{"id":1296,"date":"2024-12-09T05:06:13","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T05:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/?post_type=furman-update&p=1296"},"modified":"2024-12-13T13:56:08","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T13:56:08","slug":"interview-the-black-experience-in-america-interview-with-esau-mccaulley","status":"publish","type":"furman-update","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/lectures\/interview-the-black-experience-in-america-interview-with-esau-mccaulley\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: “The Black Experience in America”, Interview with Esau McCaulley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Esau McCaulley visited the Tocqueville Center this past November to give a talk on his memoir, How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South,<\/em> for our event on The Black Experience in America<\/a>. He spoke about the importance of narrative and storytelling when examining historical events or communicating data-driven arguments, and the personal impact of racism, poverty, and family trauma on his own family.<\/p>\n

Esau McCaulley (Wheaton College)<\/em><\/h3>\n
\"Esau

Esau MacCaulley (Wheaton College)<\/p><\/div>\n

Esau McCaulley is an author, active Anglican clergy person, and The Jonathan Blanchard Associate Professor of New Testament and Public Theology at Wheaton College. McCaulley earned a BA from the University of the South, an MDiv from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a Master of Sacred Theology from Nashotah House, and a PhD in New Testament from the University of St. Andrews under the supervision of N. T. Wright. His research and writing focus on New Testament Exegesis, African American Biblical Interpretation, and Public Theology. He has authored numerous books and articles, including\u00a0<\/em>Sharing in the Son\u2019s Inheritance: Davidic Messianism and Paul\u2019s Worldwide Interpretation of the Abrahamic Land Promise in Galatians\u00a0(2019) and\u00a0<\/em>Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope\u00a0(2020), which won numerous awards including\u00a0<\/em>Christianity Today\u2019s Book of the Year. His most recent book is\u00a0<\/em>How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family\u2019s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South\u00a0(2023). McCaulley also served as the editor of\u00a0<\/em>New Testament in Color: A Multi-Ethnic Commentary on the New Testament\u00a0(2024). His work also extends beyond the academy. He is a contributing opinion writer for\u00a0<\/em>The New York Times, and his writing has appeared in\u00a0<\/em>The Atlantic,\u00a0<\/em>The Washington Post, and\u00a0<\/em>Christianity Today. He is also the author of several books for children.<\/em><\/p>\n

On the relative merits of making an argument versus telling a story<\/h2>\n

Tocqueville Center:\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

You framed your talk last night as a narrative or story, in contrast to an argument. Could you tell us what you think are the relative merits of narrative versus argument?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Esau McCaulley:\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Actually, I think it was in rhetoric that they talk about Pathos and Lagos, the reasoning being there are people who like logical argumentation, but also people who feel. And so part of persuasion involves both logical argumentation and feeling, and one place that feeling is revealed are stories. And stories can reveal a truth that syllogisms don’t always do, but they can actually work together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And so for the people who need to hear the argument, I’ve written books about that. But some people can learn through story. And even our most interesting speakers and communicators are people who, in the midst of telling you a very dense and complicated argument, can have a story that brings those two things together.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I wanted to do in the memoir is to use a story to reveal these essential truths. There’s a reason why a lot of the movies that talk about war focus on one soldier\u2019s experience of the war, because it can reveal something about the war that reading statistics can’t always show. You don’t see it as just another war. I think that empathy is part of what it means for us to be human. And empathy comes through story. But stories aren’t merely empathy, right? They’re not merely pulling at emotion, right? It’s not that story is in place of argumentation, but rather that they can be companions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Esau<\/p>\n

What I really wanted to do was to balance out rigorous argumentation with storytelling. It’s kind of what you got to do in liberal arts, right? You got to know your math and your science and humanities and some of the things that we can talk about. You eliminate the humanities and you kind of lose the part of what it means for us to be human, right?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We’re more as human beings than just people who make money and start businesses. We also need things like the arts and music and poetry and song and family and story to make all of the stuff that we acquire have any meaning. Like, what do I do with this stuff and how do I become a good person? Those things come together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And so an oversimplification would be saying, yeah, I was trying to bring a little bit of of narrative and art to what can sometimes be a sterile and simply data-driven conversation around race and justice in America. The more argument and and data side shows racism existed. We can we give its history. And the story side of that is like, what meaning does that have?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I can give you a very concrete example. They’ve done studies around people being pulled over by police and that African Americans in one study were more apt to be pulled over by the police during the daytime. That actually decreases in the nighttime. Why? Because when police officers can’t see inside of the car, they’re less likely to notice an African American is driving it. The racial disparity dissipates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

