Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  I refer to this new type of sinful activity that has cropped up amongst the niggers. It is known as “BACKWACKING,” which I am prepared to say under oath is probably one of the most UNGODLY and also UNNATURAL activity that anybody has ever yet invented! Senator, it is no less than radical! And so naturally the nigger has been going at it so hard that he is fast getting out of hand and out of control. Here is what he is doing. HE and his woman have taken to getting undressed and standing back to back and heel to heel, shoulderblade to shoulderblade, and tale to tale with his against her’s and her’s against his, and then after they have horsed around and manuvered like cats in heat and worked as tight together as a tick to a cow’s tit, he ups and starts in to HAVING AFTER HER BACKWARDS!

  Now I know, Senator, that this sounds like he is taking a very roundabout and also mullet-headed path to Robin Hood’s barn, but I have it on the most reliable authority that this is exactly how he is going about it. Yessir! The facts have been well established even though I have to admit that on account of he is not only defying common decency but also NATURE, I cannot explain in full detail just how the nigger is proceeding in this tradition busting business. Because naturally he thinks that he has him a good thing going and is trying to keep the WHITE MAN in the DARK. Even so, I want you to know that ever since it was brought to my attention I been putting a great deal of effort into trying to untangle what he is doing. I have figgered HARD and I have figgered LONG but to date nothing I have come up with seems to fit WHAT he is doing with HOW he is going about it. Neither, I am sad to report, has anybody else. So it appears that once again and after all the trouble we have seen we are being victimized by yet another so-called “nigger mystery.” It is a crying sin and a dirty shame but once again the nigger has tossed the responsible citizenry of these parts a terrible tough nut to crack. Once again it appears that like the time he came back from Cuba at the end of the Spanish American War and then again when he came back from Paris France after World War I, he is hellbent on taking advantage of our good nature. But be that as it may, I hasten to assure you that we down here are not taking it laying down. We are going after him not only with might and main but with foresight and hindsight. And as for me personal, I am doing my level best to bring him to heel and can be counted on to keep on doing it! Senator, you have my word on that. I have known niggers all my life and am well acquainted with smart ones as well as dumb ones, but while heretofore this has been an advantage in many a tight place in my dealings with him, in this particular situation I am forced to admit that I have yet to come across any as backwards-acting as my most reliable information makes these here out to be. Evidently these are of a different breed, because considering that I am a godfearing white man in my 80th year if I have not heard of this “backwacking” until now it has got to be something new! So in my considered opinion it is something that some black rascal has brought in here from somewheres else, probably from up north.

  But Senator, wherever this “backwacking” comes from it calls for some ruthless investigating and drastic control! Because not only is the nigger conducting himself in this ungodly jiggsawing fashion I have described to you, but there is overpowering evidence that he is doing it too much for his own or anybody elses good, and I say so for the following reasons. I am informed that when he and his woman reach the climax of this radical new way of sinning they get blasted by one of the darndest feelings that has ever been known to hit the likes of Man! My friend says it is like watching somebody being struck down by greased lightening, and he says that when it hits the nigger it is like seeing somebody being knocked down and dragged by an L & N freight train that has been doing a high-ball on a down-hill grade with its brakeshoes busted and with no red light ahead! Yes, sir! It is a mind graveler and a viscious back breaker. He says that watching it work on the black rascal is like seeing somebody get blasted to as close to dying as any normal human being can possibly come and still not die. Like he says this “backwacking” is a real humdinging ripsnorter and a danger to life, limb and social order—only you wouldn’t think so if you could see how some who are practicing it are around here strutting and grinning.

  Yes, sir, Senator, they are out trying to make some slick nigger propaganda to the point that they had all at once jumped way ahead of the white man! But of course and as we both well know, they are badly mistaken in this regard. Because if the truth be known, all they are doing is setting back their own race. There is no doubt about it, because it is a “well established fact” and as I have always held No race can pull itself up by their bootstraps and bring home the bacon that dedicates itself to indulging in such unnatural activity as the one these here are messing with. But yet and still and as niggers will, they are going at it like old fashioned common sense has gone plum out of style! Senator, the situation he is creating is no less than critical! And it is right here that we come face to face with the most confounding detail of this “backwacking.”

  Now you would expect that all this powerful feeling he generates would knock the nigger out, and as I have stated it trully staggers him. It knocks the rascal as limber as a bacon rine that has been boiled in a mess of collards and turns his bones to rubber. Yes, sir! But then an absolutely confusing thing takes place. Like I say, when this feeling strikes the nigger it blasts him so hard that it seems that it has knocked all such nasty notions out of his ignorant head. He goes out like a lantern in a wind storm and you would swear that he was already at the gates of hell, which is shorely where he is headed, yessir! But then it jacks him up, and the next thing you know he comes up with a quick second wind! That is the unGodly truth, Senator, and I’ll swear to it. Instead of keeling over and breathing his last or at least taking him a nap, the nigger just lets out a big ole hoop-and-a-holler and leaps back to his position and commences to practicing this “backwacking” again! So when you think about that and all the raw naked power he lets loose it is my firm opinion that this “backwacking” must do no less than throw him into some new kind of trance. Something about this new way of sinning he is practicing simply takes the rascal over. Otherwise I ask you how is it that as soon as he uses up his second-wind—which takes him a full five minutes longer by a good stop-watch—according to my friend he right away “backwacks” his way into a third and then into a fourth and fifth wind? So it stands to reason that nothing less than a trance can explain it, therefore I must stand on that. It simply has to be what happens, especially since he has been known to keep on going in this fashion until he is vibrating like a sheet-tin roof in a wind storm and his petered-out woman is wore plumb down to a slam-banging frazzle!

