Reagan's Dogwhistle Racist Appeals: A Scorecard of the Recent Debate

1: Paul Krugman brings up the issue in his recent book. (Link to online discussion of the book.) (Update: Krugman also mentioned it, in passing, in a recent column. (via))

2: David Brooks defends Reagan in his column against this revived "slur", without mentioning Krugman by name (following NYT convention).

3: Krugman responds on his NYT blog (again, without mentioning Brooks by name).

4: Bob Herbert devotes his column to the topic, coming in on the side of Krugman and historical truth against whitewashing. (Yet again, no names are mentioned.)

4a: Matt Yglesias points out that this whole "no mentioning names" thing is really bloody ridiculous, and the NYT should just get over itself and let its columnists argue explicitly. Word.

5: Historian Joseph Crespino weighs in on the side of Herbert & Krugman (via). (Not writing for the pretentious NYT, but rather a web site, he mentions Brooks's by name.)

5a: Kevin Drum, one of the liberal whitewashers cited by name (since he isn't a NYT columnist, he's fair game, apparently) by Brooks in his column, calls it for the Krugman side.

5b: So does Matt Ygelsias, correcting his slight (and uncharacteristic) wimpiness in the above-linked post.

[Update: Publius has a worthwhile blog post on this entire debate.]

The question of the day: will David Brooks continue to try to defend the indefensible? Will he keep digging himself deeper in? Or will he drop the topic, and let the NYT's silly anonymity policy allow him to pretend that he hasn't been totally pwned by his colleagues as well as others? -- I'm voting for the latter.

(If anyone has any key links I've left out, please leave 'em in comments!)

[Update:]
...And the debate continues!

6: Lou Cannon, Reagan's biographer, defends him on the op-ed pages of the NYT on the grounds that Reagan "was not a bigot".

6a: Matt Yglesias has disdain for Cannon's arguments.

7: Krugman at last devotes an actual, honest-to-God NYT column to the topic. It's good. Astonishingly, Krugman actually mentions Bob Herbert by name... but in a complementary way, so maybe it's okay. (And David Brooks -- who at this point should start wearing a bag over his head in public -- goes unnamed.)

Word of the Day

Quoth Fred Clarke: "Acts 8:26-39. This is the story of the apostle Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. Now to a liberal backslider such as myself, this passage is another example of the anvilicious motif of inclusion that dominates the first half of Luke's account."

"Anvilicious". Hmm. Not in my mac dictionary. Fortunately, Google knows all.* From the site "Television tropes":

A portmanteau of anvil and either delicious or malicious, depending on the usage, anvilicious describes a writer's and/or director's use of an artistic element, be it line of dialog, visual motif, or plot point, to so obviously convey a particular message that the viewer feels as if he is being hit on the head with an anvil. Frequently, the element becomes anvilicious through unnecessary repetition, but true masters can achieve anviliciousness with a single stroke. Heavy-handed for the new millennium.... If the work of art goes beyond anvilicious into hectoring lectures, then it has become an Author Filibuster.

Got it! Use it in a sentence to be sure: "Bush long since reached an an anvilicious level of evil."

Cool word. Thanks, Fred!

(Click through to TV motifts to read a list of examples, and for links to other amusing TV terms with applicability to real life; click through to Fred's site for a characteristically good slacktivist post.)

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* Including, unfortunately, the speculative, the possible but not actual, and the outright false.

I Geek-Surf So You Don't Have To

Members of the Writer's Guild of America (which covers TV & movies) are out on strike. This is a link round-up.

WGA members on the strike:

• Joss Whedon
• Brian K. Vaughan (via)
• Jane Espenson (via, who also a link to Obama & Edwards's comments)
• J. Michael Straczynski (follow-up here; he also opines that "In order to have any real impact, the strike will have to be at least as long as the '88 strike, which lasted six months")
• John Rogers, aka Kung Fu Monkey, who also has links to a lot more (plus a brief note -- but with bonus Coultony goodness! -- here)

(I haven't seen any specific comments from them, but the strike is also supported by David Simon, creator of The Wire, Ronald Moore, creator of the revamped Battlestar Galactica, and a great many other TV writers/producers too... almost everyone whose work I enjoy in TV (and the rest I probably just haven't seen yet, to be honest.))

Other WGA strike blogging:

• Nathan Newman, always good on labor issues, adds a bit of historical context
• (Update) ...and, as usual, what Digby said.

I'll add more links if and when I see 'em...

