or OpenOffice (really anything that makes pdfs.)
Post a Comment