Due the press of work and other projects, no regular post this week, only links.
The autobiographies of Frederick Douglass are a milestone of US literary, political, and social history.
To deepen my appreciation for our history and the ongoing crises, racial and otherwise, I have been enjoying the final autobiography of Frederick Douglass, of the three that he wrote. This is the longest and, for obvious reasons, most comprehensive, where he can provide details about his escape and controversial activities that had been too sensitive previously, and cover later parts of his career. It is a paragon of style, incisive analysis, and emotional impact. Not having a great deal to add myself, I give over this blog to a few selected quotes.
Douglass (then named Bailey, and in his late teens), was sent by his master to a Mr. Covey, who specialized in "breaking" unruly slaves, by supervising and working them relentlessly, and whipping them weekly. Finally, after an escape attempt, Douglass he has had enough and fights back, come what may. What comes is that Covey gives in completely, and is cowed for the rest of the year from laying a finger on Douglass.
This battle with Mr. Covey, undignified as it was and as I fear my narration of it is, was the turning point in my "life as a slave." It rekindled in my breast the smouldering embers of liberty. It brought up my Baltimore dreams and revived a sense of my own manhood. I was a changed being after that fight. I was nothing before; I was a man now. It recalled to life my crushed self-respect, and my self-confidence, and inspired me with a renewed determination to be a free man. A man without force is without the essential dignity of humanity. Human nature is so constituted, that it cannot honor a helpless man, though it can pity him, and even this it cannot do long if signs of power do not arise. p. 591 in the American library edition of the autobiographies of Frederick Douglass.
Douglass took a long tour in Britain, where he marvels at the discrimination he is not experiencing. It remains a deep statement about the work that still now remains.
I seem to have undergone a transformation. I live a new life. The warm and generous cooperation extended to me by the friends of my despised race; the prompt and liberal manner in which the press has rendered me its aid; the glorious enthusiasm with which thousands have flocked to hear the cruel wrongs of my down-trodden and long-enslaved fellow-countrymen portrayed; the deep sympathy for the slave, and the strong abhorrence of the slaveholder, everywhere evinced; the cordiality with which members and ministers of various religious bodies, and of various shades of religious opinion, have embraced me and lent me their aid; the kind hospitality constantly proffered me by persons of the highest rank in society; the spirit of freedom that seems to animate all with whom I come in contact, and the entire absence of everything that looks to me like prejudice against me, on account of the color of my skin, contrast so strongly with my long and bitter experience in the United States, that I look with wonder and amazement at the transition. In the southern part of the United States, I was a slave - thought of and spoken of as property; in the language of the law, "held, taken, reputed, and adjudged to be a chattel in the and of my owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators, and assigns, to all intents, constructions, and purposes, whatsoever". In the Northern States, a fugitive slave, liable to be hunted at any moment like a felon, and to be hurled into the terrible jaws of slavery- doomed, by an inveterate prejudice against color, to insult and outrage on every hand (Massachusetts out of the question)- denied the privileges and courtesies common to others in the use of the most humble means of conveyance- shut out from the cabins on steamboats, refused admission to respectable hotels, caricatured, scorned, scoffed, mocked, and maltreated with impunity by any one, no matter how black his heart, so he has a white skin. But now behold the change! Eleven days and a half gone, and I have crossed three thousand miles of perilous deep. Instead of a democratic government, I am under a monarchial government. Instead of the bright blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, gray fog of the Emerald Isle. I breathe, and lo! the chattel becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as a slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab- I am seated beside white people- I reach the hotel- I enter the same door- I am shown the same parlor- I dine at the same table- and no one is offended. No delicate nose grows deformed in my presence. I find no difficulty here in obtaining admission into any place of worship, instruction, or amusement, on equal terms with people as white as any I ever saw in the United States. I meet nothing to remind me of my complexion. I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When I go to church I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip, to tell me "We don't allow niggers in here." pp. 688-689, ibid.
Douglass looks at the pre-civil war politics of Southern resentment and entitlement, upon the growing spread and success of the abolition movement, which had been Douglass's work for the prior decade.