Update: Again via Atrios (who's been blogging this a lot), this is a blog focusing on the strike. Lots of interesting stuff there.

Another Update, with more Whedon-y Goodness: Joss Whedon has been blogging the strike over at Whedonesque; aside from the above-linked comment, here are his posts on the topic: one, two three. ("I can’t let this shoddy journalism go unanswered. They have turned me into a blogger. And that I do not forgive.") The first one is the one to read if you read only one.

And just for kicks, here are photos of the Mutant Enemy writers on strike.

(PS: I think that this link should get you to a Whedonesque page with just Joss posts on it -- including, presumably, any future posts he does on the strike.)

Link Round-Up: Popular Culture Edition

Another link round-up, this time more or less all about popular culture (as usual, this was serendipitous, not planned). Things to read or watch or look at:

• Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Album covers of all time.

• The New Yorker's profile of David Simon, the creator of The Wire (possibly the best TV show ever).

• The twelve devices Charles Schultz considered essential for Peanuts' success. (via)

• Somewhat off-topic (or is an internet joke popular culture? I can't keep track): An open letter (via).

• Geek humor: Frank Miller meets Adam West. (Also: Pink Batman.)

• The Star Trek captain that wasn't: clips of Genevieve Bujold, the actor who was hired to play Voyager's captain Janeway, in a few of the scenes she did for the role before being replaced with Kate Mulgrew.

• Joss Whedon's doing a new TV show, with Elisha Dushku... except that he just went out on strike. Drat. (Links to more here. Oh, and the show already has a fan site. Dang.)

• Abigail Nussbaum has links to the twelve minute "pilot" for the unmade Veronica Mars season four (part two). Despite the unevenness of seasons two and three (in contrast to the utter brilliance of season one) -- and despite some serious misgivings about the premise of the proposed season four -- I'd definitely have watched it. Too bad they didn't make it.

(Update: links added.)

(Housekeeping note: As previously noted, I'm in the midst of a blog-slowdown, so original content (as opposed to links such as these, and even to some extent those) will be light until mid-November at least. Check back then for more substantial Attempts...)

New York Readers: Contact Schumer!

Any of my readers from New York (state) should contact Senator Schumer and demand that he vote against Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey in the Judiciary Committee (on which he sits). Mukasey has refused to say that waterboarding -- a standard method of torture from the Inquisition through Khmer Rouge through, horrifyingly, Bush's America -- is torture.

Mukasey's nomination is now before the Judiciary committee; if it doesn't get out of committee, odds are he won't be confirmed. And Schumer is a key vote -- and is refusing to say how he'll vote: his mind is not made up.

The descent of the U.S. to its open embrace of torture is one of the (many) things vying for the most horrifying acts of the Bush Administration*; and our senator, who happens to be in a key post, is on the fence about it. Tell him to vote no.

Update: ...and Schumer comes out in favor of Michael Waterboardin' Mukasey. Nuts.
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* Well, after invading Iraq: that's pretty safely at number one, unless he invades Iran.

Since It's Halloween, Here's Something Genuinely Scary

Andrew Meyer loves Big Brother. (via, although this post is better reading.)

Happy Halloween.

(Update: I'd forgotten it, but I bet I got this formulation from here.)

What Josh Marshall Said

Here:

If Obama is looking for an issue where the politics and the substance both point in the same direction it's sitting right in front of him: Iran. In front of everyone's eyes we are creeping toward a catastrophic replay of the mistakes the country made half a decade ago in Iraq. You hear the same arguments -- 'time is not on our side,' etc. All nonsense. Even among the 'sensible' people on this issue the common assumption is that yes, eventually we may need to go to war. But we need to give more time to diplomacy, etc. This is all nonsense and it's a set of shared assumptions that now appears to unite Hillary with all the Republican candidates. At least that's one way to interpret her recent remarks. This is an issue that goes to the heart of America's future role in the world. And it's an issue that could work for him. Or someone, if they'd pick it up and start talking sense.

Between his embrace of anti-gay bigotry (more here) and this whole social security debacle, Obama is continuing to work hard to eliminate any sense that he'd be as good as, well, we all hoped he'd be.

But of course invading Iran would be a disaster of unparalleled proportions (at least in recent history); and Obama was, once upon a time, right on the Iraq war. And it'd be nice to have a !@#$%ing Democrat who was anti-war...

How 'bout it, Obama?

(All links via Atrios, since I've otherwise been off-line all weekend...)

