i am a man

i remember that dr. king was a man. he was man who was a flawed lover and father, a sometimes cautious sometimes bold, mostly learned leader. he was even fresh, clean and articulate.
he was killed on this day more than my lifetime ago. even bono attempted to remind us of this. i wonder who else recalls.

earlier today, i went along to hear the south african yazir henri speak today about the failure of the truth and reconciliation commission. he hails from the western cape and he spent the last half of his teenaged years in solitary confinement for fighting back against the apartheid regime.

don't you remember when we on the left in the u.s. looked to south africa and "the arch", archbishop desmond tutu, with hope and admiration and envy? the idea of TRC seemed so promising. i didn't quite get it until i saw i think that it was an athol fugard play using puppets about the TRC that i began to understand the limits of storytelling and forgiveness as a strategy for the creation of a new south africa and the new, post-apartheid nation state. 20,000 stories of pain. and what? for what?

henri observed that in his country, black people are not tired of talking, but white people are tired of listening.

that's exactly right. here too.

in my all-time favorite essay by malcolm gladwell, he wrote about his canadian cousins and how in the new racism, like the old, someone always has to be the nigger.

that's right. how is that still and all, we accept the logical conclusion of black poverty?




desultory i am.
i am so going through the motions of these last few days.
i could use a little jump-start to lift my spirit.
externally everything is just fine, but it is still hard to get out of bed. especially when it is blustry cold and snowing here.

we had a tcaup faculty meeting that was inadvertently hilarious. i laughed and laughed and laughed with the vigor of someone who has a new job elsewhere.