I have been working at a new job recently, and I have had little energy for blogging.  But today I took the time during lunch to pen a few thoughts on the Barack Obama problem.
Additionally, my wife found my first gray hair this evening.  I am ecstatic, having desired a touch of gray since I was 17 or so.  I think that optimally I would affect a George Clooney or a Reed Richards, one or t'other.  Now, without much ado, my first bloggable thought in weeks.

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Lately I've been ruminating on the specter of an Obama candidacy.  Hillary is not done yet, but it looks grim.  The Democrats have decided that they can safely abandon Mrs. Clinton in favor of the charismatic Senator from Illinois.  Obama presents some unique obstacles to a reasonable discourse.  No criticism of the man seems to be allowed to stand...for this, that or the other reason.  He was handled with kid gloves during the early part of the primaries.  
The crux of the issue with Barack Obama is that he is an inexperienced candidate who has some very questionable associations that may affect his ability to lead us, but we are being prevented from seriously exploring his weaknesses because of a heightened sensitivity to matters of race and identity.
There is a legitimate fear that his association with avowed anti-American radicals as well as his long membership in a church which prides itself on being the cutting edge of black liberation theology are less a circumstance of his political upbringing and more a reflection of his own personal beliefs.  Americans, I feel it safe to say, want in their President a basic quality - that of the ultimate Spokesman.  To my thinking, a President should at the very least be altogether in love with America.  Not blithely accepting this or that policy as sacred, no, but echoing Stephen Decatur's toast:

Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.

A man who could share this sentiment looks clearly at things and sees the plain truth that America, for all her faults, is a force for good in the larger world.  A President of the United States should ever and always be the first to sound the praises of America, even as he claims to chart a new course.
Obama's attempts to avoid jingoism and immodest displays of patriotism bespeak a very cool attitude towards the country he thinks he is qualified to lead.  The question again intrudes upon us:  what exactly are his beliefs about America?  We must have an answer, but we are consistently thwarted in our attempts to procure one.
I am inclined to believe, as are others, that Obama's immaculate status is preserved by unfair means.  Why is it legitimate, even mandatory, to question Cindy McCain's tax returns, but entirely unfair to bring up the subject of Obama's radical colleagues and mentors?  If there is a scale of relevance, Mrs. McCain ranks in the bottom quarter...or eighth.
But, as ever with liberals, we find that when it comes to their pet causes every action is judged on a sliding scale - a relative measure.  Obama is spared from deserved criticism because he is held to a different standard.  I posit that this is due to his race.
It is not a direct relationship.  Obama is not spared because he is black.  But he is.  What we have to understand is that the culprit in this case is the very worst sort of identity politics.
Think about it.  To liberals, a person's identity takes center stage.  Every aspect of that person makes up the very essence of who they are, their identity.  This is opposed to character, which can be judged to be good or bad.  Criticizing a person for their character flaws, long thought to be acceptable as a means of improving character, has of late been replaced with a drive to affirm the individual's sense of identity.  Iconoclasm is the new old vogue, and so to criticize a person like Barack Obama is to violate a taboo of liberalism. 
Another thing that makes up your identity, as opposed to your character, is your race.  So, to criticize Obama's actions is to criticize his identity.  And to criticize his identity is to criticize, however tenuously, his race.  And thus we are faced with the uncomfortable realization that criticizing Barack Obama has a slight odor of racism about it.  I doubt Obama intentionally cultivates this, but he certainly benefits from it.  And I'd liken the scent to a manufactured odor, sort of the way that Febreze doesn't really smell like fresh linens hanging on a line. 

When we view Obama through a lens of identity, it is not possible to judge him fit or unfit for the Presidency.  When we look at him through the prism of character, it is eminently doable.  This is the great problem we face in our current political climate:  Identity politics is the order of the day, and until we distinguish between the false, relative view of identity and true personhood we will never be free of it.

I think this paragraph from Jonah Goldberg of National Review is a tidy summation of my feelings on what some have called "one of the finest speeches ever." 

Why do voluptuaries of racial argy-bargy want yet another such dialogue? For some, it’s to avoid actually dealing with unpleasant facts. But for others — like La Raza or the college professors scrambling to follow Obama’s lead — when they say we need more conversation, they really mean their version of reality should win the day. Replace “conversation” with “instruction” and you’ll have a better sense of where these people are coming from and where they want their “dialogue” to take us.

