Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog
“The New Naturals”, A Novel
By: Gabriel Bump
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Gabriel Bump (Author, MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts, grew up in Chicago, Asst. Professor U of M.)
In “The New Naturals” Gabriel Bump shows why societal unity with racial separation is unlikely to be achieved. Without the power and influence of money, leadership is not enough. Bump’s story reminds one of Hamas in Palestine and their deluded belief that they can unify the Palestinian people by creating an underground movement to unify Palestine. Hamas fools themselves just as the leaders of “The New Naturals” show unity fails when the influence and power of money is lost. Of course, the two issues are different because Middle Eastern religion is an element of the fundamental difference between Palestine and Israel. However, money’s influence and power are a major contributor to the Middle East’s conflict.
Bump writes of a Black American movement. Like David Diop’s story, the truth is “At Night All Blood is Black”.
Bump writes of a Black American movement to create an independent society financed by a donor with great wealth. The donor finances the vision of two Black academics who choose a mountain in Massachusetts to create a literal underground community for Black American citizens. The dream of “The New Naturals” disappears when the financial backer quits her support of the movement. As the donor’s financing disappears, a “smash and grab” mentality infects the movement’s leadership. Loss of financing criminalizes the movement. What could not be achieved with the influence and power of money, led to “smash and grab” criminalization of the movement.
The vision of “The New Naturals” founders is a hope to educate and establish a group of like-minded Black Americans, independent of America’s white dominated culture.
Like the waste of money in building the Hamas’ tunnels in Palestine, these Black separatists choose to use their financial support for tunnels and rooms bored into a mountain. The Black movement is peopled with relatively well-educated Black families wishing for a better life. It devolves with its loss of funding into a group of thugs who insist on separation.
In America, the political choice has been made, i.e., regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity, all who have citizenship in America are Americans.
America has been one nation since 1776. American unity among its citizens is sorely challenged during America’s civil war but it remains the law of the land. Bump’s story explains why, despite continued American inequality, all who have citizenship are Americans. Equality in America is a work in progress. What informs our future is that American identity is a socially and legally enforceable fact.
As noted in 1954 by the U. S. Supreme Court in “Brown v. Board of Education”, the idea of “separate but equal” perpetuates injustice and inequality.
Palestine is considered the birthplace of Ancient Egypt, Israel and the Persian Empire. Though Palestine’s independence was not recognized until 1988, Israel only became a nation-state in 1948. Both societies have a long history as nationalist movements with their own beliefs. Israel and Palestine have earned a right to their own identity. The holocaust was a turning point for the right of a Jewish nation to be created. The current slaughter of innocents in Palestine may be the turning point for Palestine’s right to nationhood.
Civil wars are a lesson to the world. One hopes both Israel and Palestine come to an agreement to either create two nations or one; with unity as separated or as one unified nation-state.
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 