“That was like a cracker now,” he continued. “I never had a white man nosing into my business like that in America. But these French people are just like detectives. They want to know everything about you, especially if you’re a black. I’m going to let them see I’m not a fool.”
Some time later the barkeeper learned from an indigène employed by his gentleman visitor that that personage had been very offended by the barkeeper’s use of the word “master,” that he had not remained uncovered when talking to him, and that the Senegalese lounging in the café had not saluted when he entered.
The barkeeper spread out the copy of La Race Nègre and began reading, while the Senegalese crowded around him with murmurs of approval and that attitude of credulity held by ignorant people toward the printed word.
He read a list of items:
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Of forced conscription and young Negroes running away from their homes to escape into British African territory.
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Of native officials paid less than whites for the same work.
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Of forced native labor, because the natives preferred to live lazily their own lives, rather than labor for the miserable pittance of daily wages.
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Of native women insulted and their husbands humiliated before them.
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Of flagellation.
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Of youths castrated for theft.
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Of native chiefs punished by mutilation.
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Of the scourge of depopulation …
“That’s how the Europeans treat Negroes in the colonies,” said the barkeeper. The protesting seaman appeared crushed under the printed accounts. The barkeeper launched a discourse about Africa for the Africans and the rights of Negroes, from which he suddenly shot off into a panegyric of American culture. He had returned from America inspired by two strangely juxtaposed ideals: the Marcus Garvey Back-to-Africa movement and the grandeur of American progress. He finished up in English, turning toward the English-speaking boys:
“Negroes in America have a chance to do things. That’s what Marcus Garvey was trying to drive into their heads, but they wouldn’t support him—”
“Ain’t no such thing!” exclaimed Banjo. “Marcus Garvey was one nigger who had a chance to make his and hulp other folks make, and he took it and landed himself in prison. That theah Garvey had a white man’s chance and he done nigger it away. The white man gived him plenty a rope to live, and all he done do with it was to make a noose to hang himse’f. When a ofay give another ofay the run of a place he sure means him to make good like a Governor or a President, and when a darky gets a chance—I tell you, boss, Garvey wasn’t worth no more than the good boot in his bahind that he done got.”
“Garvey was good for all Negroes,” the barkeeper turned upon Banjo—“Negroes in America and in Europe and in Africa. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Why, the French and the British were keeping the Negro World, Garvey’s newspaper, out of Africa. It was because Garvey was getting too big that they got him.”
“There was nothing big left to him, if you ask me,” said Banjo. “I guess he thought like you, that he was Moses or Napoleon or Frederick Douglass, but he was nothing but a fool, big-mouf nigger.”
“It’s fellahs like you that make it so hard for the race,” replied the barkeeper. “You have no respect for those who’re trying to do something to lift the race higher. American Negroes have the biggest chance that black people ever had in the world, but most of them don’t grab hold of it, but are just trifling and no-’count like you.”
Banjo made a kissing noise with his lips and looked cross-eyed at the barkeeper. “Come on, pard, let’s beat it,” he said to Ray. Outside he remarked: “He grabbed his, all right, and growed thin like a mosquito doing it. Look how his cheeks am sunkin’! I guess he’s even too cheap to pay the price of a li’l’ pot a honey. Why didn’t you say some’n’, Ray? I guess you got more brains in you’ finger nail than in twenty nigger haids like his’n jest rising up outa the bush of Africa.”
“I always prefer to listen,” replied Ray. “You know when he was reading that paper it was just as if I was hearing about Texas and Georgia in French.”
“But, oh, you kink-no-more!” laughed Bugsy. “Did you notice his hair? It’s all nice and straightened out.”
“You don’t have to look two time to decipher an African nigger in him, all the same,” said Banjo, contemptuously. “A really and truly down-there Bungo-Congo.”
“Get out!” said Ray. “You’re a mean hater, Banjo. He’s just like other Negroes from the States and the West Indies.”
“Not from the States, pard. Maybe the monkeys them—”
“Monkey you’ grandmother’s blue yaller outa the red a you’ charcoal-black