Ultimately, Obama's speech is nothing so momentous, so awe-inspiring.  In fact, Obama's refusal to distance himself personally as well as professionally from the man who condemned America in no uncertain terms while giving an award to real hate-mongers like Louis Farrakhan is troubling.  Is it weakness of character, which might be forgivable, or is it that Mr. Obama finds the words of his pastor not particularly offensive? 
One thing I think we can agree upon is that the President of the United States cannot be too patriotic.  He is not only our leader in matters foreign and domestic, he is also America's preeminent spokesman.  When a man tolerates sentiments such as Jeremiah Wright's and refuses for years to repudiate them, that man is demonstrating a quality that no President should possess. 
Is Obama's speech really a call to dialogue?  That remains to be seen.  Currently, it amounts to nothing more than a grand changing of the subject.

Now for those who know me and my politics, the following should come as no surprise.  But I'm going to discuss some very sensitive issues here and I'm going to do so in my usual frank and somewhat insensitive way.  So, sharpen your knives.

Have you ever made a comment that dealt directly or indirectly with a person's race, and seen your audience begin to shift their eyes and shuffle their feet uncontrollably?  Not a racist comment, mind you, but just a frank acknowledgment of differences among the races? 

"I'd recommend my stylist to her, but she doesn't know how to cut black hair."  On the face of it, sounds vaguely racist.  At the very least, it was not pleasant for me to write the words or for you to read them.  But talk to any black woman and she'll tell you that black hair behaves differently from white hair.  Stylists frequently charge extra when dealing with black hair for the simple reason that it is more complicated. 

But make a simple comment like that, and you have the obligation to explain yourself...if you're white, and you're talking to white people.  Because one thing I've noticed about my fellow Caucasoids is our sheer neuroticism in matters of identity politics.  Race is uncomfortable due to the very real history of slavery in this country, and so we avoid discussing it with the single-minded purpose of an obsessive-compulsive personality.

I've also noticed that it tends to be liberals who react most strongly to perceived racism and assaults on the "comfortable silence" that is the de facto state of affairs when it comes to race in America.  Conservatives are of course blamed for the state of the races in the country, but liberal progressives have had their fair share of racism to haunt their dreams.  Eugenics, anyone?   Tangential, sorry.
All this is not to downplay the fact that the races are in very different places when it comes to opportunity, affluence and power.  Heavens no.

So, I wasn't at all surprised to see this article from the Daily Mail website.  Along with this photograph:

Here's the context:  Robert Downey Jr. is playing an Oscar-worthy actor, down on his luck, who is forced to take a role in the biggest Vietnam movie ever.  And the part he is playing was originally cast for a black man but, pompous actor that he is, the character "goes method" to quote the article.  Which is not even the plot of the movie, because the actors are so fussy that the studio drops them into the middle of a live conflict...which the actors are too self-absorbed to notice is real.  What a great commentary on people who take their profession or their own talents so seriously that they refuse to let common sense come close to informing them.

Now, what do you think is going to happen when you put a white man in make up that makes him look like a black man?  Here's what I think:  White people are going to be very nervous about offending other races, black people won't care.  And along the way the whole point of the movie might be lost.

...anticipating a backlash, Downey Jr told a US magazine: "If it's done right, it could be the type of role you called Peter Sellers to do 35 years ago. If you don't do it right, we're going to hell."

Mitt Romney.  In a move that surprised me somewhat, National Review (I realize that most of my posts have dealt with NR articles lately, I'm sorry but I like them) has endorsed Mitt Romney for President of the United States.  Read the article here, or just read this paragraph:

More than the other primary candidates, Romney has President Bush’s virtues and avoids his flaws. His moral positions, and his instincts on taxes and foreign policy, are the same. But he is less inclined to federal activism, less tolerant of overspending, better able to defend conservative positions in debate, and more likely to demand performance from his subordinates. A winning combination, by our lights. In this most fluid and unpredictable Republican field, we vote for Mitt Romney.

I admit that after watching Mike Huckabee at the Youtube Debate I was impressed.  And seeing him on the news quite a few times, handling difficult questions about his record with charm and wit, I was seriously considering him for a spot on the Presidential ticket.  Vice President is really where I'd stick him, but with the "Huckaboom" (not my word) in full swing the record of what Huckabee actually has done and what he has said he will do becomes very conspicuous. 
National Review Online has published an article outlining his foreign policy experience.  The bad news starts with this, after the inevitable comparison with Reagan:

Mike Huckabee, by contrast, cut his teeth on typical state-level fare in Arkansas and on weight-loss and wellness programs. This is probably why he felt compelled to quip to Imus, “And the ultimate thing is, I may not be the expert that some people are on foreign policy, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.” (Powerline also points out that he used the exact same line on Imus a year earlier when foreign policy came up.) This won’t do.