Giuliani versus the Other Racing Republicans

I think that, except for Guiliani, any of the Republicans running -- Romney, McCain, Huckabee, whoever -- would be as bad as Bush has been. (And bear in mind here that Bush has been the worst president in U.S. history.) With different emphases probably -- a smidge better here, a bunch worse there. But overall, equally bad. (Why is a longer topic than I have time for in my current blog slowdown, but I think it has to do with structural forces at play in American politics today, especially on the right, rather than anything about these men as such.)

But Guiliani has the unique distinction that he would be distinctly and clearly far worse than Bush has been.

The unparalleled disaster that a Guiliani administration would be shouldn't blind us to how terribly, terribly bad the others would be; conversely, the fact that every single one of them would tie the worst president in history shouldn't blind us to the fact that one in particular would be even worse.

Go Sox!!

Hurrah for the home team!

(This has been my annual sports-related post. In other blogging news, my current blogging slowdown, scheduled to last until mid-November, continues. But don't go away for long -- I'll be back before winter (FSM willing.))

Way to Go Senator Dodd!!

Senator Dodd rocks. (via)

Too bad Clinton & Obama didn't show this sort of !@#$%ing leadership.

(If you're wondering "why is this so important?" then see Glenn Greenwald here and here. His reaction to Dodd's action is here.)

Don't forget to sign the petition!

Update, Next Day: Harry Reid, on the other hand, seems like a bought-and-paid-for stooge for the telecom companies, and thereby an accessory to Bush's shredding of the Constitution. Shame on him: shame on any Democrat who helps him.

Friday Bird Blogging

Yes, we're still in the middle of my mid-autumn blogging slowdown (scheduled to continue through mid-November). But that doesn't mean I can't do an old blogosphere meme: Friday pet-blogging!

So here are a few photos of our lovebirds, Snark & Boojum, (their names are explained here) from this week.

Posing with Sara


Ready for their close-up


This is the second one of a pair I took, one right
after the other; here they're looking up having
heard the shutter of the first one (and/or seen the flash).


Back inside and ready for a nap.

Oh, and if I have any Ithaca-area readers, remember that the Fall booksale is in mid-swing now: second weekend (of three) begins tomorrow...

Update on a Totally Different Matter: Hooray for Al Gore! Although I still think the world would've been better off if he'd become President after the presidential election he won, rather than having it stolen by his opponent.

The Daily Coolness

Is the dancer going clockwise or counter-clockwise?

Make sure to look long enough to get the motion to flip. For me, the default is powerfully counter-clockwise -- that's what I see first, and if I look away and look back, it returns to that -- but I can get it to go the other way if I focus. (Which, according to the article, means I'm left-brained dominant.) Here's what worked for me: try thinking about whether her extended leg is going in front of or behind her balancing one -- and then try imagine it going behind when you had been seeing it in front, and vice-versa. But my wife got it to switch by changing the way she was thinking about it from logical to holistic and back again.

Any way you look at it, it's extremely cool.

Department of Things That Just Ain't So

From Cal Thomas's column today: "No Christian who believes the Bible believes in universalism."

Cal Thomas, meet Keith DeRose. You may disagree with his interpretation of the bible (as I disagree with his, and your, metaphysics); but the notion that he isn't a "Christian who believes the Bible" is ridiculous. Also note the links to other writings taking a similar position.

(Link to Cal Thomas via Steve Benen, who talks about some of the other problematic things in this column.)

Afterthought: Incidentally, I don't think the main point of Cal Thomas's column is right either -- among other things, I think he's misrepresenting what Bush said. (I can't believe I'm defending Bush!) I think Bush was just trying to say something akin to what C. S. Lewis says at the beginning of chapter six of Mere Christianity. Two people can believe they're worshiping the same God even while acknowledging they have different ideas about what He's like and what He wants. (The puzzler is, would two atheists say that two theists are worshiping the same God, given that they don't think there is an entity which corresponds to their intentional object. -- That I don't know. Is there a philosopher in the house?)

This Could Get Really !@#$%ing Ugly

NYT: Turkey Authorizes Troops to Enter Iraq to Fight Rebels

Via Tristero, who has more. See also this AP article.

Ten Still-Fresh Links

Lots of things on the web are evergreens: just as good a year from now as a year ago. Pieces whose virtue are not bound by historical moment.

So here are ten things I've linked to in the past that are still just as good, just as fresh, just as worth reading (seeing, hearing, whatevering) as they were when I linked to them. If I wrote about them (rather than just including a link in a list), I've linked to my comments too. But for the most part you can just click through -- they're all good.