... Mr. Calhoun and other southern statesmen were more than ever alarmed at the rapid increase of anti-slavery feeling in the North, and devoted their energies more and more to the work of devising means to stay the torrents and tie up the storm. They were not ignorant of whereunto this sentiment would grow if unsubjected and unextinguished. Hence they became fierce and furious in debate, and more extravagant than ever in their demands for additional safeguards for their system of robbery and murder. Assuming that the Constitution guaranteed their rights of property in their fellow men, they held it to be in open violation of the Constitution for any American citiazen in any part of the United States to speak, write, or act against this right. But this shallow logic they plainly saw could do them no good unless they could obtain further safeguards for slavery. In order to effect this the idea of so changing the Constitution was suggested that there should be two instead of one President of the United States- one from the North and the other from the South- and that no measure should become a law without the assent of both. But this device was so utterly impracticable that it soon dropped out of sight, and it is mentioned here only to show the desperation of the slaveholders to prop up their system of barbarism against which the sentiment of the North was being directed with destructive skill and effect. They clamored for more slave States, more power in the Senate and House of Representatives, and insisted upon the suppression of free speech. At the end of two years, in 1850, when Clay and Calhoun, two of the ablest leaders the South ever had, were still in the Senate, we had an attempt at a settlement of the differences between the North and South which our legislators meant to be final. What those measures were I need not here enumerate, except to say that chief among them was the Fugitive Slave Bill, frames by James M. Mason of Virginia and supported by Daniel Webster of Massachusetts- a bill undoubtedly more designed to involve the North in complicity with slavery and deaden its moral sentiment than to procure the return of fugatives to their so-called owners. For a time this design did not altogether fail. Letters, speeches, and pamphlets literally rained down upon the people of the North, reminding them of their constitutional duty to hunt down and return to bondage any runaway slaves. In this the preachers were not much behind the press and the politicians, especially that class of preachers known as Doctors of Divinity. A long list of these came forward with their Bibles to show that neither Christ nor his holy apostles objected to returning fugatives to slavery. Now that that evil day is past, a sight of those sermons would, I doubt not, bring the red blush of shame to the cheeks of many. pp. 722-723, ibid.
In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln, the North sought ways to avoid war ... does this attitude sound familiar?
While this humiliating reaction was going on at the North, various devices to bring about peace and reconciliation were suggested and pressed at Washington. Committees were appointed to listen to Southern grievances, and, if possible, devise means of redress for such as might be alleged. Some of these peace propositions would have been shocking to the last degree tot he moral sense of the North, had not fear for the safety of the Union overwhelmed all moral conviction. Such men as William H. Seward, Charles Francis Adams, Henry B. Anthony, Joshua R. Giddings, and others- men whose courage had been equal to all other emergencies- bent before this southern storm, and were ready to purchase peace at any price. ... Everything that could be demanded by insatiable pride and selfishness on the part of the slave-holding South, or could be surrendered by abject fear and servility on the part of the North, had able and eloquent advocates.
Happily for the cause of human freedom, and for the final unity of the American nation, the South was mad, and would listen to no concessions. It would neither accept the terms offered, nor offer others to be accepted. It had made up its mind that under a given contingency it would secede from the Union and thus dismember the Republic. pp.770-771, ibid.
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| Douglass's influence can be appreciated in small part by this piece in his honor by N. Clark Smith. |
A brief travelogue.
I've been traveling. Yes, the pandemic is the perfect time to stretch out and explore new places, virtually. "The Korean Mind" is a remarkable, and remarkably frank book about the history, culture, and mindset of Korea, built around its most significant and loaded words- so-called code words. While this unique format provides a fascinating hopscotch through Korean culture, it also gets a little repetitive, as many words cover similar territory. Duty and honor, for instance, are staples of the Korean mind-set and come up in countless guises and words.
One major theme is the extreme repression, formality, and strict hierarchy prevalent in Korean culture. Over their two thousand years of history, they have been through many vicissitudes, but retained a heavily hierarchical and duty-bound system, patterned on Chinese Confucianism. Koreans were even more inward-looking and more extremely repressed by their rulers and cultural system, at least till after the Korean War, than the Chinese or other neighbors. They were, as a whole, a true hermit kingdom for most of a millennium, like the North is still today. The author emphasizes repeatedly that the highly repressive nature of the cultural system had wide-ranging psychological effects, severely limiting circles of friendship, requiring elaborate forms of social interaction, including bribery, gift-giving, bowing and other gestures of obedience and respect, a large and mandatory set of honorifics, a curiously liberated drinking culture, and an ethic of incredible durability, hard work and survival. And integral to all this was particularly harsh treatment of women, who were (again, until very recently) on the lowest end of every conceivable hierarchy.
