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  • Thomas N. DeWolf: The Educational Opportunity in the Gates Arrest

    Thomas N. DeWolf is the author of Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History. Tom speaks regularly at schools, conferences, and other events around the country. For further information go to: www.inheritingthetrade.com, where you can also find his Inheriting the Trade blog.

    Book Cover of Inheriting the Trade, links to Beacon Press page for bookLike many Americans, I have followed closely the story of the arrest of Harvard professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., by Cambridge police officer Sgt. James Crowley for disorderly conduct. This is, as Dr. Gates said during a CNN interview on July 22, "an educational opportunity for America."

    Two significant messages loom large in this educational opportunity. First, based on the wildly different responses to this story– from writers black and white, conservative and liberal– can we all agree to set aside the bogus notion that we are a "post-racial" nation? This case is about race. We're talking about it. We disagree.

    Separate from the facts in this particular case, racial profiling is alive and well in America. According to the ACLU report The Persistence Of Racial And Ethnic Profiling In The United States, released just a few weeks ago, "Indeed, data and anecdotal information from across the country reveal that racial minorities continue to be unfairly victimized when authorities investigate, stop, frisk, or search them based upon subjective identity-based characteristics rather than identifiable evidence of illegal activity. Victims continue to be racially or ethnically profiled while they work, drive, shop, pray, travel, and stand on the street."

    Second, most white people remain largely oblivious to the systemic racism that results in the regular occurrence of such incidents all over our nation. It isn't "in our face," doesn't appear to impact us, and we've been socialized not to see it. Most white people consider ourselves to be not racist. We have good intentions toward people of color. But good intentions are irrelevant when the outcomes are unjust and inequitable.

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  • David W. Moore: Obama, the Public, and Health Care

    Today's post is from David W. Moore, author of The Opinion Makers: An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls (out in hardcover now, paperback with a new afterword available this fall). Moore is a senior fellow of the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. A former senior editor of the Gallup Poll, where he worked for thirteen years, Moore also served as professor of political science at UNH and is the founder and former director of the UNH Survey Center.

    Book cover for The Opinion Makers by David W. MooreA recent ABC/Washington Post poll reported slipping support for President Obama's efforts to reform health care. In April of this year, polls showed 57 percent approval to 29 percent disapproval of the way the president is handling health care, compared to a 49 percent to 44 percent ratio in mid-July. That's an 8-point decline in approval and a 15-point increase in disapproval.

    The same poll also showed that, by a 55 percent to 43 percent margin, Americans support a health care reform plan that is roughly what the president is requesting.

    What's going on? If Americans support the president's health care plan, and it is now that he is pushing the Congress to pass legislation enacting reform, why is the president's popularity on this issue declining?

    The public's growing disenchantment is especially surprising, because last April the president was hardly focused on health care at all, his attention mostly on getting a stimulus bill passed through Congress. Yet, if we believe the polls, his approval on health care was higher when he was not fully engaged in getting health care legislation passed (which the public wants) than when he is fully engaged!

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  • Lillian Rubin: The Emperor Has No Clothes: Why the Sotomayor Hearings Were Disappointing

    Lillian B. Rubin is with the Institute for the Study of Social
    Change, University of California, Berkeley. She is a sociologist,
    psychologist, and author of numerous books, the latest of which is 60 on Up: The Truth about Aging in the Twenty-First Century. She also writes for Dissent magazine, and this piece originally posted on their website here.

    RubinWill somebody out there say it please: The hearings that were
    supposed to provide insight into Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s suitability
    for the United States Supreme Court were a disgrace and an outrage. Not
    just the Republican bloviators posturing for the cameras and toadying
    to their right-wing constituency, not just the Democratic yea-sayers
    singing the judge’s praises and feeding her softballs and sweet talk,
    but Sotomayer herself.