1. Orson Welles reading selections from Walt Whitman's Song of Myself (real audio file). (Link to my earlier comments.)
2. Jonathan Lethem's essay The Ecstasy of Influence: a Plagiarism
3. The songs of Jonathan Coulton (Link to my first Coulton post -- link to my follow-up post; both have favorite lists)
4. The poems of W. H. Auden (Link to my earlier comments, including a list of some of my favorites)
5. Peter Watts's powerpoint on vampire biology (Link to my earlier comments)
6. Adam Gopnik's essay on the Starr Report
7. Michael Kelly's parody of lateral thinking tests.
8. The documentary film Jesus Camp - online in its entirety.
9. Martin Luther King's speech against the Vietnam war (audio & text)
10. Peter Watts's novel Blindsight, featuring the vampires profiled in item 5 above

(My current blog-slowdown, discussed here, is still in effect, and is likely to last into November. Expect normal blogging to resume thereafter.)

"A need to demonstrate their willingness to shed blood"

It's a staple of the Buffyverse, and so many other fantasy/horror/etc genre pieces: a villain needs to kill someone -- often an innocent -- to gain power, to complete some demonic ritual, or simply to get an "in" with the right group.* It's a staple, of course, for the reason that many genre tropes are: it works, and works well, reliably and simply. And it works, of course, because nothing is so powerfully, unmistakably evil as killing someone simply for power or access or ritual. Thus, in drama, it works as a universal code for "evil person".

Well, via Glenn Greenwald's post today, we have this from the New York Times (December 21, 1989):

For George Bush ['41], the United States invasion of Panama early this morning constituted a Presidential initiation rite as well as an attempt to achieve specific goals. For better or for worse, most American leaders since World War II have felt a need to demonstrate their willingness to shed blood to protect or advance what they construe as the national interest... [List of leaders omitted.] All of them acted in the belief that the American political culture required them to show the world promptly that they carried big sticks.

Emphasis added.

There it is, folks, in the newspaper of record: it is a requirement -- or felt to be a requirement, which amounts to the same thing -- of "American political culture" that Presidents act like the cheapest of horror of villains.

This is not some wide-eyed leftie radical saying this; it's the New York fucking Times. The only difference is that a wide-eyed leftie radical would probably see this as immoral, rather than neutral or good, which is how American political culture -- or at least American political elites -- see it.

Something to remember next time you hear someone talk about America's goodness, how we run our foreign policy on moral grounds rather than self-interest (or even in addition to self interest), etc. Whereas in fact we require our leaders to be Buffy-style villains... and no one even thinks that it's wrong.

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* I was going to cite an example here, but they are endless, from the blood needed to power the ritual at the end of the opening two-parter of Buffy Season one through the initiation ritual of the powerful evil circle at the end of Angel's Season Five. It's simply ubiquitous.

Blogging, Recent and Forthcoming

Counting this post, I've put up 27 posts in September: significantly surpassing my previous record of 20 for a single month (from March of this year and July, 2006). For various reasons, however, I have quite suddenly gotten far busier, and will likely stay that way for a while -- through October at least, and possibly well into November.

So while September was busy here at Attempts, don't expect October to be. It doesn't mean I've abandoned the blog (FSM forbid!); it's just (unavoidably) on the back burner for a while.

This also means that my ongoing-series on The Liberal Argument Against Hillary Clinton will have to be delayed. I quite definitely intend to finish it -- and to do so before any primary ballots are cast. But it won't be on the schedule I optimistically forecast for in my most recent entry. I may get an entry or two up in October; otherwise, look for the final three parts in November.

Finally, since I have done so many posts this month, I thought I'd highlight a few of the better ones, in case you missed them. (They slipped down page faster than usual, after all.)

As far as political posts go, aside from the aforementioned Clinton series, I also was personally fond of my 9/11 memorial post, Grief and the Uses of Grief, which, while ending on a political note, had some more general things to say about grief and loss, too.

In non-political posts, I would draw your attention to my review of Gene Wolfe's two-volume novel, The Wizard Knight; and my review of Bryan Talbot's graphic novel, Alice in Sunderland.

And while it's probably of less general interest, my tracking down of a quote from Montaigne might be of interest to some. This came up, of course, with the addition of random sidebar quotes to Attempts, which also happened this month; re-load the page to get a new quote, or go here to see all of them.

