I’m really not enjoying the strange journey of race in the presidential election thing. I doubt many people are, save for the occasional Karl Rove, for whom it is a fabulous tactic – if you’re creative. I must admit to being surprised, though, to see the issue of reparations come up. It’s a nuanced and compelling issue, if one has the time to examine all of the folds. It’s about memory, state history, back wages, social justice, economics, the nature of representation, and so on. But that’s too much to ask. Turns out, sometimes a non-reparation actually is one.
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It is no surprise when important people or institutions forget. After all, part of maintaining yourself as important – by which I mean powerful – is sustaining the image or impression that you are always new. That, in some fundamental way, you came about just yesterday or so. The language of freedom, goodness, and justice in the United States is exemplary. And part of what it means to be from this country, to love the new. This can be beautiful. Come from somewhere, re-invent yourself here. Millions have done so. This can be ugly, as when one forgets how violence that “coming from somewhere” can become. Or just our own genocidal history, slavery, and so on. With religion, things are a bit more complicated. Consider the Pope’s recent remarks…
We remember people on their birthdays. As a nation, that is. We forget to remember them with holidays, days of remembrance, or even just a few minutes of silence on the anniversary of death. Even when that death is so monumental. I’ve thought all day about what to say about 4 April, today.
This is really a small post of memorial. On Easter, so a day about resurrection (a wonderful story, whether or not one believes). Which makes me wish we’d have some resurrection of a giant of the musical arts – Israel Lopez passed away in Miami. He was amazing and a part of so much great sound. Cachao is a reminder of why our (in the U.S.) near total ignorance of Cuba and Cuban culture is a loss.
No one following the Democratic primary will be surprised that John Edwards stepped out of the race today. It didn’t happen and certainly wasn’t just wasn’t about to happen. I find his withdrawal sad, not because I’m especially enthused about him, the Democratic party, or our particular brand of democracy, but only because he was such an uncanny presence – he talked about poverty. And this is part though not nearly enough, of the Time magazine story on his candidacy: why Edwards did not catch on… Read the rest of this entry »