To My Dear Friend, Joel Barlow by Chavonn Shen

First runner-up in the 2018 Los Angeles Review Literary Awards, in the category of Flash Fiction.

Final Judge: Ron Koertge

Letters From the Desk of President Jefferson

June 19th, 1804

Mister Barlow,

I hope this letter finds you well. I write to you as if a stone were on my chest. Our peculiar institution faces upheaval, due to freed negros boasting of false achievements. I am speaking in particular of one negro, named Benjamin Banneker, who acts like he is no negro at all. He is gaining fame, dare I say notoriety, for his scientific skill, which in truth are just acts of guile. Enemies of nature seek to prove that a negro – born to simple field slaves! – could contribute to worthy studies like mathematics and astronomy, is folly at best. I fear this nonsense will spread to the most vulnerable in our newly formed states and lay waste to all we have fostered. There is no need for chattel to think – if one can assume they think – one of their own could share company with Whites of obvious higher intellect. Such talk only leads to ruin. I’m sure you recall that incompetent rebellion led by the slave Gabriel. He was literate, which was clearly a mistake as it could have led to the deaths of many good masters – masters, I believe, who have their slaves’ best interest at heart by forbidding them from learning likewise. The negro mind is not to read books or form independent thoughts. He is purposed to serve rather than be served. It is proven they are greater satisfied in this way. That is why that Banneker negro, whom I have heard is quite the drunkard, is not meant to build grandiose clocks – he is better suited fetching wood for others to make them. I have read his unduly promoted almanac and heard baseless speech that he knows the stars as if he placed them there himself, but I much prefer Franklin’s work as I know he is a true man of science. Banneker’s followers are gullible zealots, though it is common knowledge that others wrote for him. Whether he obtains his work through brutality or sorcery, I do not know.

Let us stand united, Mister Barlow, for our infantile country needs our governance.

Your faithful friend,

Chavonn Williams Shen was a winner of the Still I Rise grant, a first runner-up for the Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction Contest and a Best of the Net Award finalist. She was also a Pushcart Prize nominee, a winner of the Mentor Series in Poetry and Creative Prose through the Loft Literary Center, and a fellow through the Givens Foundation for African American Literature. A Tin House and VONA workshop alum, her poetry and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in: Yemassee, the Los Angeles Review, Permafrost Magazine, Cosmonauts Avenue, and elsewhere.