I hope you'll bear with me in the forthcoming slowdown; I particular apologize for the delay in the Clinton series (although, to repeat, I have very intention of finishing it before any votes are cast). The present busyness, while it is likely to last a few weeks at minimum, is temporary, and will lift eventually. (Also, if the past is any guide, the fact that I'm putting up a "slowdown forthcoming" notice all-but guarantees that I'll have a new post up shortly. Seems to always happen that way.)

And, as always, my deep & sincere thanks for reading.

The Tin Woodman Shoots Up

Talking to a friend today, he pointed out that if you look at the original W. W. Denslaw illustrations to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, you can clearly see that the Tin Woodman is shooting up. I just checked -- the entire original edition is online as images at the Library of Congress, bless 'em -- and by Cthulhu's tentacles, he's right.

Remember the scene: Dorothy and the Scarecrow find the Tin Woodman rusted still. They oil him, and he feels better; then he takes the oil can and finishes oiling himself. How does Denslaw portray this?

Here's the image from page 60:

And here's how he feels after that:

Part of the trick here is that you need to see the two pages -- on facing pages in the original edition -- together. Here's how they pair in a single image:

(click for larger version)

I don't know if Baum intended this (although my friend did point out that Baum sent his characters through a poppy field to get sleepy), but it's clear what Denslaw was doing.

Pretty wild, huh?

Unrelated Housekeeping Note: Part six of the Liberal Argument against Hillary Clinton is indeed coming. But I fear it's going to be another day or three. This pesky little thing called "real life" has gotten in the way. Fortunately, the first primaries are still four months away, and it's not like anyone's going to pick a candidate for us before then -- by declaring her "inevitable" or "unstoppable" or anything like that. Right? Right?

Link Round-Up: Special Non-Politics Edition!

Look for part six of my ongoing series on the liberal argument against Hillary Clinton tomorrow or Friday -- FSM willing. (Scroll down for parts one - five -- or follow that link.) In the meantime, here is a Special! New! Politics Free! edition of Link Round-Up.

Comics:

• Brad Curran has a question: why aren't more people talking about the fact that Joss Whedon is writing a web comic for Dark Horse? My guess is that it's because the web interface makes the damn thing all-but unreadable. Issue 2 is up now; but I couldn't find a link to issue 1 anywhere on the site. (Google knows all, however: here's a direct link to "issue 1", without all their crappy formatting around it and here's a direct link to "issue 2".) And it's clearly formatted for print, so even those direct links don't read all that well. It's too bad, seeing as how Joss is boss and everything.

• Zot!'s coming back! I can't tell you how excited I am about this. HarperCollins is reprinting the B&W issues of Zot! (#11 to the end of the run), Scott McCloud's wonderful, charming first comic (via). Three out of four* promised volumes were printed, way back in the day -- one printing the (really skippable) first 10 (color) issues, and two printing the first 2/3 of the B&W series. But the final volume never appeared. I asked him when I saw him speak (in the autograph line) if it would ever come out... he said maybe. I didn't believe him. O me of little faith! It will be well-worth re-purchasing the first 2/3 of the series to get the end. If you haven't ever read Zot!, Scott did a web-only Zot! comic some years after the print-run. It's a lot of fun, and can be read totally independently of the earlier stuff. Check it out... and then wait for the HaperCollins volume.

(* Actually, there was a promised fifth volume, which would have collected two guest-artist issues plus all of Matt Feazell's back-up feature Zot! stories. I'd have bought that one too... but that's probably too much to hope for.)

• Today's Boing-Boing-Did-You-Click-Through?™ Link: sketchbook of famous comics artists drawing Ninja Turtles.

• Dave Sim blogging: for those who've never read Cerebus (and haven't read my oh-so-brilliant introduction to it), Dirk Deppey captures in a few words the maddening brilliance (and I mean that first word literally) of the man. Meanwhile, Noah Berlatsky thinks about the different madnesses of Dave Sim and Philip K. Dick, and about Dave Sim and the epistemology of the closet. When you hear a loud explosion from Canada, it's Sim's head exploding when he gets wind of that second post.

• I like to read Geoff Klock's blog, both for the blog itself and the commentators. This post is an example of why. I myself get into the act in comments here.

Not Comics:

• This article on "The Buffy Formula" -- talking about the formula not for any given episode (of course), but for the story arcs that form each season -- is quite interesting. Seasons 2-4 and 6 follow the formula; seasons 1, 5 and 7 don't -- though each has elements of it, "failing" in different ways. Well worth reading for Buffy-fans out there. (And the rest of you: you're missing one of the best shows ever on TV.)