The author reiterates frequently that foreigners working in Korea are prone to many disasters on these accounts, since the surface placidity and formality of Koreans is part of a precise system of interactions and covers very passionate natures, ready to take offense at missteps, and even take revenge for perceived slights and disrespect. He advises an attitude of perpetual humility and the use of an experienced advisor for guidance through the minefield. Also advisable is karaoke and drinking sessions, which are standard in Korean business and life, to relax and form relationships with people otherwise held at arm's length or further. A related point is that no one "becomes" Korean. A Westerner can spend her life in Korea and marry into a Korean family, and sill not be accepted as fully Korean, or have her children accepted as fully Korean.
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| Kim Hee-jung, minister of family and gender equality- a member of the enormous Kim lineage clan, and example of female power in Korea today. |
On the plus side, the release of Korea from Japanese domination after world war 2, and gradually from its own legacy of mindless authoritarianism, has in turn released huge amounts of personal and entrepreneurial energy, channelling some of that authoritarianism into corporate cultures that have taken the world by storm, and created an economic powerhouse. One aspect of Korea's cultural pride is its language, which is, as one can imagine, difficult to master in its deep cultural dimensions. This language can be written in two ways, (leaving aside Romanization as a third). One is a simplified character system called Hangul, which was devised in 1444 as a practical writing system, superseding the Chinese characters that were standard, and remained standard for centuries to come, due to the Confucianist recalcitrance of the scholar / bureaucratic class. Chinese is arduous to learn, with tens of thousands of symbols of ever-diminishing utility and frequency. Hangul has only 24 letters, so functions very much like a Western writing system, is easy to learn, and was emphasized after the liberations of the 20th century as the standard Korean writing system. Yet today, with the increasing influence of China, the study of Chinese is regaining prominence, forcing Koreans to learn three languages (Korean, Chinese, and English, and perhaps Japanese), if they want to function in international business.
The relationship of Korea with Japan is particularly interesting. Korea contributed a great deal to early Japanese culture, being more technologically and culturally advanced one to two millennia ago. Pottery is one outstanding example. Many Japanese have Korean heritage, often unacknowledged. Korea and Japan remain culturally kin. But Japan took a quite martial turn early on, becoming sort of the Vikings of the region, raiding Korea frequently. This culminated in the complete takeover of Korea in 1910, enslaving the population and trying to exterminate Korean culture. Obviously, this led to a great deal of bad blood, motivating Koreans today to beat Japan whenever they can, especially in the commercial sphere. At the same time, Koreans do a great deal of business in Japan and respect the turn that Japan has taken since the war to become a largely pacifist country.
One of the most distinctive aspects of the so-called Korean mind is an ethical stance quite distinct from what Westerners are used to- situational and highly personal ethics. The strong emphasis on correct, rule-based formality is, as natural in Confucian systems, somewhat superficial, hiding roiling emotions and resentments. Morality in this system is likewise relatively superficial, heavily oriented to save face for one's self and people with whom one has specific relationships, not staked on universal principles, truth, equality, etc. Revenge for slights is acceptable, as is complete dismissal of strangers, and lying to save face. Networking is tremendously important, through personal connections, without which a person in Korea has virtually no way to operate at all. Understandably, getting to the bottom of all this can take years of study and acculturation.
Written mostly as a guide to foreign business people, The Korean Mind is perhaps overly pessimistic about their prospects, but is tremendously enlightening for the casual reader and armchair adventurer.
A brief introduction to one of the more intriguing organelles of eukaryotes.
One of the star organelles of eukaryotes is the Golgi apparatus- great name, elegant structure, and mysterious function. Sharp-eyed readers might have spotted one in last week's post about coronavirus replication, though that virus mostly circumvents the Golgi apparatus in its trip through the secretory system to infect more people (going directly from post-endoplasmic reticulum vesicles to the exterior). This week, using a recent theoretical paper, we will delve into the nature and rationale of the Golgi apparatus.
What we do know is that the Golgi organelle is where a lot of protein processing happens. It is the major way-station from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)- where proteins destined for the membranes, vesicle organelles, and exterior of the cell are synthesized- to their final states and destinations. So it both directs traffic, and also directs post-translational modifications like glycosylation, sialylation, and phosphorylation, by way of short sequences, or addresses, on the individual proteins. And all this is done via a series of vesicle budding and fusion events, since it is vesicles that carry proteins from the ER to the cis face of the Golgi, and onwards from the ends of each Golgi stack to the next (medial and trans) stacks of the Golgi, and thence off to destinations like the plasma membrane and lysosome. For example, insulin is a secreted protein, translated into the ER. Its key disulfide bonds form in the ER, but its cleavage into two interconnected peptides happens in the Golgi, after which it is stabilized and stored in secretory vesicles, ready for release when glucose signals arrive at the pancreas. These processing steps often have to be done sequentially. For example, sialylation can only happen after the core glycosylation has happened. This gives some direction and rationale to the gradual and stepwise nature of the Golgi transit / processing system.
