The Discomfort Quotient

In October 2021, Republican state Rep. Matt Krause sent a letter to school districts detailing a list of 850 books that he believed “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.”

If parents were given full view of public school curricula online, what might be their objections to those curricula?  Much of the recent legislation about public school curricula declares that students should not feel “uncomfortable” about what they learn. That single complaint about curriculum is enough to make most teachers hand in their resignation in frustration.

“Discomfort” is a significant goal for learning in many disciplines, especially literature and American history. Teachers are not trying to avoid “discomfort,” when they teach Huckleberry Finn,  but to incite it. Otherwise why would they allow students to read a novel where the N__ word is used in dozens of  instances? Should not students feel discomfort when they read that? Is it necessary for the impact of the book?  Hemingway says of the novel:  All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn…. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since. And yet to read this book is to be uncomfortable.

Discomfort as a Goal

“Discomfort” is not a good reason to ban Huckleberry Finn, and those who have sought to ban it include as many liberal parents as conservative, equally concerned about their children’s  discomfort with reading that offensive word. “Discomfort” is indeed the author’s goal for both liberal and conservative readers, who learn about the the racism of a border state in the 1800’s. Who learn how normalized racial attitudes affect how people are treated every day.

Another source of discomfort is the website “Facing History and Ourselves” which brings historical resources about genocide and prejudice to the attention of secondary school readers.  Some censors of history have targeted  “Facing History” as one that generates discomfort about the Holocaust and should be culled from the secondary curriculum. Why should we feel responsible for events in Germany from another decade? We need to remember, as Germany has learned, that ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ (George Santayana-1905). See Caste, (pp. 343-352) for an account of remembering and education about Nazi Germany.

“Discomfort” is an authentic response to history, indeed the response that makes us want to change the covert prejudice in our communities today. That’s the part of the curriculum that directs us to “Facing Ourselves.” The avoidance of discomfort is a reason that nothing changes in a community saturated with inequity.  Discomfort should not be grounds for censorship, but for engaging and transformative teaching. Legislators seem to have missed this point.

Rep. Krause’s campaign in Texas threatens effective learning. His own education must have been truly dull and ineffective if it avoided “discomfort, guilt, anguish or any form of psychological distress.” I would be truly disturbed if my students felt none of these emotions after reading Othello, Death of a Salesman, or Raisin in the Sun. They arouse deep emotions because they are great plays. They make us want to change matters of economic and racial inequity.

Discomfort Quotient = Redeeming Value / Discomfort.

Ultimately teachers have to decide how much discomfort is enough for a given age of students, and parents should decide if it is too much for their own particular student. What is the discomfort quotient for Johnny Got His Gun or for The Bluest Eye, both of which have shocking scenes? Is the discomfort above what your child can tolerate? Parents should consider some of these questions before deciding .

  1. What exact scene or chapter is most disturbing?
  2. Why do you think it is emotionally destructive to your child?
  3. Does the book have any redeeming value for your child?
  4. Redeeming Value divided by Discomfort equals Discomfort Quotient. (An estimate)
  5. Should your child be removed from the book, or should the book be removed from the curriculum?
  6. What alternative readings exist that would satisfy the same curricular goals?

If this sounds like a lot of work, yes it is indeed hard to create a developmentally appropriate curriculum. Banning books is easy and destructive. Evaluating books and choosing them for the right age group is the hard work that teachers and curriculum coordinators do all the time.  That is what should be expected of parents who want to second-guess their choices.

Reading may often be uncomfortable. “Discomfort” is a poor reason for banning a book, but a good reason for re-evaluating the fit for a particular student. Make a “discomfort quotient” calculation before dismissing the value of books and online curricula.  Show a constructive interest in what students are reading, instead of taking the discomfort shredder to the curriculum.  Show your student how a mature reader deals with discomfort.

Tennessee in Florida

Poets.org tells us that Key West was a location for poets in the early twentieth century.