This is the kernel of Huckabee’s foreign policy. He wants to anthropomorphize international relations and bring a Christian commitment to the Golden Rule to our affairs with other nations. As he told the Des Moines Register the other day, “You treat others the way you’d like to be treated. That’s to me the fundamental issue that has to be re-established in our dealings with other countries.”

Stephens cautions conservatives who maybe inclined to consider Huckabee, but are less than flattered with the Bush administration’s record on spending and growing government. “At least President Bush cut taxes. With Mike Huckabee you don’t even have that,” he warned.

Obama the 'Magic Negro'

The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized, less-than-real black man.

By David Ehrenstein, L.A.-based DAVID EHRENSTEIN writes about Hollywood and politics.
March 19, 2007

AS EVERY CARBON-BASED life form on this planet surely knows, Barack Obama, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois, is running for president. Since making his announcement, there has been no end of commentary about him in all quarters — musing over his charisma and the prospect he offers of being the first African American to be elected to the White House.

But it's clear that Obama also is running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination — the "Magic Negro."

The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. "He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist," reads the description on Wikipedia http://en.-wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro .

He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.

As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic — embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is "Magic."

Poitier really poured on the "magic" in "Lilies of the Field" (for which he won a best actor Oscar) and "To Sir, With Love" (which, along with "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," made him a No. 1 box-office attraction). In these films, Poitier triumphs through yeoman service to his white benefactors. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" is particularly striking in this regard, as it posits miscegenation without evoking sex. (Talk about magic!)

The same can't quite be said of Freeman in "Driving Miss Daisy," "Seven" and the seemingly endless series of films in which he plays ersatz paterfamilias to a white woman bedeviled by a serial killer. But at least he survives, unlike Crothers in "The Shining," in which psychic premonitions inspire him to rescue a white family he barely knows and get killed for his trouble. This heart-tug trope is parodied in Gus Van Sant's "Elephant." The film's sole black student at a Columbine-like high school arrives in the midst of a slaughter, helps a girl escape and is immediately gunned down. See what helping the white man gets you?

And what does the white man get out of the bargain? That's a question asked by John Guare in "Six Degrees of Separation," his brilliant retelling of the true saga of David Hampton — a young, personable gay con man who in the 1980s passed himself off as the son of none other than the real Sidney Poitier. Though he started small, using the ruse to get into Studio 54, Hampton discovered that countless gullible, well-heeled New Yorkers, vulnerable to the Magic Negro myth, were only too eager to believe in his baroque fantasy. (One of the few who wasn't fooled was Andy Warhol, who was astonished his underlings believed Hampton's whoppers. Clearly Warhol had no need for the accouterment of interracial "goodwill.")

But the same can't be said of most white Americans, whose desire for a noble, healing Negro hasn't faded. That's where Obama comes in: as Poitier's "real" fake son.

The senator's famously stem-winding stump speeches have been drawing huge crowds to hear him talk of uniting rather than dividing. A praiseworthy goal. Consequently, even the mild criticisms thrown his way have been waved away, "magically." He used to smoke, but now he doesn't; he racked up a bunch of delinquent parking tickets, but he paid them all back with an apology. And hey, is looking good in a bathing suit a bad thing?

The only mud that momentarily stuck was criticism (white and black alike) concerning Obama's alleged "inauthenticty," as compared to such sterling examples of "genuine" blackness as Al Sharpton and Snoop Dogg. Speaking as an African American whose last name has led to his racial "credentials" being challenged — often several times a day — I know how pesky this sort of thing can be.

Obama's fame right now has little to do with his political record or what he's written in his two (count 'em) books, or even what he's actually said in those stem-winders. It's the way he's said it that counts the most. It's his manner, which, as presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Biden ham-fistedly reminded us, is "articulate." His tone is always genial, his voice warm and unthreatening, and he hasn't called his opponents names (despite being baited by the media).

Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes. If he were real, white America couldn't project all its fantasies of curative black benevolence on him.

