I Learn Something Old Every Day

I know that Carolyn is a longtime Middle East peace activist. Until this week, I had no idea she had been a journalist, too. The death of reporter James Foley affected her personally, and I would have realized that if I'd known her background.

I learn something old every day.

Sure, there are new social media platforms to try out and techniques to learn. Scientists make new discoveries about what goes on inside the brain and outside the galaxy. New books come out and demand to be read. New pop phenomena spring up and dry out like summer lilies in the fall.

Often, though, it's the old stories we should listen to most urgently, and the old realities we should try to understand. The death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri at the hands of a police officer is this week's news, but it's a very old story.

To understand it, we have to know about the history of Jim Crow, and of slavery. To evaluate the media coverage, we have to remember--or find out--how various white-owned media have covered racially marked stories, from the OJ Simpson trial to the Clarence Thomas hearings.  We need to know black media covered them, too, and how that created a divide between our perceptions of what actually happened. (Just as important, we need to know what stories we haven't heard.)


Yes, that's a lot to find out. Yes, the quest to understand will never end. But if we are going to be able to look our neighbors in the face, let alone live and work together, we must learn something old every day.  (And when I say "we," I start with myself.)

Here Comes the Neighborhood

I distinctly remember that early in Rona's real estate career, a prospective client told her, "We don't want to live in no multi-cultural neighborhood." She heard the word multi-cultural pronounced with such distaste, she instantly knew it was code for, "We don't want to live with no niggers." Rona invited these buyers to find themselves another agent.

Things have changed. Today, it might be a lot harder to avoid living in a neighborhood where your neighbor has a different race than you do. The Boston Globe published a map showing the diversity of different neighborhoods in the city, and only a few are islands unto themselves. I wish they would have extended the map into Somerville and Cambridge! Still, it tells the story: most of us now choose to live in neighborhoods where there are "enough" people "like me"--but not too many. I think that's a sign of progress.

Use Your Powers for Good

Rand Paul, who is running for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky, thinks for the President to criticize (much less regulate) BP, which is spewing oil all over the Gulf Coast is putting the government's "boot heel on the throat of BP."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100521/ap_on_bi_ge/us_rand_paul

He also thinks the federal government used too much power when it passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Restaurants, hotels, and such are private businesses, according to the son of former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, and the government shouldn't demand that they serve black people--just politely suggest that it's the civilized thing to do! Same thing with the Americans with Disabilities Act: just another instance of "big government."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/05/21/tea_party_candidate_faces_heat_for_stance/

When you hear people complain about "big government," remember what they really mean is government that stands up to the powerful people in America. Whether those powers are the white supremacist establishment in 1964 or the corporate elite today, government is the only institution with enough countervailing power to call them to account. But we, the people, have to force the government to use its power in our interests--and we won't do that if we get distracted by people like Rand Paul.