Over 100 miles from mainland Florida and the southernmost point in the United States, Key West has attracted numerous artists and writers, including Ernest Hemingway, Wallace Stevens, Ralph Ellison, Elizabeth Bishop, Tennessee Williams, Robert Frost, and James Merrill, with its remote location, tropical setting, and wild spirit.

Tennesee Williams came to Key West at the age of thirty in 1941. He bought property on 1531 Duncan Street in the neighborhood of the poet Elizabeth Bishop, who lived at 624 White Street.

Unlike the Hemingway House, Tennessee Williams’ place in Key West is owned privately and inaccessible to the public. However a museum dedicated to his memory has a model of the house on Duncan Street (below). It has a back wing he called the “Mad House,” where he wrote so many of his plays. By all accounts he loved Key West and several of his plays were performed in the local Waterfront Theater.

We saw a Christmas play at the Waterfront Theater, All is Calm. It is true story of a truce on Christmas Eve between the Germans and the British in World War II. It is really an opera performed with Christmas carols and popular songs of the period.  It begins with tentative overtures to celebrate together and ends with raucous and a little drunken singing, as the soldiers consume what is left of their alcoholic rations. The production is really an homage to “peace on earth” and the hope of reconciliation of traditional adversaries.

Tennessee himself was not a dreamer, but an unapologetic realist. Regarding his late conversion to Catholicism, he said, “It wasn’t my idea. I don’t think I wanted to do it, but that happened during my Stoned Age.” Poets.org confirms that “Williams was baptized, with encouragement from his brother and a fair amount of alcohol, at St. Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church on Truman Avenue.”

His Pulitzer Prize award-winning dramas were A Streetcar Named Desire  and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, both stories of hard-edged characters,  although he said his favorite among his plays was the more sentimental The Glass Menagerie. 

According to Poets.org, the nearby neighborhood of Windsor Lane became a gathering place for poets in the mid-twentieth century.

Near Solares Hill, the island’s highest point at sixteen feet above sea level, is Windsor Lane Compound, established in 1976. The assortment of restored shacks, shanties, and cottages, were once winter homes for writers such as Richard WilburJohn Ciardi, John Hersey, and Ralph Ellison. On William Street is a Greek Revival house and writing studio once owned by Shel Silverstein.

… Another frequent visitor, Wallace Stevens once wrote in a letter that Key West “is the real thing… the sweetest doing nothing contrived.” Though good friends with Hemingway, one rainy night outside of Sloppy Joe’s bar, the two got into an infamous brawl in which Stevens broke his hand on Hemingway’s jaw. https://poets.org/listing/poet-homes-key-west-fl

This is a lot of lore I did not know when we visited Key West, so we missed some of it. We ate twice at the Banana Cafe on Duval Street, which is not too far from Windsor Lane and William Street, but we were unaware.  These locations were remote from the wharf and the entertainment district of Key West. They were more bohemian and inexpensive. Wallace Stevens wrote:

Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Hemingway: A Local Hero

The story goes that in 1931 Ernest Hemingway and Pauline lodged temporarily in a Key West apartment, awaiting the delivery of his Model A roadster, but the wait was prolonged enough for him to fall in love with the town. He loved the fishing, the beautiful shoreline, the bars, the intimacy of Key West. Pauline’s uncle bankrolled the purchase of a poorly-maintained house on Whitehead Street, and they worked relentlessly to make it a winter residence.

The famous polydactyl (six-toed) cat was a gift of Captain Harold Dexter. Snowball spawned 59 descendants by best reckoning and they swarm the house today with their own residence and keepers.  They have the usual cat presence of belonging to a place and  ruling it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were interested in the 1930’s story of Ernest Hemingway, since we had just visited Yellowstone where he was known for his hunting and drinking prowess in the summer at the L__T Ranch in Wyoming. While he was writing The Green Hills of Africa in Key West, he was writing Death in the Afternoon  and To Have and Have Not between 1932 and 1936 in his northern retreat.  Chris Warren, his Yellowstone High Country biographer, claimed he was happiest and most at home with his family during this time in wilderness. He taught his boys to hunt and fish and frequently went hunting with Pauline, who knew her way around a rifle.

