Collected Miscellany

Great interview with Debra Dickerson in the Atlantic Unbound. Dickerson, author of the recently released The End of Blackness: Returning the Souls of Black Folks to Their Rightful Owners, has been a senior editor of U.S. News and World Report, a lawyer for the NAACP, and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. Her writing has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, The Village Voice, The Washington Post, and elsewhere.

Obviously the interview is worth reading in its entirety but allow me to note a few choice quotes. In answering a question about focusing too much on white racism Dickerson’s passion comes through and I think her advice and perspective is right on:

Get over it. If we want them to get over race, we need to get over race. It’s not that I think it’s unimportant culturally and historically. My own identity very much gels around my lineage as a descendant of slaves and Jim Crow sharecroppers with a culture of fundamentalist Protestantism and cornbread and cabbage. That’s very much a part of who I am. I like being part of that community, even though I spend most of my time alone in my office reading books. As a black American I feel that I occupy a particular river in the American story but that it’s still a part of the American story. And I will fight to the death the notion that I should see myself through a prism of Kwanzaa and Afrocentrism.
People died and fought and suffered through too much for me to remove myself from the American context. It’s very seductive, but I think it’s a rejection. Our identity is ours to maintain. But our place as citizens is also ours to claim, and we need to do that.

On the other side she cogently argues that blacks and white should be seeking the same thing, what is best for America:

We have to look to our highest and best selves. Is it best for America to have an identifiable population under the boot-heel of a corrupt and brutal police force? No. Is it best for America to have this same very identifiable population lagging educationally—no matter whose fault it is? No. Is it best for America to have a certain group of people that doesn’t get good prenatal care? No. Is it best for America to have large numbers of a certain population in prison? No. Thinking that way is how white people can figure out what the right thing is. It’s the same way black people can figure out what the right thing is.

I don’t agree with Dickerson on everything and we have very different backgrounds, but it is heartening to read someone this intelligent and passionate on a subject that all too often brings out the worst.

Some novels excel in one area (character, plot, language and style, etc.) but some novels are great because they combine all these skills into a captivating whole. I would definitely put Spies into this later category. It can’t be easily categorized or pigeonholed. In some ways it is a fictional memoir but in others it is a flashback mystery or maybe a reminiscence on youth and memory. It is at times a gripping novel of suspense while at others a though provoking rumination on the unique perspective of youth. In reality it is all these things and that makes for a great read.

The basic story line follows two young boys in wartime Britain. The narrator, Stephen Wheatly, is flashing back to his childhood relationship with his neighbor Keith. Keith and his family are in a social class above Stephan and he is always painfully aware of how lucky he is to be able to interact with them. Because of this he gives Keith wide latitude in leading their playtime activities. Keith is always the instigator and inventor of their games and adventures. Stephen is content just to be the loyal sidekick. One particular adventure, however, start them down the path of no return. Events will soon alter their relationship and lives forever. It all started with Keith’s confessions: “my mom is a German spy.”

Continue reading →

I am beginning to feel the pinch of my wearing off of new books. I am always a sucker for well packaged works with an interesting theme tying a series together. The Oxford Press series on the Seven Deadly Sins is one such temptation (if you will forgive my pun). This Nicholas Blincoe review of the Simon Blackburn volume on Lust certainly peaked my interest. Here is a taste:

Lust may be wayward and intemperate, but it is far from being a blind physical urge. Lust is a “thinking” drive: even a scheming drive. Recognizing this, Blackburn finds the best accounts of erotic desire in the empirical traditions.
The result is fascinating. Hobbes, in particular, is a revelation. Often juxtaposed as an illiberal bogeyman to Immanuel Kant, in Lust it is Hobbes who comes across as the enlightened liberal. The Hobbesian view, we learn, is that the sex drive is as much an act of the imagination as of the loins. Lust conjures a world where pleasure is communicated and joy is spread around. We may fail, we may end up being thoughtless and cruel, but there is nothing intrinsically immoral about lust.

Part of me wonders whether these aren’t simply elegant excuses for ignoring the reason for listing of the Seven Deadly Sins in the first place, that is to avoid them. But the reader in me finds the subject interesting and the packaging attractive. Am I lusting after Lust? Maybe I can just check them out at the local library . . .

I am not usually an online quiz type but I figure it is part of being a blogger. So here is a result for you:

You’re Fahrenheit 451!
by Ray Bradbury
Having wanted to be a firefighter much of your life, you’ve recently
discovered the job wasn’t exactly what you were looking for. While ignorance seems like
the result of oppression, it all began with people just wanting to be ignorant. As you
realize more about the sordid world around you, you decide to watch less TV and work on
your memorization skills. Though your memory will save you in the end, don’t forget to
practice running from dogs as well.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Is there such a thing? Probably not. Nevertheless, I have been buying a lot of books lately. This is the sort of addiction for me that if I don’t restrain myself I seem to get worse and worse. Money used to be a big restraint but is becoming less so. What really brings it to a head is my ability to read the books I buy. At some point I get so interested in buying books that there is no possible way I can begin to read the books I own. I have so many books I want to read that my brain begins to over-load. Guilt at not reading the books I have purchased begins to build up and I realize things are counter-productive.

So I have decided to take a break from buying books and concentrate on reading the ones I have. Starting today I am not going to buy any more books for an unspecified period of time. No new books period! Cold Turkey. We will see how far this lasts . . .

Is there such a thing? Probably not. Nevertheless, I have been buying a lot of books lately. This is the sort of addiction for me that if I don’t restrain myself I seem to get worse and worse. Money used to be a big restraint but is becoming less so. What really brings it to a head is my ability to read the books I buy. At some point I get so interested in buying books that there is no possible way I can begin to read the books I own. I have so many books I want to read that my brain begins to over-load. Guilt at not reading the books I have purchased begins to build up and I realize things are counter-productive.

So I have decided to take a break from buying books and concentrate on reading the ones I have. Starting today I am not going to buy any more books for an unspecified period of time. No new books period! Cold Turkey. We will see how far this lasts . . .