Question: Where are you from and how has that shaped you?
Peter Gomes: Well I was brought up in Plymouth, Massachusetts, which is an old town … a really Yankee incarnation. And most of the black people that I knew growing up looked and sounded and talked just as I do, which may seem peculiar to many people. But that is part of the local inheritance. I think we are as native there as salt cod or blueberries or cranberries, and that’s how it is. And the term “Afro-Saxon” was coined by a colleague of mine here not entirely as a compliment. But I have always taken it as an apt description of the world in which I grew up. Because my family was very much conscious of our race. I think it could be said that my momma was a race woman. She had a very high notion of our race, and I was never brought up to think other … otherwise for myself. I remember she once said, “You must always remember you were descended from kings!” Well I thought that was wonderful. Of course she meant African princes and African kings. But we could never document that. I suspect the time will come when the truth will really be known. But it’s not a small thing for a little boy to think he was the descendant of kings. So I never had any ego problems with my identity; but the culture – even though I was, no doubt, a descendant of Africans – the culture was a very Yankee, New England, Puritan, Anglo-Saxon culture and I took to it. I absorbed it – mainlined it as you might say. And that, I think, is what my genial critic referred to when he described me as the first Afro-Saxon that he had ever known. Now I think he meant by that that I was lacking in sufficient, readily identifiable African . . . or American black ethnic qualities. My speech doesn’t conform to what people think is standard African-American speech. And that my values seem derived from the local countryside as opposed to a more, shall we say, southern or African … African-American identified … . It didn’t help that I went to college in Maine, which was even more central to the Yankee myth and even of Plymouth itself. And of course I spent all of my career here in Cambridge, Massachusetts at Harvard college, which is, of course, the institutional expression of all that. So for better or worse, as the kids like to say, “It is what it is! I am what I am! I am what I am”. And it confuses people, which gives me great pleasure.
Recorded on: 6/12/07
Discuss
m martinez on March 9, 2008, 11:10 AM
Many times, our interests do overlap. i think the more important question is, when they don't overlap to what extent do the two nations honor their commitments to one another and act as allies. I'm not sure there's a clear cut answer, though i will say can't think of any US citizens that have been accused or convicted of espionage in Israel.
m martinez on March 9, 2008, 3:10 PM
Many times, our interests do overlap. i think the more important question is, when they don’t overlap to what extent do the two nations honor their commitments to one another and act as allies. I’m not sure there’s a clear cut answer, though i will say can’t think of any US citizens that have been accused or convicted of espionage in Israel.
Mary Coyote on March 25, 2008, 2:21 PM
Where do Israeli and U.S. interests overlap?
The obvious:
The Middle East contains most of the world's oil reserves in a time of Energy Scarcity (end of cheap energy and Peak Oil).
No more SuperGiant oil fields have been discovered since the second World War, and they are mostly found in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. The oil fields of Iraq have an extra decade of supply following 10 years of embargo. Iran's field's are similarly underdeveloped after 20 years pariah state status. Saudi Arabia's reserves may be showing signs of decline.
The Oil-Men-White-House completely flubbed their attempt to democratize and secure the Iraqi resources. Saudi Arabia is the home and financial father of the worst of Islamic activists who reject an American presence on their soil. Iran is still considered pariah.
America is the largest energy consumer in the world. This energy drives the largest economy and largest customer in the world. Nuff said.
There is only one western-like democracy that is considered so close to the USA as to be criticized by many as too close; there is only one friend in the Middle East that is also energy dependent upon others and who will fight with us, if we ask, to keep the taps on. The oil suppliers in the Middle East are not Israel's friends and are our potential enemies.
In this time of emerging Energy Scarcity and the emerging instability expected from Climate Change, American interests in the Middle East can only grow. Of course, if we are willing as citizens of energy-pig-America, to scrap our SUV's and accept a decade long depression, I am sure we could learn to live without Middle East oil and cut Israel adrift.
Mary Coyote on March 25, 2008, 6:21 PM
Where do Israeli and U.S. interests overlap?
The obvious:
The Middle East contains most of the world’s oil reserves in a time of Energy Scarcity (end of cheap energy and Peak Oil).
No more SuperGiant oil fields have been discovered since the second World War, and they are mostly found in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. The oil fields of Iraq have an extra decade of supply following 10 years of embargo. Iran’s field’s are similarly underdeveloped after 20 years pariah state status. Saudi Arabia’s reserves may be showing signs of decline.
The Oil-Men-White-House completely flubbed their attempt to democratize and secure the Iraqi resources. Saudi Arabia is the home and financial father of the worst of Islamic activists who reject an American presence on their soil. Iran is still considered pariah.
America is the largest energy consumer in the world. This energy drives the largest economy and largest customer in the world. Nuff said.
There is only one western-like democracy that is considered so close to the USA as to be criticized by many as too close; there is only one friend in the Middle East that is also energy dependent upon others and who will fight with us, if we ask, to keep the taps on. The oil suppliers in the Middle East are not Israel’s friends and are our potential enemies.
In this time of emerging Energy Scarcity and the emerging instability expected from Climate Change, American interests in the Middle East can only grow. Of course, if we are willing as citizens of energy-pig-America, to scrap our SUV’s and accept a decade long depression, I am sure we could learn to live without Middle East oil and cut Israel adrift.
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