A great source on Hemingway’s writing technique, especially in Key West in  1934, is With Hemingway: A Year in Key West and Cuba. compiled from the notes of the hopeful novelist, Arnold Samuelson. He mentored the young writer while he did odd jobs around the homestead and the boat, the Pilar.  A good insight into his writing routine:

Never pump yourself dry. Leave a little for the next day. The main thing to know is when to stop. Don’t wait until you’ve written yourself out. When you’re really going good and you come to an interesting place and you know what’s going to happen next, that’s the time to stop.  Then leave it alone and don’t think about it; let your subconscious mind do the work. , The next morning, when you’ve had enough sleep  and you’re feeling fresh, rewrite what you wrote the day before. When you come to the interesting place and you know what is going to happen next, go on from there and stop at another high point of interest. That way, when you get through, you never get stuck and you make it interesting as you go along. (11)

This explains why Hemingway typically spent the afternoons fishing or hunting without consulting his work.  He had a rhythm that energized his work and depended on an active sporting life.   We had lunch at one of his favorite haunts : “Blue Heaven.”  Nearby he officiated boxing matches at a place called “The Blue Goose.”

Charles Thompson came from an influential Key West family and “taught Hemingway to fish the big water of the Gulf Stream” (High Country, 27).  In turn Hemingway showed Thompson around the big game of Yellowstone in 1932. The following year they traveled to Africa to hunt the really big game. They enjoyed a sometimes competitive, sometime ruthless hunting relationship. Much of the experience is found in The Green Hills of Africa.

In With Hemingway,  Samuelson relates the fishing on board the 38-foot Pilar, Hemingway’s new fishing boat, in which he travels to Cuba. Pilar was a nickname for Pauline and the heroine in For Whom the Bell Tolls.  EH, as Samuelson referred to him, enjoyed helping others hook the marlin and sailfish with him at the helm, as he did landing the fish himself.

 

 

 

 

 

The well-known Key West illustrator, Guy Harvey, drew the story of The Old Man and the Sea early in his career, and his illustrations follow the stairs up three flights in the Custom House Museum. The stairs, with their captions and illustrations, are fascinating to climb, considering you can not find the drawings paired with the Hemingway text anywhere else.

Doublethink

From 1984:

Doublethink: To forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. [https://study.com/academy/lesson/doublethink-in-1984-definition-examples.htmlsrc=ppc_adwords_nonbrand&rcntxt=aws&crt=502044578140&kwd=&kwid=dsa-1187583619848&agid=116312175297&mt=&device=c&network=s&_campaign=SeoPPC&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsZTygvTj9AIVx8izCh1eFw-DEAAYAiAAEgIWTPD_BwE]

I remember reading the novel 1984 in 1960, thinking how hard it would be to apply this technique in a democracy, where facts were available and the media was free to publish them. About twenty years later I taught the novel to high school students hoping to convince them it was a plausible dystopia, that we should guard against this kind of thinking. They believed; they were convinced that people could be brainwashed to believe the opposite of what they knew to be true. And yet I silently struggled to believe this was possible even in our democracy.

As we approach the anniversary to the 2021 insurrection, I am now convinced.  I realize that most of the Republican Party and Fox, its media voice box, have fully achieved doublethink in the sense quoted above. What they know to be true has been repressed, while the fiction that the insurrectionists were tourists and patriots has become their public litany. Their tweeting to Mark Meadows on the day in question revealed a competing and now unconscious version of the story:

. . . according to the records, multiple Fox News hosts knew the President needed to act immediately. They texted Mr. Meadows, and he has turned over those texts.

“Quote, ‘Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy,’ Laura Ingraham wrote.

“’Please get him on tv. Destroying everything you have accomplished,’ Brian Kilmeade texted.

“’Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol,’ Sean Hannity urged.

