to the military undoubtedly provides protections that would have Bob’s induction been unavailable to a black man in his position only a few years earlier. The architecture of causality undergirding account of military conscription, however, suggests a Himes’ dissident intervention in conventional integrationist narratives of war as the pathway to black citizenship. War, in rendering, appears not as a means of salvation but Himes’ instead as the culmination of an entire process of sanctioned racial violence. like this man had has a a fellow inductee observing “Looks war,” exclaims Bob’s wounds and bruises in the final paragraph. Himes thus uses the political rhetoric novel’s of analogy to draw racial subjection into symbolic proximity to war itself. As I argue in what follows, however, use of this analogy exceeds its conventional deployment Himes’ amongst WWII-era black activists who sought to link military service and the struggle for citizenship rights. Indeed, the collapse of metaphoric into literal war in the novel’s closing pages raises the question of historical temporality: what is the that war’s “war” Bob has and how has it led him, perhaps even him to take part in a literal prepared “had” war? If war is both what Bob has and that upon which he is about to embark, what “had” is the future war augurs? We can begin by adapting Carl von of war as Clausewitz’ famous formulation continuation of politics by and note that, in the process outlined above, “the other means” war operates as the continuation of racialization by other means. Conversely, we might suggest that racialization represents a conduit for the internalization of war as a regulative principle of social life within the borders of the U.S. As Michel Foucault argues in a provocative inversion of maxim, role of political power is perpetually to Clausewitz’ “the use a sort of silent war to reinscribe that relationship of force, and to reinscribe it in
Bob’s induction to the military undoubtedly provides protections that would have been unavailable to a black man in his position only a few years earlier. The architecture of causality undergirding Himes’ account of military conscription, however, suggests a dissident intervention in conventional integrationist narratives of war as the pathway to black citizenship. War, in Himes’ rendering, appears not as a means of salvation but instead as the culmination of an entire process of sanctioned racial violence. “Looks like this man had has a war,” exclaims a fellow inductee observing Bob’s wounds and bruises in the novel’s final paragraph. Himes thus uses the political rhetoric of analogy to draw racial subjection into symbolic proximity to war itself. As I argue in what follows, however, Himes’ use of this analogy exceeds its conventional deployment amongst WWII-era black activists who sought to link military service and the struggle for citizenship rights. Indeed, the collapse of metaphoric into literal war in the novel’s closing pages raises the question of war’s historical temporality: what is the “war” that Bob has “had” and how has it led him, perhaps even prepared him to take part in a literal war? If war is both what Bob has “had” and that upon which he is about to embark, what is the future war augurs? We can begin by adapting Carl von Clausewitz’ famous formulation of war as “the continuation of politics by other means” and note that, in the process outlined above, war operates as the continuation of racialization by other means. Conversely, we might suggest that racialization represents a conduit for the internalization of war as a regulative principle of social life within the borders of the U.S. As Michel Foucault argues in a provocative inversion of Clausewitz’ maxim, “the role of political power is perpetually to use a sort of silent war to reinscribe that relationship of force, and to reinscribe it in
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