• The Ladies' Home Journal in 1900 on what will happen in the next hundred years... fact checked. They were actually far more accurate than I'd have guessed. This one's fun.

• Berubé's back, and talking about Allan Bloom. For some of you, that will be 'nuff said: for the rest... Berubé's one of the wittiest writers in the blogosphere. Some assembly required. Don't miss the poem in comments (Yeats meets football).

• A kosher vending machine -- kosher food served 24/6! (Yes, that's 24/6, not 24/7.) What a wonderful, strange world we live in. (via)

The Tale of Elizabeth and Hazel -- and America

As a student of Twentieth Century history, I know the story of the integration of Little Rock's Central High School very well, of course -- I've even taught it to my history classes including, yes, what happened after the cameras stopped rolling and the nation's attention moved on. If you don't know the story, you should: not only is it a central event in recent American history, it's a gripping tale, and the heroism of the young protagonists is really quite inspiring.

But I didn't know the story of what happened to the students after they graduated (save for the bare fact of their later public recognition). It's quite extraordinary: and this article from Vanity Fair (via Kevin Drum), which tells the story of Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock nine, and Hazel Bryan, a white student from Little Rock that year, is quite extraordinary: I think Kevin quite undersells it. It's superb.

If you look that that famous photo above, Elizabeth is the African American girl, being screamed at by the mob for trying to go to high school. Hazel Bryan is the girl on the left of the photo, screaming at Elizabeth.

The story the article tells begins as a feel-good racial reconciliation story: Hazel seeks out Elizabeth, and apologizes; then, later, they meet again, and become friends. They write a book together; and they go on Oprah, of whom the article says, "Reconciliation and redemption are her things, but this one was too much even for her." Elizabeth, who suffers for a long time from depression, revives. A feel good-story for our time...

Except, it's not, and the writer doesn't let us loose sight of that even at the story's height. None of the other people in the photo apologized; there remains a lot of racism in the area; and the others of the Little Rock nine are suspicious of Hazel's motives. And then things fall apart: the two women, having become unlikely friends, drift apart: Hazel's apologies, so often made, seem to have gaps in them, areas she is unwilling to go. Eventually she drops out of public life.

And while Little Rock's Central High School now has a student body that is half-black, half-white, David Margolick reminds us of the reality behind that facade:

Central High School looks as imposing as ever, but over the past 50 years, its innards have changed unimaginably: the school is now more than half black. It's all misleading, of course, because Central is really two different schools, separate and unequal, under one roof. The blacks go to different classes, sit on separate sides of the cafeteria, have different, and far lower, levels of performance and expectations.

The whole article is tinged with a bitter realism, recognition of progress paired with a strong sense of the complexity and ambivalence of reality. Through all this runs the voice of Elizabeth Eckford, a formidable character in her own right. (One of the other of the Little Rock nine, asked if she knows Elizabeth well, replies: "Well enough to leave her alone.") Elizabeth Eckford's life can be seen as a triumphal story of personal will pulling her up by the bootstraps... but only if you don't really listen to it, only if you ignore the terrible parts, like her son Erin's fate (read it and see); only if you ignore the poverty and difficulty of her current life. Her attitude -- tough, working to make things better, but realist in a way that seems cynical against our favored stories about our own progress -- seems powerfully right.

It's a story with a lot of happiness, but a lot of pain, and ultimately a lot of complexity too: it's not a tale with a happy ending. And it shouldn't be.

Everyone is talking these days about race again (update: Digby too), in the context of yet another racist story in yet another American high school. And there's a lot of surprise, as people think (the cliche goes) that this is a story that should be from long ago, not from the Twenty-First Century. But the long ago wasn't all that long ago: its protagonists are still alive, and the grand tale of national redemption and reconciliation that the Civil Rights Movement is dressed up as has a far less triumphant, a far more ambivalent, ending than we like to pretend. If we understood that better, then the events in Jena would not surprise us so much; and the necessity to grapple with the reality of race in our country would be far clearer than it ever can be when it is buried under platitudes about how we all loved Dr. King (just so long as he's safely dead for most of the white folks, of course: far more palatable that way).

Of nothing is it less true than the ugly history of America and race that "the past isn't dead; it isn't even past", as Faulkner famously put it. It's right there, we're still living it, and it's not a fairy tale that ends with flowers and democracy and everyone holding hands. But it's not that nothing's changed either. It's complicated. We have to see that. Reading David Margolick's article is a good place to start.