I found this article to be an interesting take on the Obamenon among liberals today.  The man has enjoyed an unprecedented level of goodwill and support in the past two years.  Since his election to the Senate over Alan Keyes, his name has been one of the most whispered about presidential contenders for 2008.  While at first the whispering was merely idiotic, it has now become slightly less so.  At the time of his election, the man was coming from a background in state politics and community organization before that.  Hardly a presidential resume these days, but that didn't seem to shake the conviction of his supporters that B.O. would make a stellar president.
Why?  What in this man's background qualifies him to even run at this stage?  He has less than a full term in the U.S. Senate, and no executive experience that can be applied to the job of President.  He has been a legislator and organizer.  These are very different animals when compared to a President or even a governor.  The mechanics are different, the job is different -- and he hasn't proven his worth in his own elected position yet.
Why indeed should he garner such wide support if not for the the overwhelming desire of some Americans to demonstrate that the time of racism has passed?  I would argue that this is a form of racism in itself.  Why should his race be a driving factor in his support?  We should be able to assess the man free of these factors.
I would not say that Obama would be a terrible president...our elected leaders can only get our country into so much trouble, without help.  Obama's inexperience is not an asset, nor is his relative newness to Washington and its corrupting influence.  I posit that Obama has jumped the gun tremendously.  His character and freshness will not see him through the meatgrinder of this election.
Regarding white guilt...what a terrible motivation to support this man.  It is not as if there is a conscious awareness of the feeling.  Every supporter of Obama needs to search their heart and eschew every ounce of patronizing guilt over this man's blackness before they throw their lot in with him.  And then they need to look at his record and make the right decision:  Vote experience, not personality. 

And did we notice that Wikipedia has been used as a reference tool in this article?  Seeing that more and more...Not that I have a problem with it.

Dumbing-Down of America

by Patrick J. Buchanan  (More by this author)

Posted: 03/06/2007

Fifty years ago this October, Americans were jolted by the news that Moscow, one year after drowning the Hungarian Revolution in blood, had put an 80-pound satellite into Earth orbit.

In December, the U.S. Navy tried to replicate the feat. Vanguard got four feet off the ground and exploded, incinerating its three-pound payload. was humiliated. Khrushchev was Man of the Year. Some of us yet recall the Vanguard newsreels and the humiliating laughter.

Stunned, went to work to improve education in math and science, and succeeded. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores of high school seniors began to rise, reaching a high in 1964.

However, test scores for high school students have been falling now for 40 years. In 1984, the Reagan administration issued "A Nation at Risk," documenting the deterioration of American public education.

More trillions of dollars were thrown at the problem. And if one judged by the asserted toughening up of courses and rising grades of seniors, it appeared we had made marvelous progress. On March 4, The Washington Times reported:

"In 2005, 17 percent of graduates had completed a 'standard' curriculum, 41 percent completed a 'midlevel' curriculum, and 10 percent completed a 'rigorous' curriculum. Fifteen years earlier, the percentages were 9 percent (standard), 26 percent (midlevel) and 5 percent (rigorous). Grade point averages (GPA) increased, as well. The average overall GPA increased from 2.68 in 1990 to 2.98 (virtually a B level) in 2005.

However, it is all a giant fraud, exposed as such by the performances of high school seniors on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exams known as the "nation's report card." An NAEP test of 12th-grade achievement was given to what The New York Times called a "representative sample of 21,000 high school seniors attending 900 public and private schools from January to March 2005."

What did the tests reveal?

·         Since 1990, the share of students lacking even basic reading skills has risen by a third, from 20 percent to 27 percent.

·         Only 35 percent of high school seniors have reached a "proficient" level in reading, down from 40 percent.

·         Only 16 percent of black and 20 percent of Hispanic students had reached a proficient level in reading.

·         Among high school seniors, only 29 percent of whites, 10 percent of Hispanic students and 6 percent of black students were proficient in math.

This is only the half of it. Among the kids whose test scores on reading and math were not factored in were the 25 percent of white students and 50 percent of black and Hispanic kids who had dropped out by senior year.

Factor the dropouts back in, and what the NAEP test suggests is that, of black kids starting in first grade, about one in eight will be able to read at the level of a high school senior after 12 years, and one in 33 will be able to do the math. Among Hispanic kids, one in 10 will be able to read at a high-school senior level, but only one in 20 will be able to do high-school math.

Yet, as columnist Steve Sailor writes on VDare.com, the Bush-Kennedy No Child Left Behind Act mandates "that all children should reach a proficient level of academic achievement by 2014."

We're not going to make it. We're not even going to come close.

Why are so many Americans ignorant of the depths of failure of so many schools? As Sailor explains, it is due to government deceit.

"Not surprisingly, practically ever single state cheats in order to meet the law" mandating a rising academic proficiency.

"For example, ... recently declared that 89 percent of its fourth-graders were at least 'proficient' in reading.

"Unfortunately, however, on the federal government's impartial National Assessment of Education Progress test, only 18 percent of students were 'proficient' or 'advanced.'"

Hence, a huge slice of the educational establishment is complicit in a monstrous fraud that, if you did it in business, would get you several years at the nearby minimum security facility.

This is corruption. Teachers are handing out grades kids do not deserve. States are dumbing-down tests to make themselves look good. Voters are being deceived about how much kids are learning.