“As the violence continued, one of the President’s sons texted Mr. Meadows.

“Quote, ‘He’s got to condemn this [shit] ASAP. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough,’ Donald Trump, Jr. texted. [https://libguides.union.edu/c.php?g=1126166]

Today the invasion of the Capitol has been whitewashed as a demonstration of frustration for a fraudulent election, making the probability of repeated violence over election disappointments more and more likely.  The violent facts are losing their shock value in order “To forget, whatever it was necessary to forget” as Orwell described the process of “doublethink.” All this is taking place in the backdrop of a fully functioning media that replays the video footage of the insurrection at every possible opportunity.  The ability of elected Congress-persons to underplay this story even as it is being investigated, is stunning and disillusioning. Their version of events is a competing and potentially undercutting version of the report the Select Committee will eventually broadcast and document.

What about voters? Will we succumb to doublethink and repress our own memories of the terrible violation of the Capitol on January 6? Can we ignore what we know to be true by a conscious act? Can we execute doublethink?

To know and to not know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them . . .

[https://study.com/academy/lesson/doublethink-in-1984-definition-examples.html?src=ppc_adwords_nonbrand&rcntxt=aws&crt=502044578140&kwd=&kwid=dsa-1187583619848&agid=116312175297&mt=&device=c&network=s&_campaign=SeoPPC&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsZTygvTj9AIVx8izCh1eFw-DEAAYAiAAEgIWTPD_BwE]

If we honestly probe our memories, can we minimize the most widely broadcast event in recent times? Surely it will take an exhausting amount of conscious energy to transform what we know into what we want to forget. Yet our leaders and opinion broadcasters have set the example for us. We can remember what we choose to remember and transform what we wish to remember differently.  Doublethink can make it all happen, as preposterous as that seemed to me sixty years ago when I first read 1984.

Seventy-two years ago George Orwell witnessed doublethink in Nazi Germany and Communist Eastern Europe. That is how we know it can still happen today. Even in a democracy.

 

Keys to Happiness

We came to Key West for its sunshine and its scribes: Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and our lately-discovered Judy Blume. We found a mecca for the thirsty and the barefoot, a stomach-gurgling range of food, a rainbow of cultures and personalities, and a contagious loss of scheduling.  It’s not that we stopped planning for places to visit, but they were not hectic plans: we saw Hemingway, and Williams and Blume days apart, and only found Blume’s bookstore, ” Books and Books,” by a referral from a trolley tour driver. Earlier we met the father of the docent of the Tennessee Williams museum, because he told us his father would be marketing pottery that evening at a celebration at the Custom House.  The father was transparently proud of his boy, who had recently acquired the job. Seemed like a small town.

Blume smiling while signing a book

Blume at a book signing

Pelican Diving for Fish

Like these authors,

we found the weather, the sunsets, the rampant roosters and chickens, and the kamikazi pelicans all delightful.

Each day we spent more time wandering the streets on foot, sipping on Margaritas at Jimmy Buffet’s at one end of Duval and returning for the pork and duck at Banana Cafe at the other end of the street.

We witnessed multiple sunsets around Mallory Square with hundreds of our closest acquaintances, and we began to hang out at small shops on the wharf for ice cream and Americano coffee.  We felt that we belonged in these places, even though there were many too loud and too crowded for our comfort. The point is that there are places for everyone’s comfort and digestion even if you are not disposed to take off your clothes at the Garden of Eden or drink under the influence of amped up instruments in certain tight places.

We did not take a sunset cruise or lie out on the beach. We did not go snorkeling or take a glass bottom boat to get up close to sea life. We did ride the stair well of the Court House Museum and followed the tale of Old Man and the Sea  through Guy Harvey sketches over three flights.  And that would show the kind of adventure we followed here. Every day happiness and fair weather. We are grateful for every day–all eight of them.  We head home content to face the less friendly weather of St. Louis.

