Amiri Baraka's "Suppose Sorrow Was a Time Machine"

Amiri Baraka’s short story, “Suppose Sorrow Was a Time Machine,” is about the racial discrimination that existed in Baraka’s family history. The story begins with Baraka introducing his grandfather, Tom Russ to his readers. Tom Russ lived in Dothan, Alabama during the year of 1898 and Baraka demonstrates a feeling of resentment towards him throughout the story. I was able to feel this animosity between Baraka and Tom Russ by the way Baraka speaks to Tom in the story. I noticed that Baraka used first and second point of view, in order to make his story feel as if he is talking to Tom.  For example, he uses second person when he says, “I know you Tom. You are my grandfather” (1). He then uses first person on page two, “I sit here and see Tom smiling at me, winking, knowing full well I hear everything he’s saying.” In the last paragraph of his story though, the story is told in the perspective of his mother saying, “Did you know he fell down on the floor and screamed and kicked his feet when they said they were taking you to this looney pen” (3). In addition, Baraka includes his poetic techniques in his short story by using repetition, short sentences, and words that imitate sounds. Also, his story is written almost in the form of a timeline. Baraka begins with describing Toms’ life in Dothan, Alabama but then moves on to different settings and time periods.  

            There were two thought-provoking scenes in the short story that I thought were meaningful to the message Baraka is trying to get through to his readers. One of the scenes appears in the beginning of the text, when Baraka says, “How obscure is enlightenment? As obscure as dust kicked up on a path nobody walks on, as obscure as birds falling off trees with no god to catch them. All this is O.K, Tom, but what about the unholy bastards who are killing you?” (1). I interpreted this quote as Baraka’s complaining to his grandfather about the way he responded to vibrations he knew about.  In the story, “vibrations” seem to refer to racial violence. Therefore, Baraka is upset by the way his grandfather accepted racial violence. Later on in the short story, we also discover that Tom dislikes Baraka’s father.  Baraka says, “Tom looks him up and down and asks him is he a good man. This is my father who nods and slides his arm around Tom’s daughter. Tom wonders will I look like him, and I nod yes, and he is satisfied and takes out his cigars and chats about the depression” (3). After reading this I got the impression that perhaps Tom did not approve of Baraka’s father because of his skin color. His wish was to have a grandson that reflected himself but instead Baraka came out looking more like his father. This disappointed Tom and he decided to maintain a cold relationship with Baraka. At the end of the short story, we see how Tom’s daughter begs for his acceptance of her son but Tom dies without doing so. It is sad to see how Baraka had affection for his grandfather but his grandfather did not have any for him because of racial discrimination.