There is no real moral distinction between what teachers and educators are doing on a vast scale and what professional athletes do on a smaller scale when they take steroids to enhance performance.

As The Washington Times noted, according to the Digest of Education Statistics, spending for public education, in constant (inflation-adjusted) dollars, rose from $6,256 a year per student before "A Nation at Risk" to $10,464 in the 2002-2003 school year. Taxpayers have thus raised their annual contribution to education by a full two-thirds in real dollars in a quarter century. More than generous.

Under George W. Bush, U.S. Department of Education funding has risen 92 percent in six years, from $35.5 billion in 2001 to $68 billion in 2007. Sinking test scores are what we have to show for it.

Taxpayers are being lied to and swindled by the education industry, which has failed them, failed and flunked its assignment -- and should be expelled for cheating.

Online Extra: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Speaks

Justice Thomas talks about the lasting influence of the man who guided him through his years at Holy Cross and why he's not a beneficiary of affirmative action

Of all the influences in the life of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, little attention has been paid to the Reverend John E. Brooks. During his time at Holy Cross and in the years since, the Jesuit priest has been, in Thomas' words, "a combination of friend, uncle, priest, father, saint, Good Samaritan." In this exclusive interview with BusinessWeek senior writer Diane Brady, Thomas reflects on racial politics, his job, his college crowd, and the influence of Brooks on his life. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:

Thank you for meeting with me.
Father Brooks asked me to do it. One of the reasons I don't do media interviews is, in the past, the media often has its own script. One reason these stories are never told is that they are contrary to the script that people play by. The media, unfortunately, have been universally untrustworthy because they have their own notions of what I should think or I should do.

Why is Father Brooks such an important person in your life?
That was an era of in loco parentis. It was a transition period unlike today when you have these notions of race entrenched. It was a time, actually, when there was no set road map for kids. Father Brooks understood something intuitively, that we were just kids. He knew we were from a lot of different environments.

Father Brooks made a point of trying to recruit a lot more African Americans to campus in the months before you came. Do you think that recruitment drive helped you?
Oh no. I was going to go home to Savannah when a nun suggested Holy Cross. That's how I wound up there. Your industry has suggested that we were all recruited. That's a lie. Really, it's a lie. I don't mean a mistake. It's a lie.

I had always been an honors student. I was the only black kid in my high school in Savannah and one of two or three blacks in my class during my first year of college in the seminary. I just transferred. I had always had really high grades so that was never a problem. It was the only school I applied to. It was totally fortuitous.…The thing that has astounded me over the years is that there has been such an effort to roll that class into people's notion of affirmative action. It was never really looked at. It was just painted over. Things were much more nuanced than that….You hear this junk. It's just not consistent with what really happened.

What did Father Brooks do?
Father Brooks realized that we needed to be nurtured—not that we needed it every day—but that we were going to have unique problems. When you have six blacks in a class of 550 kids, you need that. We all came from very different backgrounds. That's something that gets lost in this weird notion of race—that somehow you can come from New York and Savannah and Massachusetts and somehow you're still all the same. That's bizarre, and it denigrates individuals. Father Brooks understood that. He saw people who were individuals who happened to be black who had very different outlooks.

What was your mind set when you got to Holy Cross?
I was a kid. I was confused. I was 20 years old. I had no place to go. I had no precedent for anybody going to college. I had no precedent for anybody being in New England. I had no road map. I didn't know anybody to call. I had nobody to talk to. I had nobody to give me advice. Now, what do you do? You were just a kid, trying to make all these choices.

Were you angry?
Sure. I was upset. I was upset with a lot of things. You get there and you sort it out. Look at that neighborhood there [Thomas points to a photo of a desolate strip in Georgia]. How do you go from that to Holy Cross? How do you do it? That's why some of us were really concerned about throwing some of these kids into those environments without thinking because you have a theory. That's the neighborhood I lived in before I went to live with my grandparents. Doesn't look very good, does it?

There were a lot of changes to absorb. Just to think about it was fatiguing. It's still really fatiguing. It's also fatiguing that people assume we all showed up the same. A friend of mine sent me that print there. [A sketch of an African American man, draped over a desk with his hands extended toward the floor.] He has since passed away. He thought it captured my life.

Does it?
Oh yeah. That's why I keep it there. Look at the hand. Look at the exhaustion.

What sort of exhaustion?
Everything. Mental. Physical. Spiritual. Just constant change. You just want to slow down. You see people take a walk and you want to, too.

Isn't this where you want to be, where you can have the greatest impact?
Nah. I don't think you should do these jobs with that in mind. I don't think you should relish affecting people's lives like that, because you don't know whether you have the right answers. Along the way, you learn that.