 

 

 

 

 

Worst Are Full of Passionate Intensity

How often have I quoted the lines of the Yeats poem the worst are full of passionate intensity, because the most violent, conspiracy theorists have entered the mainstream of the Republican Party, outrageous attacks have been leveled at principled representatives  right down to school board members defending the curriculum achieved by consensus among their teachers.

Fred Upton, R-Mich has regularly received death threats for voting for the infra-structure bill, and yesterday released a profanity-ridden phone call making threats on his life.

Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington at a House Rules Committee meeting. An aide told Fox News his office has been getting death threats after voting for the infrastructure bill.
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington at a House Rules Committee meeting. An aide told Fox News his office has been getting death threats after voting for the infrastructure bill. (AP)
President Trump led the way by referring to the 13 Congress-people who voted for the infra-structure bill, as “Rinos” (“Republicans in name only”).  Trump is a significant enemy of bi-partisanship in Washington. He tried relentlessly to initiate a similar infra-structure bill under his own administration, and yet he sought to undermine the completion of this one. He is a significant destructive force in national politics.
Below the opening lines of Yeats’ poem, The Second Coming, which seem prophetic for this time in history:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

(W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”)

President Trump could have been the falconer in the Yeats poem, but he has chosen to break with the leadership of a democratic government, including President Biden, Reps. Lynn Cheney, Lindsay Graham (who voted for the bill) and even Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who spoke in favor of the infra-structure bill. As Trump can not hear the “falconer,” the above voices of reason and bi-partisanship, Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.
The ceremony of innocence is drowned. These ceremonies include the electoral college confirmation of a new President, the passing of the infra-structure bill, the defeat of merely allowing debate on the Voting Rights bill.  These are the basic ceremonies of democratic governing, not partisan celebrations.  The attacks on these “ceremonies” have come from within the government, from elected representatives, not only crazed citizens. The center cannot hold.
The best lack all conviction. The falling aside of prominent moderates, now refusing to run for re-election, signifies the best who “lack all conviction.”  The moderates jumping the sinking ship include: Pat Toomey, R- Pa, Rob Portman, R-OH, Roy Blunt, R-MO,  Richard Burr, R-NC, and Adam Kinsinger, R- IL.  The undertow of struggling against the blood-dimmed tide has become too powerful for courageous Senators and Congressmen. It may be unfair to say they “lack all conviction,” but to the casual observer, they represent an ominous trend, a brain drain on the U.S. Congress. We needed them most when they decided to retire.
Even the sitting President, the falconer-in-chief, has a muted voice, trying to unite instead of lead. His intentions are good, but the consequences have made the Yeats prophecy more threatening still: mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, and the pronouncements of an ex-President get more attention than the present one.  And since the ex-President is only intent on breaking down the world order, it leaves the “Build Back Better” message in tatters.  At this point the inclusion of the Minority Party has run amuck. Therefore the Majority Party needs a strong voice of leadership, a falconer who can speak above the “mere anarchy.”
These are the final lines of the Yeats poem.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

They seem to predict a redemption and a political savior, nothing like the biblical one.   “Slouching toward Bethlehem” describes the progress of redemption so well. We are long-suffering for the leader, the coalition, the new voice to arise and speak truth with authority.  You need more than a popular election or celebrity to assume this role. Your hour must “come round at last.”

God willing, this hour will be soon.

On Stolen Lands and Backs

O beautiful, to make amends
For our abhorrent acts
Our country built by labor forced
On stolen lands and backs
America, repent for this
Repair and say what’s true
Let equity our promise be
Declare these truths anew

(Nerissa Nields, https://www.facebook.com/TheNields/posts/america-the-beautiful-revised-lyricso-beautiful-for-spacious-skiesfor-amber-wave/10158434437015751/)

If we are to live by principles of our forefathers, then we must know the human frailty of our forefathers and mothers. The verse of America the Beautiful” that ends “God mend thy every flaw” naturally flows into the verse above of Nerissa Nields’ “America the Beautiful.”

