I thought about tearing out his songs and burning them, but they would still exist. Those crackers would still sing them. Better to know they exist. … - Percival Everett

I wrote to extend my thought, I wrote to catch up with my own story, wondering all the while if that was even possible.

I considered the northern white stance against slavery. How much of the desire to end the institution was fueled by a need to quell and subdue white guilt and pain? Was it just too much to watch? Did it offend Christian sensibilities to live in a society that allowed that practice? I knew that whatever the cause of their war, freeing slaves was an incidental premise and would be an incidental result.

White people often spent time admiring their survival of one thing or another. I imagined it was because so often they had no need to survive, but only to live.