Would you approach your education any differently, knowing what you know today?
I didn't come with a lot of confidence. People were attaching a lot of the racial baggage at the time, and a lot of us were very upset about that. You're young. If I could go without all of that, I would go to school a lot differently. There were things that I would enjoy, that I would take in, things that I rejected.

Like what?
Simple things, like different classes. Maybe I would have taken classes like Russian history or more science, maybe, more math courses. I would have taken more history courses, more philosophy courses. Maybe I would have gone to more events, some plays. I rejected all that. I would have been more open to some of the offerings that were different from the life I had become accustomed to. If you're intellectually alive—which you are at that time—you want to explore.

You lived in a black students' residence when you were there. Was that important to you?
No, I voted against that. I didn't like segregation and I still don't like it. But we were young and I think that was a good decision. We voted as a Black Student Union. I voted against it, but we had this thing we called solidarity. I went on board with the group.…If somebody puts you in a predominantly male, black environment—let's say 2,300 black males and there are 50 white females—what would be your comfort zone? It may not have been a complete identification but it was the obvious identification.…People were searching for a comfort zone because everything was uncomfortable. Everything was new to kids from inner-city areas or predominantly black schools. I was fortunate because I had already been in that environment.

In retrospect, did it turn out to be a good thing?
No. There's a lot of discomfort with learning from each other. What I learned by being the only black in my school was that it's hard but it's necessary. The rest of the world isn't going to accommodate you. You can't just go into a cocoon. At some point, you have to deal with it and the world has to deal with you. If others are comfortable with being over here, while you're comfortable with being over there, it makes it less likely that learning will occur. It's certainly comfortable because you don't have to put up with conflicts and the discomfort of being one of the few blacks on campus. But it's not as easy as the theorists think it is. They should try to be the only one in an environment. I had been the only black student in my high school. I knew what that was about.

So why did you help run the Black Students' Union?
Because I wanted to. That's basically it. I thought it was a good idea. We were all for change. You're 20 years old. Would I have joined if I were 50? I don't know, but I wasn't 50. I was 20. The war was upside down. We were upset about things and it seemed like a natural decision.

Why did you quit Holy Cross when some black students were suspended after the GE demonstration?
I thought: Fair is fair. If you take pictures with a bunch of white guys and two or three blacks, it's easy to pick out the people with dark complexions. The black kids were being treated unfairly. I said: Look, if we're not going to be treated fairly here, let's leave. And let's leave in a disciplined, professional way. That's hence the way we retired. Thank God for Ted [Wells] and Art [Martin] and Father Swords and Father Brooks. They worked it out. Where was I going to go?

Did you think about the repercussions of walking out?
You don't think about things like that when you're making impulsive decisions. You think about that later. And when you do, you think: I'm not going to do that again. I wasn't leaving like that again. What if Father Brooks did not understand that we were kids and we were confused and were maybe unjustifiably impulsive in leaving? What if he didn't prevail upon Father Swords and others to say: Look, let's just work this out with these kids? What if he had just said: Let them go? God only knows where I would be. Father Brooks was the kind of person who understood how difficult it was for us.

Did you have a lot in common with the other black students?
The assumption is that, since you're all black, you have something in common. That's like saying because you're all women, you have a lot in common. You might have nothing in common with these people. There were some white students that I actually had a lot in common with. I had a great roommate. He's now a pediatrician in the Hartford area. I didn't have any difficulty making friends. I had already been through this—finding common ground with kids who were ostensibly of different backgrounds. I didn't have difficulties getting along with anybody—black or white. Be clear about that. And I was a good student from the beginning and academically got along with everybody.

Did you get caught up in the politics of the era?
We all did. I felt very connected to it, probably more than some other kids. But that was a flash in the pan. If you're upset and you don't have the answers, you latch on to things. That wasn't so unusual, whether it was the race issues or the antiwar issues. But then you have sane people around—you have adults around like Father Brooks—who give you a long leash but hold you accountable.

That's what people don't like to talk about. In the end, we were all held accountable. There were people who flunked out. There were people who were dismissed for academic and other reasons. You were held accountable. Those of us who did well were rewarded as students. It was an environment in which you had an opportunity to excel. Father Brooks always understood we were in a tough situation and he wanted to make it work. He wasn't trying to prove a point. He wasn't making any kind of a statement. He was trying to bring kids there who could benefit from that environment. That's one of the reasons he was so successful. He was just trying to help. The school was trying to help. He wasn't making a statement. He was just doing the right thing.

