what you’ve done but for getting caught. Take some of the biggest men in America—men who everybody knows have stolen railroads and banks but who’ve never been caught at it—why, they’re popular idols. There are lots of magazines with big circulations that fill their pages with stories of how these giants have gained wealth and fame by ‘honesty, hard work, sticking to the job.’ That’s bunk! Do you remember the story of one of these ‘self-made’ men who was telling a college class that his secret of success was ‘pluck! pluck! pluck!’ and the irreverent boy who asked the pompous one who he had plucked? That’s the true story of a lot of these people who haven’t been caught with their hands in the other fellow’s pockets.”
Mimi smiled a wan smile. This was interesting, perhaps, but it didn’t help her much. Mrs. Rogers went on.
“And coloured people are no better than anybody else. The motive is the same everywhere in the world and with all races and sexes and classes. If you aren’t of any importance they don’t gossip about you because nobody’s interested. But they’ve got to have something humiliating, something that’ll bear down a person’s reputation, something malicious and spiteful. It’s got to be about somebody who’s got something to lose, it’ll have to be something that’ll stick, something that’ll be dangerous but not too dangerous for the person who’s gossiping. And above everything else it’s got to be spread with a high and lofty manner—the biggest spreader of tales I ever knew always started her most vile story the same way. She’d say: ‘I stay at home attending to my own business and I don’t meddle in other people’s affairs, but have you heard that—’ and then she proceeds to give you a long account of what some person has done, all of it told in a tone of Christian forbearance and pity and tacit regret.”
“That’s a very interesting and logical analysis but it doesn’t offer much comfort. It’s just like a doctor explaining why your leg broke when you’re lying in a hospital bed.”