Читать книгу Constructing the Self. Essays on Southern Life-Writing онлайн

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an existing object, by recreating the maker, itself necessitates a new act of objectified projection: the human being, troubled by weight, creates a chair; the chair recreates him to be weightless; and now he projects this new weightless self into new objects, the image of an angel, the design for a flying machine. Second, just as the sentient needs are projected into objects, so objects themselves contain capacities and needs that sponsor additional artifacts. (321)

But if the artifact can be seen as a lever that recreates the maker, it might also be understood as a lever that has the potential for remaking those who purchase or use the artifact. And here, in the case of Washington and his desire to remake white southern attitudes toward blacks, is the artifact’s revolutionary potential: in the act of labor and making, blacks in effect turn themselves inside out, projecting the richness of their interior lives into the artifact. That richness is levered not only back into the black makers, remaking them in the process, but also outward into the world, including the world of white southern culture. It was the richness and humanity of the black makers that were embedded in the artifact—that is, their interior life rather than their black skin—that Washington wanted white southerners to recognize and acknowledge. Recognition by whites of the humanity embedded in artifacts—and thus in their makers—would begin a process transforming racial attitudes and leading to the creation of a more just and equitable society.