What about other teachers?
Virtually every single one—even the ones who didn't pay you much attention—just held your feet to the fire. There were rules. You obeyed them. I took Renaissance Prose from Dr. Lawler and I got a C+. That stood out. He never let me off the hook. I remember getting a composition back and the red ink was all over the place. My French teachers kept talking about preparation. I remember we were translating The Stranger in class and working hard to do it. And you're doing this with all the other cultural things swirling and making adjustments to New England.

It doesn't sound very inspiring.
I'm not a school person. I never liked school. My best day of school was the day I graduated. There was too much else going on.

Is it just serendipity, you think, that so many of your peers from that era were successful?
No. It was Father Brooks.

But doesn't that denigrate the efforts and intelligence of all of you?
There are lots of intelligent people. Who brought them in? If a coach recruits the best players in the country and wins the national championships, don't you give the coach credit? That's what he did.

But you weren't recruited.
I was never recruited. That was total serendipity. I just showed up. But somebody had to recognize it was a good place to be, and it was a Franciscan nun. The others were recruited.

One of the things we had going for us was that we were not put in a position where we could not be successful. The programs weren't out of our reach. We were exactly where we belonged. Maybe if we had been at another school where we were above where we should have been, it might not have worked. There are times when you should be in Triple-A ball and not the Major Leagues, or Double-A and not Triple-A. We weren't overmatched. There was so much else there that was difficult to deal with. At least we weren't overmatched.

Father Brooks laments the fact that the school didn't have the same success with black students, say, 10 or 20 years later. Why do you think that is?
I always thought part of the problem was that there was much more competition for the kids. So there was a greater chance that kids were being pulled into situations where they were overmatched. Kids were going to School A, who should have been at School B, and the ones at School B should have been at School C. So everybody was pulled up a level above where they should be. And you began to have problems that we did not have. We did not have those mismatches early on.

You went to Yale later on. Would you have wanted to do your undergraduate degree there?
No. No, I belonged at a school like Holy Cross. In fact, in today's world, I probably belonged at a place like the University of Georgia. Holy Cross was perfect for me at that time. I had enough on my platter.

Do you feel a sense of fraternity with the people you went to school with?
In a distant way, I absolutely do. We don't pal around. I absolutely admire Ted Wells and he and I are quite different. He's one of the finest lawyers in the United States. But you know what? It's not unpredictable. It's something that could have been predicted. Think of the people who took chances on him.

There was a wonderful fraternity—The Cross. When you were a crusader, you looked after each other—no matter where you were. That doesn't mean they would always be in a position to do you a favor. But they were there, just as a friend. I've never been turned away by a graduate of The Cross.

How did you find your experience at Yale?
Let me put it this way: It wasn't the kind of environment Holy Cross was and I would not have done well there. I don't fit in there. It wasn't about them. I just didn't fit. I don't fit in an orchestra. I don't care how great the orchestra is. It's nothing against Yale. I'm extraordinarily pleased that through serendipity or, I like to think, almost divine providence, I wound up at Holy Cross.

Why do you think some people are so eager to cast you as a beneficiary of affirmative action?
That was the creation of the politicians, the people with a lot of mouth and nothing to say and your industry. They had a story and everything had to fit into their story. It discounts other people's achievements. Ask Ted how many all-nighters he pulled. It discounts those. It's so discouraging to see the fraudulent renditions of very complicated and different lives of people who were struggling in a new world for them. Everything becomes affirmative action. There wasn't some grand plan. I just showed up.

How is the world different for college kids today?
You don't go to college to be a decoration. You're not there to please other people. You're there to do better in your own life. The only answer I'm interested in is to the question: Are these kids better off for having gone to a college? If they are, how? Ask that question about the first black kids who went to Holy Cross and the answer is a resounding 'Yes.' Yes, they are better off. Ask yourself that today. What's the attrition rate? It used to be up around 40% or something like that. There was no attrition in my class.

Is it solely because of a mismatch of students and the schools that admit them?
I don't know. I don't think people even ask the question any more. I tried for years to get focus on why you actually went to school as opposed to diversity and multiculturalism. I didn't go to school for any of that stuff. I went to school to learn and get on with my life. I wasn't there to prove or disprove anybody else's point.

I've thought a lot about these things, and I've spent the bulk of my life, beating my head against a wall, trying to get people to see that they can have their grand theories but, in the end, you can't impose them on other people's kids. How many kids do you have? They're different, aren't they? If your kids are different—and they're all yours—what about just some kids who happen to be different shades of black, different degrees of Negro? They're all from different family settings—some two parents, some no parents, some raised by grandparents. Come on. How can you just all of a sudden treat them as all the same?