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| Electron micrograph (right) and schematic (left) of a Golgi apparatus, with ER-originating vesicles entering from top, and secretory vesicles leaving from the bottom, towards the plasma membrane and exterior of the cell. The story is one of vesicles, both for inputs and outputs, but also as the carriers of traffic between the various internal stages, or cisternae, of the apparatus. |
We also know that the key enzymes of the Golgi, which carry out the protein processing and regulate the apparatus's own stability, are often membrane proteins, have their own addressing system, and engage in retrograde (i.e. backward) vesicular transport, which keeps them localized to the stack where they are supposed to stay, against the general flow of proteins going forward through the apparatus. There is also a special set of switch-like GTPase proteins, called Rab proteins, that control some aspects of Golgi form and function, and additional proteins, GRASPS and golgins, which all affect Golgi structure, by mutational studies. There are also cytoskeletal interactions, as the Rab proteins appear to regulate the activity of specialized myosins that are motors on actin, and dynein/microtubule activity as well. These at very least help to orient the Golgi with respect to the source (ER) and destination (exterior) locations, but may have more intimate roles in the shape of the Golgi and the paths that its voluminous vesicle traffic takes, within its compartments, and externally.
So there are many clues and ideas, but as yet we do not know fully how this structure forms and maintains itself- why do stacks form at all? Are the stacks stable, or do their pancakes progress and mature, like a slow conveyor belt from cis to trans, with new ones forming behind? A recent paper tries to synthesize past theories and evidence to come up with a unified model of self-organization for the Golgi. Unfortunately, it struggles to even represent the golgi, let alone explain it, so I will summarize briefly.
They set up a few relations- the preference vesicles generally have to fuse with similar membranes, the maturation of each membrane micro-domain and locations near it through time, as processing of the nearby proteins (both on the membrane surface and within the vesicle) takes place, and the formation of vesicles out of such matured subdomains. From these more or less empirical premises, they develop a model that they can tune on several parameters- the budding rate, the fusion rate, and the rate of purification of nearby domains, thus the purity of budding vesicles, with regard to stages of secretory processing. Vesicles of mixed purity can fuse in either direction, retrograde or anterograde (forward with the next cistern of the Golgi apparatus). But the more pure the segregation of components is at vesicle budding sites, (and indeed within the budded vesicles, while they are underway), the more forward-biased the whole process becomes. This leads, with certain parameters, to a reasonably realistic, if highly abstract, model of the Golgi.
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| Author's general model of the substructure of the Golgi apparatus, and some alternate models of traffic flow. Here the direction is turned around, with ER proteins arriving from below. Models that propose wholesale maturation and movement of Golgi sub-compartments are unlikely to be true, in light of genetic experiments that dissociate and tie down portions of the Golgi to mitochondria, and find that their character remains stable. PM = plasma membrane; TGN = trans-Golgi network; ERGIC = endoplasmic reticulum- Golgi intermediate compartment. |
All this simply follows from their assumptions and modeling. For instance, it is entertaining to see that raising the budding vs fusion rates can cause vesicle sizes to decline, leading to a flurry of tiny vesicles. Whether this modeling helps account for the features of known actors and mutants, of which there are many that affect Golgi structure and function, is claimed, but not easy to evaluate. In the end, it would probably be much better to address the actual molecular function of these proteins, and place them in a biochemical network of interactions and regulation, to build an explicit model of what is going on, rather than one that treats the Golgi as an abstraction. Reconstitution of Golgi activity from pure components, which would be the ideal method, is likely to be extremely difficult, given its great complexity. Genetics will doubtless remain the main tool.
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| Vesicles and other membrane structures induced by coronaviruses. The large double-walled structures are called DMV, or double membrane vesicles. The tiny vesicles around them are called DMS or double membrane spherules. And the mess labeled CM (including a few clear spherules) stands for convoluted membranes. These are all induced by viral infection and viral RNA replication seems to happen in or on the DMVs. |
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| Schematic prediction of the transmembrane structure of viral protein nsp6. |
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| DMV structures are full of double-stranded viral RNA, indicating a core role in replication. |
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| Brief labeling by radioactive nucleotides to find the location of replication gives ambiguous results, but points to DMVs. Note the beautiful electron micrograph of mitochondria (mm) and other cellular & viral structures. ER is endoplasmic reticulum, RO is replicative organelles (of the virus, which includes DMVs), and VCR stands for virion-containing region. |
