COLUMN: A Different Side of Ben

From Jamil Smith's "Invisible Man," Fall '95 He looked at his watch, which read ten minutes after noon. He wondered where his friend Demetrius was. Josh had been courteous by waiting to eat, but he had grown tired of looking at the large styrofoam container that contained his shrimp fried rice. Just as the lovely smell emanating from his lunch began to be almost too much to bear, Demetrius rolled up and sat next to his friend. "What's up, Josh?" "How are you, Demetrius?" They shook hands and Demetrius took a seat at the base of the statue of the University's founder on College Green. He began to pull out his own container of fried rice. "I'm all right, just ready to eat. You look a little tired; did you just wake up?" Josh yawned and answered, "No -- my classes have just been getting me down lately. I had three midterms last week alone." "I can certainly relate." While chewing, Josh looked above his head at the figure of Ben Franklin. "I wonder if when Ben Franklin created this place, he wouldn't have given students three midterms in one week," Josh said lightheartedly in the direction of the statue. Suddenly becoming very serious, Demetrius swallowed his food and said, "I wonder what the look on the face of 'Gentle Ben' would be if he even knew that I was taking a midterm here in the first place." "What do you mean?" Josh asked. Demetrius said, "Let me tell you about Dr. Franklin." "I already know a little bit; he was a great scholar, inventor and humanitarian." "You forgot to say 'womanizer' and 'bigot.'" "Come on Demetrius, where are you getting ideas like those? You're only speculating because in that time period, many prominent figures owned slaves. I have never heard about Franklin ever doing so. He made a lot of useful contributions to the way we live today." "These aren't ideas, my friend -- these are facts. Would you like to hear some of the things 'Gentle Ben' said?" Demetrius asked. "Sure, I guess." Demetrius put aside his lunch, reached into his bag, and pulled out his history notebook. He turned quickly to something that his professor had said in class earlier. "Just to begin, Franklin wrote a paper 'On Mulatto Gentlemen' in August of 1733 in which he referred to a mulatto person as 'a monkey that climbs in a tree.'" "Okay, but it sounds like your professor took that out of context. I'm not really convinced." Demetrius shook his head and continued. "I know that you did a paper on Franklin earlier this year, correct?" Josh replied, "Yes -- what's your point?" "Did you know how Franklin is often depicted as a 'friend' of the American Indian?" "Yes," Josh said. "In fact, he once said that almost every war between Indians and whites had been provoked by the blatant racial injustices of whites." Demetrius recalled something he had read for English last semester. "Do you remember Franklin's autobiography? When he attended the signing of a treaty between whites and American Indians at Carlisle, he described them as 'drunken savages' whose behavior and customs made the whites present uncomfortable and made any sort of 'intellectual' dialogue impossible between the two parties. Don't you see -- even Franklin himself couldn't prevent his ignorance from seeping through into the public eye." "Are you sure that's true?" Josh asked with a puzzled look on his face. "Yes, it's right there in the book; just take a look. I have no reason not to present the facts," Demetrius said coolly. "Do you have anything else?" Josh inquired. "Just one more main point," Demetrius said. Demetrius reached into his bag and pulled out a book entitled A Different Mirror by Dr. Ronald Takaki. He turned the pages slowly as Josh waited, still puzzled as to why he never found information of the kind that his friend spoke of. "Here it is. I'll read you bits and pieces of this section. Takaki says here, 'If Americans were to be a virtuous people, would all of the people in the new nation be allowed to become Americans? Shortly before the the beginning of the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin noted that the number of "purely white people" in the world was proportionally very small.'" Josh interjected, "But this was an obvious fact; Franklin had to know that people of color outnumbered Caucasians on the entire planet. I am sure that he knew how densely populated Africa was." "Let me continue. Takaki goes on to say, 'The English were the "principal body of white people" and Franklin wanted more of this type in America. "And while we are?scouring our planet by clearing America of woods, and so making this side of our globe reflect a brighter light to the eyes of inhabitants of Mars or Venus," he declared?'" Josh put his hand on the book. "Wait. You mean to tell me that Ben Franklin believed that deforestation would serve to make the Earth a better reflective surface for Martians?" Demetrius laughed and nodded simultaneously. "Keep listening," he said. "It gets even more ludicrous and insulting." Demetrius began to read the rest of Franklin's statement. "'?he declared, "why should we, in the sight of superior beings, darken its people? Why increase the sons of Africa, by planting them in America, where we have so fair an opportunity by excluding all blacks and tawnies, of increasing the lovely white?'" Josh sat in utter amazement. He really didn't know what to say; a man who he, along with the University, idolized for his great intellectual and inventive qualities, was revealed in a light that he didn't like, but couldn't disregard. This wasn't a stranger that had told this to him -- it was his friend, who had the written proof of Franklin's statements sitting in his lap. So, as you can see, 'Gentle Ben' wasn't too gentle," Demetrius said. "As John Adams once said, 'it would be worse than folly to conceal my opinion of his great faults.'" "If I didn't know all of that stuff, who knows how many people at this school are ignorant of the other side of Franklin's character?" Josh asked as he looked at Demetrius. "I don't know, man. It's a large percentage, though. But even we don't know everything, most likely. I told you most of what I know and I am sure that there is much more to be learned about Ben's other side. It just goes to show you how many things are obscured from us on a daily basis." They both looked up at the statue. Franklin continued to sit there atop his throne, confident as ever, as he oversaw the hustle and bustle of daily college life at "his" university.