“O Beautiful to make amends” reflects both the extraction of Native peoples’ lands and the enslavement of a race kidnapped from their homeland.  “[S]tolen lands” recalls the dominance of conquering powers from Ghengis Khan to 19th century European imperialism. Ours was a gradual displacement of the Indian tribes, almost unremarkable.  “A country built by labor forced” echoes the enslavement of subdued peoples from the time of the Exodus to the Spanish overrunning of Latin America.

How did this “extraction and exploitation” (as Walter Johnson, author of The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the violent History of the United States, calls it) escape notice in our textbooks, where we noted the brutality of the Spanish with the Aztecs and Incas, but barely flinched at the displacement of the Osage and the Sioux in the Missouri Valley?  Why do we shake our heads at the enslavement of the Hebrews under Pharaoh in 13th century BCE, but consider the enslaved African as a fixture of our nineteenth century economy?

Understanding that the birthplace of modern democracy was also the site of “Indian removal” from most of the west disrupts the narrative of “manifest destiny” we have cultivated in our textbooks. The enduring brutality of slavery both ante- and post-bellum disrupts a false narrative of increasing toleration of African-Americans from one decade to the next. As the lyrics say, “Repair and say what’s true.” We need a clear-eyed perspective on our shadowy history narrative, and a willingness to accept the original sins of our early and present history.

“Declare these truths anew,” the verse ends.  White supremacy remains obdurate in the face of history.  Consciously or unconsciously we have dismissed this sordid history, because we consider Native and African-American peoples a lower grade of humanity. Our gestures of affirmative action or reparations have been condescending, as if we had done more than they deserve. The time has come to bury this guilt, we reason. We have done more than decent people can  expect.

Only when we can see humanity in the eyes of our darker brothers and sisters can we comprehend the shame and abuse we have inflicted over the generations.  Repentance goes a little deeper than “Sorry about that.”  It requires a hunger for understanding and resolve to listen for the residual offenses.  Can there be reparations? Perhaps, if the circumstances ask for it, but not payoffs intended to settle the score. We can not buy our way out of human carnage.

That’s why I like the concluding lines of this verse:

Let equity our promise be
Declare these truths anew

The words  suggest a heightened concern in the future, not a “that settles it” attitude. I think we are too quick to claim we have put all offense behind us, not appreciating that the hearts of offender and victim are not easily changed.  Relationships heal only with persistent attention.

The power of these added verses to “America the Beautiful” is in their juxtaposition of glory and infamy.  In no sense does our recognition of racism compromise our love of all things beautiful. It is an amalgam of justice and brutality that makes our country what it is.  What we make of this checkered history is what makes us both flawed and stunning.

 

 

Redemption

Creator and Redeemer– that pretty much summarizes what God does and explains the human predicament.  We live on a planet ideally suited for life, the work of a savvy Creator. We also fail to respect both the planet and its citizens, so we are in need of transformation. That is where the redeemer comes in.  God teaches us how to survive and love our fellow creatures.

Then comes the invisible, intractable foe–racism–and we are struggling with something larger and uncontrollable than legislation or intellect can resolve.  Some of us deny that we live in a country dominated by racism. We have the Emancipation Proclamation and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and a Black President, so how could we be racist? Or we insist it is only a few individuals– the “bad apple” theory, a theory advocated by the President.  The rest of us are respectable and law-abiding citizens who don’t see color at all.

Then comes someone claiming racism is larger than we suppose–it is “systemic.” It is as pervasive as the air we breathe and the water we drink. It is an underlying disposition, something we are born into. It is more than good behavior.  We are asked to admit to something we cannot quantify or legislate.  We can not claim innocence, because no one can claim innocence.

Eddie Glaude makes this claim in his critical biography of James Baldwin Begin Again.  He says we live in a “value gap” where no one is equal to our white race or social group, however we define it. He says our society is poisoned by “the lie,” a complex of stereotypes and misinformation about Black people that lowers them unconsciously in our eyes.  We act out “the lie” in a dozen ways every day without noticing our offenses. White people give subtle signals that they are superior, and Black people receive the unintended message.

