I have a friend from my time at the University of Michigan who is the kind of person that the rest of us usually dream about becoming. She is witty, smart, driven, and funny. She does the right thing and has good values. She has been all over the world motivated by intellectual curiosity, and there usually isn't enough time to accommodate all that she wants to do. This woman grew up in Minnesota. If you have middle-class friends from greater Minneapolis, you likely know the type: liberal, engaged, sweet. Her childhood stories invariably involve endearing quirks, like the bedtime routine that was not complete until her family had prayed for love, gender equity, and Twins success.
This week, my friend sent me the following gem, which her mother found and transcribed after cleaning out their house. While it purports to be a fifth-grade book report, really, it is an epic, prodigious kufi slap. The best part is the teacher's attempt to salvage the situation. Enjoy the unsolicited social consternation of a ten-year-old.
Black History Book Report
The report that you assigned for us to do was list 5 interesting facts that we've learned about the book we just read, what we understood better, and who the author was. You did not ask us to write about what we thought the situation between blacks and whites was like. You did not ask us to tell how wrong we thought that was. You did not ask us to say how we thought the blacks felt when the whites tormented them. No, you asked us to list 5 interesting facts. There is only one main fact. The fact is that blacks weren't treated fairly. The book that I read, "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry," touched me emotionally. I was really moved by the way that the black people stood up for themselves, how they continued to believe what they thought was right, and I think that it is kind of insulting to the blacks to have our class sum our thoughts up into "interesting facts." Instead of saying, "oh, my, I learned so many interesting facts from that book!," I feel that we ought to think, "the blacks were treated unfairly and that really hurt them, and when I read this book, I was stunned that some people could be so mean to someone just because of their race." Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry made me cry. I cried at the way the blacks suffered. I weeped for the black boy in the story who was sentenced to death for something he wasn't totally guilty of. I sobbed at the unfairness which the blacks had to go through. And tears rolled down my cheeks when I saw our assignment. So I am going to say what I feel, and choose not to do the requirements.
Teacher's Response
I wanted you to choose a book that would interest and, hopefully, move you. It sounds like you did. I also wanted to know what you learned by reading the book and you have made this very clear. I'm glad you understand the problems of prejudice better now and I hope you will continue to be aware and caring.
Grade: A
P.S. You're almost always welcome to modify assignments to express your feelings. I'm glad to discuss it with you anytime.
Gully.
The quiet emperor of the internets, HuRa, sent me a pithy summation of Obama's tax-sellout press conference today, courtesy of Talking Points Memo:
Let's be honest with each other here: Presidential press conferences are usually news voids into which a lot of ink and chatter are dumped.
But Obama's press conference this afternoon will be seen as a turning point if not in his Presidency then in how we understand and perceive him and his approach to politics. I say that keenly aware of the press' tendency to see itself at the center of the story and of TV's tendency to view history as a series of moments caught on camera. So I'm having to overcome a lot of my built-in skepticism about over-reading these kinds of pseudo-events.
What we saw and what I think we'll see borne out by subsequent events is Obama revealing in a very public way the choice he has made between the two political personas he has simultaneously inhabited throughout his candidacy and his presidency. He has tried to be both pragmatist and progressive savior. And even when he stopped trying to be the savior after he was elected, he was at a certain level content to let supporters continue to project that persona on to him.
Today, he very clearly and loudly said: that savior persona is not me. I am the pragmatist. And you know what, I don't have a whole lot of patience for the idealists. I share their ideals, but I don't share their approach and I'm not going to get bogged down in recriminations over not living up to some abstract ideal.
I don't think this a change in the fundamental truth of who he is or of what his politics are, but with today's press conference the pretense that he might yet be someone else was finally dropped. Not only was he announcing that this is who I am, but he was also effectively declaring, I am not that other guy. (You can watch the key part of the presser here.)
That's a significant change in his personal narrative and as I say a change I suspect in the public narrative of his presidency going forward.
This is the email I wrote in response:
That is a well-stated piece. And I agree with the premise Obama advances and the post highlights: he is not some idealist crusader. However, Obama reaffirming what he is and isn't also clearly pronounces his departure from the man who built his campaign and his persona on change. "Change we can believe in," I believe. He has done nothing to back that up, and to make tangible the abstract idea that he knowingly and happily floated above him as he rose to the presidency. So if this pragmatic man of compromise who stands for nothing more than conversation and watered-down policy is content to remind everyone he is not a liberal savior, he also must be content to bear the burden of shame arising from broken promises. Everything he has accomplished--some true victories, more dispiriting sellouts or buck-passes--has been done within the framework he promised to tear down, with aid from people he promised to evict from Washington, and with money taken from donors whom he once held up as the problem. He couldn't change all of that by himself, but he never really tried to build the coalition he needed. As a rational actor, I am angry that he perpetuates a broken system but expects something different. As a liberal, I am offended that this man purports to share my ideals while dispensing with the conviction necessary to make than mean anything. I hope his firm embrace of the middle is a legacy that will hug him back in November 2012 when he finds himself unemployed.
Now you can run and tell that.
