Maya
Angelou in All God's
Children Need Traveling Shoes
records an integral aspect of human nature.
When her son is involved
in a nearly fatal car accident she goes to his hospital bed daily and
sits with him.
While there the man who she felt was responsible for
the accident comes to visit, who she describes as “[d]runk again,
or, two months later, still drunk” (5). He expresses remorse: “I'm
sorry, Sister Maya. So sorry. If only it could be me, there on that
bed . . . Oh, if only it could be me. . .” (6). Maya's responds,
nonverbally, “I agreed with him” and “[t]he slurred words made
me hate him more” (6). Her son hears this interchange and seems to
guess her thoughts. He asks her to come talk to him and says,
“Didn't you mean all those sermons about tolerance? All that stuff
about understanding? About before you criticize a man, you should
walk a mile in his shoes?” (7). She again responds nonverbally,
“Of course I meant it in theory, in conversation about the
underprivileged, misunderstood and oppressed miscreants, but not
about a brute who had endangered my son’s life” (7). This event
occurs early in the narrative but overshadows much of what happens in
her next few years. Maya uses her life to show us, the readers, the
difficult challenge of not only being tolerant of people who hurt
others, but people who hurt us individually.
Maya does not seem to completely learn this lesson from her son.
Sometime later she is working and hears an exchange between some
college professors. Maya felt insulted by their conversation, and as
an intelligent and somewhat educated person she felt responsible to
disagree with their derision of her people. However her anger made
her yell and lose track of her argument. She leaves in a rage and is
stopped by a steward who heard the whole conversation. He is calm
and explains to her, “This in not their place, in time they will
pass. Ghana was here when they came. When they go, Ghana will be
here. They are like mice on an elephant's back. They will pass”
(52). Her response, once again nonverbal, is, “In that second I
was wounded. My mind struck a truth as an elbow can strike a table
edge. A poor, uneducated servant in Africa was so secure he could
ignore established White rudeness. No Black American I had ever known
knew that security. Our tenure in the United States though long and
very hard-earned, was always so shaky we had developed patience as a
defense, but never as aggression” (52). This new truth she is
stuck with echoes the truth her son presented to her. In both she is
presented with an opportunity to take the ideals and theories she
tries to live by and practice them in a real situation. In both
events her anger and indignation cause her to see the situation in
such a way that those ideals do not apply. In both events a third
person, who manages to stay calm, causes her to recognize the truths
of the situations, and rethink her response. The truth in both is
the same. It is much more difficult to practice tolerance when the
situation is one you are directly involved in.
In trying to better understand an afromystical context that Maya's
work can be read in, the theme of healing seems to be of critical
importance. Bridging the gap between the ideals of tolerance, and
the reality of daily living a life of forgiveness seems definitely
tied to the theme of healing. Applying the ideas of tolerance to the
harsh realities of the daily lives of Black Americans is something
that Maya did not see as true earlier in her life. She left the
employ of Dr. King because he was preaching this truth. But it does
seem to be a course of action she begins to make in the journey
described in this book. This transformation is something that
readers should be able to see through her life, and apply in their
own.
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