  Senator, after observing this disgraceful business on several occasions, my friend holds that it is a crying pity and a down-right shame that it don’t just knock the nigger out of commission the first shot out of the box, and I wholeheartedly agree. Because if this “backwacking” was to kill off a few of the ornery ones who is practicing it this thing would be brought to a quick and abrupt conclusion. After that the rest of the niggers would sober up to the firmly grounded truth of the proposition which states that “No Race can prosper or long endure” that devotes itself to going against nature like these down here have been doing. Therefore they would go back and devote themselves to conducting their business in the old fashion way they was taught by the white man back there in slavery.

  Now mind you Senator, I say that that is the proposition the nigger ought to be living by, but this being a new day and age, and one in which he has lost all sense of direction, he is not. Instead he is coming up daily with all kinds of new minds and new notions, most of them nasty, radical and UNGODLY. So with the nigger continuing on his “backwacking” rampage it is most unfortunate that some of the most responsible citizens in these parts are dying off while some of the rest have given up the struggle and grown discouraged. Some are even thinking about migrating to Australia! And only the other day a friend of mine was even talking about moving to South Africa, just to get away from some of the outrages taking
place down here. He’s ready to cut bait and run! “Let the nigger take over, and get out while the getting is good,” he says. “That’s what I’m thinking. Just let him have it, lock, stock, barrel and gatepost, because that’s exactly what he’s out to do. One way or another, either by hook, or by crook or sinning, he means to seize control. So I’m going somewhere a white man still has a chance to live in peace.” That is what he says and he’s from one of the finest old families in these parts. Yessir, that’s just how pessimistic some folks have come to feel. But fortunately folks like my friend are in the minority and I hasten to assure you Senator that all is not lost, no, sir! Not by a long shot. Because while a few have let themselves become discouraged and intimidated by this recent rash of nigger outrages a determined vanguard remains on the firing line and is putting up a firm resistance. And for this I say “Praise the lord!” as there is a growing concern that if the nigger ain’t soon checked and returned to his proper balance—and I mean by any means necessary—or if he don’t just naturally run out of gas on his own accord, he will keep on plunging down this unnatural path he is on until he is out on the street grabbing and “BACKWACKING” each and every female woman he can lay his corrupted eyes on. Such is the terrible prospect we face in a nutshell.

  So it is my considered opinion that we are confronted by a crisis the likes of which we haven’t had to face since back in 1918 when the nigger come home trying to talk and act like French men. Therefore I have tried to the best of my ability to give you a clear and accurate picture of our situation. What we actually have down here is not only a serious threat to our orderly society but we are in the middle of something that can best be described as a “clear and present danger”! I insist on that, Senator, and it is a danger that threatens everybody, including the nigger, who seems bent on no less than downright self-annihilation! And what makes our predicament so untenable is the fact that the nigger is so sly and devious. He knows we’re watching him so he’s coming up with all kinds of “diversionary tactics.” But while we have yet to discover what he is sneaking around eating and drinking in order to do what he is doing and while he is keeping his hand well hid, down here in Alabama his offenses to common decency is causing a terrible stir. Senator, our backs are against the wall and our nerves are on edge and our patience is running thin. And it is doing it so fast that I tell you confidential that all this “BACKWACKING” he is doing has got our storm warnings up. By which I mean to say that this latest of many aggravating “nigger mysteries,” grievous offenses, and attacks on moral integrity and clean living has got folks so flustered and upset that they are beginning to cry out loud for some relief! So Senator it is in their name as well as my own that I am calling upon you to hurry down here with a committee of your best people and investigate! We are calling upon you because from your Cadillac speech the other day we are firmly convinced that you are the one for the role. You have the “intestinal fortitude” to do what needs to be done and you have the authority to see that it is done. So please heed our plea. Because even if what the nigger is up to wasn’t against nature, which it simply has to be, there is no question but that he is going both against the bible and against our most hallowed tradition and therefore what he is doing calls for the firm and unyielding hand of the law!

  Senator, the above constitutes our unhappy bill of particulars, and as I appreciate that you are a busy man I beg pardon for taking up so much of your precious time. But please understand that our situation is desperate and we call upon your aid because you are one of the few that trully stands for law and order and really looks out for the welfare of the good WHITE people, who as I have tried to make crystal clear, are once again being sorely tried and tested. So in closing both me and Marthy thank you in advance for your kind consideration and look forward to the time when we will once again be safe and at peace with our fine and honorable tradition and our straightforward way of doing things. We wish you a long life and the best of everything, and we hope and pray that you will soon find time to lay the firm hand of the law on this “backwacking” and bring it to a teeth-rattling halt! Just look into the nigger is all we ask, and god bless.

  Respectfully Yrs.

  Norm A. Mauler

  A CONCERN CITIZEN

  2010 Modern Library Edition

  Copyright © 2010 by the Ralph and Fanny Ellison Charitable Trust

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Modern Library, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  MODERN LIBRARY and the TORCHBEARER Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  A portion of this work was originally published, in different form, as Juneteeth by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1999. In addition, eight excerpts from this work appeared, also in different form, in American Review, Iowa Review, Massachusetts Review, Noble Savage, Partisan Review, and Quarterly Review of Literature.

  eISBN: 978-1-58836-089-2

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