You eliminate the humanities and you kind of lose the part of what it means for us to be human, right?\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And so I could talk about that. I could say this is as a stat or I can tell you a story, what it’s like to be pulled over as an African American who’s done nothing wrong. Both of those things are true, right? They’re both true things. There’s the stat, then there’s the story. And I think that those things that come together do so in a story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Esau<\/a><\/p>\n

They’ve done study after study where they have job applications where the job application is completely identical, right? Completely identical. And the only difference is the name. And names that are foreign-sounding or ethnic-sounding are less likely to get callbacks than something like Susan Smith. Now, you can tell that as a as a stat, but also you can talk about what it’s like to be black on the job market and not get a job.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Those, to me, I don’t think are competing narratives. I think that what the story is doing is revealing the inner truth of what the statistics already tell us. And hopefully the story allows us to have a little bit of empathy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From family trauma to the inner truth of that trauma<\/h2>\n

<\/h3>\n

Tocqueville Center:\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

In your discussion of your memoir yesterday, you mentioned the inner truth the came out of your own family\u2019s story. Could you elaborate a little on that?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Esau McCaulley:\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

So yes, in the story I talked about, and in the book, I go into more detail of my grandmother who has this land and there’s a fire that takes place and the fire burns down the house that they live in. And in order to fund the repairs of that house, she takes out a loan. And she takes out the loan in the 1960s. And that loan is paid monthly from 1968 until she dies in 2008. It’s 40 years, not for the loan for the land, but the loan on the repairs of a house. And when she dies, that land reverts back to the white landowner.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And so clearly, my grandmother was manipulated. She worked hard. She did everything she was supposed to do, but because she was illiterate, she signed a bad deal and we lost our property. We lost the land we grew up on. There’s no loan for house repairs that takes 40 years to pay off.\u00a0 And so, but what does that story reveal? It reveals that there’s sometimes a myth that we have. If you work hard and you follow the rules, you do what you’re supposed to do, then you succeed in life. Well, no.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

And so clearly, my grandmother was manipulated. She worked hard. She did everything she was supposed to do, but because she was illiterate, she signed a bad deal and we lost our property. <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sometimes the injustice of American Society reveals itself through the economic exploitation of the poor and the illiterate, especially poor, illiterate black women. And so that story, then is not the failure of my grandmother. She didn’t actually fail. America failed her. And so that story to me is beautiful, in that my grandmother struggles to build a life and have some dignity. Her struggle itself and her desire to create a future for her children and her grandchildren is beautiful. It’s what you’re supposed to do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But what happened to her and what happened to us reveals the ugly side of American history. I was actually speaking to someone here and they said that same thing that happened to my grandmother, called a bond tenancy, was one of the ways that African Americans had their land stolen during this time period, and that a significant number of African American landowners during this time had their land taken from them. And so for me, that’s revelatory, revelatory about what happens in American history.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so that’s what I was trying to get at in that story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

On the importance of healthy families for correcting structural injustice<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tocqueville Center:\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

I wanted to give you the opportunity to expound on the familial trauma angle of your memoir and talk.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Esau McCaulley:\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

So in in the story, I talk about the fact that the fire that takes place was accidentally caused by my grandfather. And it leads to the death of his two sons, who were toddlers. And the trauma from that impacts how my father, who was born after these two deaths, is in turn parented.<\/span><\/p>\n

He’s seen as not as good as the two boys who passed away. He kind of inherits almost like the guilt and the trauma that his his dad kind of inflicts upon him and my father’s own trauma. Then it influences me. And one of the things that we talk about, that I was trying to get at in this book, is that when we talk about race and injustice in America, we tend to put these things in buckets.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There’s books about racism, there’s books about family trauma, there’s books about poverty. But if you have those overlapping realities, all of those things influence you. And sometimes, for example, when you’re talking about race, you want to avoid stereotypes. You don’t want to talk about being the child of a single mother because you don’t want to play into a trope that then reinforces stereotypes. But familiar trauma had a tremendous impact on me. And that idea of familiar trauma is something that’s almost universal. It’s not unique to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

There’s books about racism, there’s books about family trauma, there’s books about poverty. But if you have those overlapping realities, all of those things influence you.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

One of the things that helped me get over the shame that I had about my own story is that it’s not unique to me or to black families, that many of us in different ways are wounded by the people who are closer to us. In the lecture, I talked about the story of Joseph. It’s actually a story of family trauma, right? There’s someone who is willing to sell his family members.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And so when we talk about what it means to be a healthy society, we often talk about structural realities. And that was true. And I believe that there are structural things we could do to improve society, but we also need to think about what it means to have healthy families that allow children to become their best selves, even if they are traumatized. And so the renewal of the society is both structural to me and familial. That’s what I was trying to get in that part of the story.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tocqueville Center, Nov. 14, ’24<\/p>\n

Click the link to read about the Tocqueville Center’s event on The Black Experience in America.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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