My Mind Detaches From My Ass and Floats Away (Part 2 of 2)

The following is an excerpt of a 7 December 2014 email exchange between Art and Will. It should be noted that, since 1 November 2014, all Art's emails have originated from Farthington's account.


"George Clinton Nighttown" by Janisorlando - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Will's family has been able to live the American dream, so he and Arthur have a safety net to fall back on. The musicians don't. Will doesn't dip into the capital of the family business to support the band, only to protect family. So when the project is broke, he and Arthur may go without pay--which to Will seems noble--but they are still protected by the cement empire while the band gets even shares of pocket lint and chewing gum wrappers.

By the American code of business, Will has done more than is required of him, even though by moral law, he has treated the band terribly, ultimately stranding them in Japan with no money, nowhere to live, no connections. Similarly, the officer in Ferguson probably does not believe himself to be a racist and didn't violate the American code of law, but he sure as hell violated moral law. And in both cases of American law, the codes have been set up to protect the enfranchised against the disenfranchised.

I think there are bigger questions you are worried about:  is the project racist, or worse, are we racist? I don't think any good comes from letting ourselves off the hook for either of these questions. When people like us who love black people and love black culture and who hate racism go around thinking that we're not part of the problem when we still benefit from the problem in ways we can't realize, we help protect a cultural code that protects white people who murder black people, and we both want that cultural code to die.

One of the greatest problems, I think, is this paradox that when you feel like your heart is in the right place, it's less likely that you'll still have skin in the game. George Clinton says free your mind and your ass will follow, but I frequently feel that as I free my mind, it detaches from my ass and floats away.

It's very fortunate for us that we are both teachers and husbands and that you are a father, as we are both introverts who live in a world of ideas more easily than in a world of people. If we weren't working with kids every day, we'd have very little skin in the game; we'd just find some nice caves to hide in and think all the time. But the thought matters, too.

The Arthur White project really has turned into our assessment of 20th- and 21st-century humanity and its relationship with God.

It is the intellectual skin we put into the game...into all the games that matter.