Were you treated the same?
There was no requirement that we all be the same. There were faddish things, like you wear an Afro. Father Time takes care of the Afro. Holy Cross never once required us to be anything other than ourselves and good people.

Doesn't every college want that?
Oh no. I think there are different points of views that are not acceptable. I go around this country and the poor kids who want to dissent from a prevailing point of view have no room. There's no room for them.

Because of political correctness?
Oh yeah. Come on, that's obvious. You don't even have to ask. That's obvious. Otherwise, there are people who have set notions of what blacks should think. But I rejected that years ago. I rejected that back when I was considered radical.

Is it harder to be an African American heading to college these days?
I don't know. I'm not going to dissect these schools now. I'm just glad I went when I went, before everybody had all the answers and theories about blacks. I'm sure it was hard to make your own way but maybe it worked better that way. Maybe it made us better, stronger people.

Did you encounter much racism at Holy Cross?
Not really. That's an easy word to throw around. I'm going to just leave that. Holy Cross was not a racial problem for me. I had no incident the entire time I was there. None. The problem wasn't that other people hated you. That wasn't it. Of course, they didn't understand you. Of course, we all sort of thought of the whole world as bigoted against us, and asked what they thought of blacks. We all thought those things.

We weren't required to be anything. In Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison writes about that. Nobody had a prescription for us. We had little faddish prescriptions about what it meant to be black, and we were probably rough on the other students about that. But the institution didn't have any fad. It didn't prefer one way over the other. It didn't reward one way over the other. We were just kids. And, after we left, the institution didn't respond with some preconceived notions of what we should become.

Does that happen a lot?
Oh goodness, yes. Anybody who says it doesn't is lying to you. Why do you think I get in so much controversy? People have a model of what they think a black person should think. A white person is free to think whatever they want to think. But a black person has to think a certain way. Holy Cross has never ever done that. We did it to each other but we were just kids.

The institution didn't sanction it. Father Brooks didn't sanction it. He didn't stereotype. I love Father Brooks. I love him. He's a great man. He did right by us. He did right by the school. It was hard and not everybody made it through. Look at the standards they kept and the kids they admitted. A lot of us were Catholics so we fit right in…educated you with philosophy and history and metaphysics and modern language. And you became their kid. As long as you were honest and constructive and working hard, they were fine. You are who you are. It's almost existential.

Was it a happy period?
No. But neither is boot camp. There are lots of things that are good for you that are not a happy experience. It was a different time. There were people who were happy. There were happy moments. We got along. I was not an unpleasant person to anybody. But I was not happy. Think about what was going on in my life. It's a hard period. There's a lot going on. It was very difficult.

I don't think you should underestimate how nurturing that school was, without being warm and fuzzy. It was all male so you didn't have to deal with all those complications. It was predominantly Catholic…probably still is. It had rules because it was Catholic. So there were lots of things that were off the table. And it was a crazy time. The school was changing. I wouldn't downplay the centrality of Father Brooks and the Jesuits' role.

Was it a loss for Holy Cross to rely more on lay professors?
Yes. They're not Jesuits. They lost the religiosity. A priest is a priest. A nun is a nun. For me, it's better. It's a Catholic school. It looks more identifiably Catholic when you have religious people running it. I think it's a loss. I liked it the way it was. I was not a practicing Catholic when I went there. I had left the church. But I just feel strongly that it's a Catholic school. I'm a practicing Catholic now, in part because I went to Holy Cross.

Do you keep up with the people you met there?
I'm 58 years old now. I went there when I was 20 years old…I've been focused on these jobs which consume your life. One of the downsides is you don't see your friends much. But I consider them all friends. It brings me great joy to see them. If Ted has a barbecue again, I'm there. I really think the world of that whole group of people. I think the world of Holy Cross. That era, for me, was formative.

Now that's a smart guy.  No BS about being black, while still acknowledging that it's a different experience.  Plus he seems to hate the media.  And he's Catholic, too!

Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court

Jan Crawford Greenburg

2 comments

There is a book out that I saw at Barnes and Noble yesterday.  Its title is Supreme Conflict, and it is a journalistic perspective on the politics of SCOTUS..  I paged through the chapter on Thomas(which was titled The Cruelest Justice and may explain some of his antagonism towards journalists in this interview), and was quite interested to learn the role he has played in that body. 
How serendipitous that an article would be out today, just as I become interested in a particular subject.  Perhaps the world revolves around me after all.

Virginia Apologizes for Role in Slavery

By LARRY O'DELL

(AP) Del. Frank Hargrove, R-Hanover, right, defends his remarks on slavery that were quoted in a... Full Image