So how do you manage a systemic virus that has resisted the antidotes of nonviolent protest, legislation, schooling and the honoring of human rights heroes?  White people cry, What do you want from us? Black people answer, Respect, Equality, Justice.  And we realize we are at the end of our management skills.

James Baldwin hit the wall many times in his struggle to reconcile Black and White, and he chronicles his recovery over and over again in books and articles he wrote from 1954 to 1987.  Eddie Glaude wanted to show Baldwin’s great resilience in an extended relationship with the Civil Rights Movement with a tribute to Baldwin, Begin Again.

At the end of his life Baldwin wrote an essay published by Playboy, January 1987.

Salvation is not flight from the wrath of God, it is accepting and reciprocating the love of God. Salvation is not separation. It is the beginning of union with all that is or has been or ever will be . . . . Salvation connects   . . . . It keeps the channel open between oneself and however one wished to name That which is greater than oneself. It has nothing to do with one’s fortunes or one’s circumstances in one’s passage through this world. It is a mighty fortress, even in ruin or at the gates of death. (Glaude, E. Begin Again, 213).

We have reached the place where we must be redeemed in order to be reconciled.We know God is prepared to redeem us, because that has been God’s role from the Exodus to the present day. Yet we must first admit our limitations and appeal to a merciful God.

James Baldwin was not a church-goer or a righteous crusader. He was a gay Black man wrestling with his own prejudice and anger. Yet his understanding of redemption was well-aligned with the prayer of the Psalmist. It is a prayer of humility and desire to change. A prayer we need today.

But who can detect their errors?

Clear me from hidden faults

Keep back your servant also from the insolent;

do not let them have dominion over me.

Then I shall be innocent of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart.

be acceptable to you,

O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalms 19:12-14)

 

 

 

Bred to a Harder Thing Than Triumph

13-year-old Braydon Harrington, from New Hampshire, spoke of connecting with Joe Biden over stuttering. DNC

One certain star of the Democratic Nominating Convention was 13-year-old Brayden Harrington, who bravely stuttered his way through a campaign endorsement  of Joe Biden. Harrington had met Biden back in February at a CNN Town Hall in Concord, NH, where Biden had told stories of his struggle with stuttering as a child.

Biden’s sister later observed, “The stutter at the time was horrible for him. But I think it was a great gift, because he did not let the stuttering define him.” This is the message that Biden shared with Brayden Harrington in Concord. More than a pep talk, Biden’s advice extended to examples of how he marked his speeches with pauses to prevent the stutter from interrupting him. He gave Brayden the text of a speech marked with his pauses to keep as a reference.

“And in a short amount of time, Joe Biden made me feel more confident about something that’s  bothered me my whole life. Joe Biden cared. Imagine what he could do for all of us,” Harrington said in his video-taped campaign speech. The young man’s confidence was displayed throughout his speech, as his struggles with the “s’ sound were retained in the recording. He never looked dismayed or frustrated with his stutter; he just overcame it and went on. That is the essence of learning: coping with frustration and trying again.

We can imagine the Democratic Presidential candidate facing off against stuttering as a boy. He even lapsed briefly into a stutter in a Democratic Primary debate in December. The former White House Press secretary ridiculed Biden on Twitter, but later took it down and apologized. But she reminds us of Trump’s ridiculing of a disabled person at a campaign appearance earlier that year.  Even adults enjoy victimizing people with handicaps, for whatever reason.

Biden told Harrington that he used to read Yeats out loud as a young man to help him overcome his stutter. I wondered which poems, and I thought of one entitled, “To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing.”  Apparently Yeats’ friend must have been competing with another dishonest rival, because he says,

Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honor bred, with one
Who were it proved he lies
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbors’ eyes;

In this poem of encouragement, Yeats portrays his friend as honest and willing to accept defeat, while his rival has no sense of decency to give credit to him.  The bravado of the rival is contrasted with the inner strength of Yeats’ friend in the final lines.

Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.
Yeats compares his friend to a stringed instrument vibrating with music in a cave or a stone temple, hidden from the public.  No one may hear his brave music, but he will know he has overcome the spirit of defeat and is poised to go on.

It is not hard to imagine a stutter as such a defeat and the quiet resolve to fight on as a “place of stone,” a hidden place where you must shape your character.  Yeats concedes that “of all things known,/ That is most difficult.”  I love that he rhymes “exult”with “difficult.”  It makes the emotional healing and resolve to go on more possible. I imagine Brayden Harrington as forming this resolve after meeting Joe Biden.

That was the endorsement we will all remember. You can say it was exploiting a child for a campaign or that there are others who struggle more with persecution, but it was an indelible memory.  It was a teen-ager showing his vulnerability to millions of others for a cause he believed in.  How many of us have such courage?

Dragons and Hoops

Gene Luen Yang pushes the genre envelope with this graphic memoir of basketball, history, biography, school legacy, and reflection. He draws in the super-hero tradition of Marvel comics, sketching intense inter-actions with Pa-pa, Slam! Wap! Swish! Steal!   He follows his own high school’s basketball team over several years, even coaching generations. He creates biographical sketches of young stars, for some a trajectory to the National Basketball Association, and he educates his readers on topics ranging from the origins of men’s and women’s basketball to the principles of the Sikh religion.

Perhaps most interesting of all is how he negotiates the roles of Teaching, Comics and Family as he is drawn into a sport that evoked failure for him from his earliest forays.  More than anything, the saga of Bishop O’Dowd High School’s basketball team lured him into interviewing the coach and the players, because of the remarkable tradition he found over his years teaching mathematics there.  The story becomes an increasing part of the “comics” quadrant of his time as the drama unfolds (see below).

Like Yang’s previous epic Boxers and Saints the generational story of Bishop O’Dowd’s High School basketball team addresses large themes of self-discipline, family loyalty, inter-racial conflict, religious prejudice, gender discrimination among others. Some chapters are baldly socio-historical, such his fascinating analysis of the rules of early Women’s Basketball. Yang points out how the the tripartite division of the court and rules excluding dribbling and stealing, preserved the traditional view of women: “avoids ugly muscles,” avoids scowling faces,” “avoids competitive spirits,” and “they’ll still be able to attract the most worthy fathers for their children” (174).
With the same instructional goals, Yang gives his readers an illustrated history of men’s basketball, the origins of basketball in Catholic high schools, the Sikh-Hindu conflict that turned the Sikhs against Mahatma Gandhi, and the decades-long development of basketball in China.
None of this seems incidental to the epic of Bishop O’Dowd’s pursuit of the State High School Basketball Championship. Yang interviews Coach Llewellyn Blackmon Richie throughout the narrative, showing his dedication to his players and to scholastic basketball. Richie played basketball for the same high school under their legendary coach Mike Phelps. Later he tells Yang stories of his best young ball players when he was coach.  Jeevin Sandhu (Punjabi Sikh), Qianjun “Alex” Zhao (Chinese), and Austin Walker (African American) are later featured to show the diversity and character of the 2015 team.
The final chapter tells of the march of the team to the California State Championship against the Mater Dei Monarchs, a powerhouse going for its fifth straight championship. Yang makes both the individual and team performance critical to the exciting outcome in overtime.
Although Dragon Hoops will totally absorb the basketball junkies among men and women, it carries strong themes of his previous graphic novel American-Born Chinese to engage many other readers of adolescent fiction.  It is the first graphic narrative I have seen with extensive notes in the Appendix, documenting sources of both information and drawings, including those of popular culture, school yearbooks, and his own experiences.  The chapter-by-chapter bibliography completes the strong impression of a graphic documentary of a period of scholastic basketball.

Dragon Hoops, Gene Luen Yang,  New York: First Second, Roaring Brook Press, 2020