An article in the Washington Post declares that the riots in Ferguson have been “the most significant explosions of racial frustration since the election of the nation’s first black president, and so Ferguson forced the country out of the fantasy that America had entered a ‘post-racial’ era.” I’m not sure who really entertained that fantasy outside of the politicians and other public figures who needed to promote it and the pundits who were willing to go along with it. But Ferguson brought to mind this prophetic blast from the past — a 1967 gathering in London with Paul Goodman, Herbert Marcuse, Allen Ginsberg, Stokely Carmichael, Emmett Grogan, and others — about racism and violence.
Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude
I liked the phrase that was in your email notice to those who subscribe to your blog that the meeting was about “the dialectics of liberation and the demystification of violence.” In the blog above, you changed it to the simpler and more journalistic formulation “racism and violence.” I don’t think I know of anyone who goes to more lengths to hide his education, culture, and intellect than you do. I guess it’s just a journalist’s understanding of what makes him readable.
I read your portrait of Nelson Algren, “A Ticket to New Jersey” on the plane back to Europe. It made a red-eye flight with brutal lay overs much more pleasant. I followed it in the wee hours of the morning with your interview of Paul Theroux and actually ended up with relatively pleasant memories of what should have been a horrible trip. The Nelson portrait is the sort of thing one would like to see in the NYT Sunday review of books.
One only need have eyes and half a brain to see that America still suffers massively from a racially informed class system. I understand why it was important for Obama to show a black man can be a centrist President, but now that he’s done that, he needs to speak more pointedly for his last couple years in office. Basic stats about income, education, and incarceration rates tell undeniable truths. This makes the postwar authors, artists, and activists during the 50s and 60s you study all the more valuable. The truths they spoke to power are words we still need to hear. They also embody aspects of integrity and social engagement that seem all but forgotten. Anyway, thanks for the work.
This comment is a danger to my health, because it swells my already vain head. But beaucoup thanks. Which is French for “I am so grateful.”