    I have no doubt that Sonia Sotomayor is a remarkable woman, nor do I
    fail to appreciate that hers is an inspiring story.  But am I the only
    one who thinks the repeated—and seemingly obligatory—references to her
    past from both sides of the aisle were more a self-congratulatory bow
    to American exceptionalism than to Judge Sotomayor and her personal
    accomplishments.

    I don’t mean that America doesn’t deserve kudos for a social order
    that still makes such a climb possible, although far less likely than
    when I grew up in the same place and similar circumstances as Judge
    Sotomayor. But it would sit easier if there had been even one voice—if
    not on the committee then in the media—to remind us that she’s
    one-of-a-kind, or at best, one-of-a-few, and that most of her former
    neighbors still live in the South Bronx, still scrabble for the food
    and the rent, and still suffer the effects of the prejudice and
    discrimination that has dogged their lives. 

    My real question, however, is: Where was that savvy woman her
    friends and colleagues describe, the one they say is smart, warm, and
    funny, the one who has had such a brilliant career and is now about to
    ascend to its pinnacle? Why was she in hiding? Yes, I know, she’d
    been briefed and rehearsed until her brain probably was rendered
    incapable of spontaneous thought. But why did she have to back away
    from truths she’d spoken so eloquently in the past? Would it have
    really have hurt her confirmation chances if, when questioned about her
    “wise Latina woman” speech, she had said, “Yes, of course, my life
    experiences as a poor Latina woman have a bearing on who I am today
    and, therefore, on how I see the facts of a case. With respect,
    senator, so do your experiences as a privileged white man influence
    what you see and how you judge it.”

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  • Howard Bryant at ESPN on a Notable Date in Red Sox History

    Yesterday marked the fiftieth anniversary of the day the Boston Red Sox became an integrated team, when Pumpsie Green was sent in as a pinch runner. Howard Bryant, author of Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston, writes about the anniversary at ESPN, noting that not only did the team pass on signing Jackie Robinson–the first African-American player in Major League Baseball– they didn’t even integrate until after Robinson retired from the game, and were the last team in baseball to do so. Read Bryant’s piece at ESPN here.

  • Patricia Harman: Morgantown’s Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me

    Today's post is from Patricia Harman, author of The Blue Cotton Gown: A Midwife's Memoir. Harman got her start as a lay-midwife on the rural communes where she lived in the '60s and '70s, going on to become a nurse-midwife on the faculty of Ohio State University, Case Western Reserve University, and West Virginia University. She lives and works near Morgantown, West Virginia, and has three sons. In the interest of privacy, the names and some identifying details of the women she discusses in this post have been changed.

    Book Cover for The Blue Cotton Gown by Patricia Harman, links to Beacon Press page for book West Virginia has a reputation for being nearly the worst for everything in the US, except for the beautiful scenery. We Mountaineers have the 4th highest poverty rate in the United States: 16.9%, equal with Alabama and just slightly better than Kentucky, Mississippi, New Mexico and Louisiana.

    I was,
    therefore, astounded when NBC Nightly Newsfeatured our hometown,
    Morgantown, WV (poverty level 27.7%), as having the lowest unemployment rate
    (2.7%) in the nation in this past December's survey. (The rate has since risen,
    but we're still
    among the lowest in the country    .) As a nurse-midwife and women's
    healthcare provider in a private clinic, I see life through the eyes of my
    patients. If we're doing well, it must be catastrophic everywhere else.

    Molly McDonald sits on the guest chair in my exam room. She's a 28- year-old housekeeper at the hospital. There are tears in her green eyes. "I don't know what's going on," she tells me. "Ever since I went back to work, I can't quit crying. I love my job, don't get me wrong and I'm grateful to have one, especially since Leonard got laid off at the sawmill… New home building has slowed and they ain't selling much lumber."

    "How old are your kids?" I ask sympathetically.

    "Just four months and three. Leonard's at home with them now but he's drinking and in my face all the time, complaining that I don't give him much love. But I'm just so tired…" The patient trails off and stares at the white cupboards over the sink. "I'm just so tired of holding the family together."

    I can't fix Molly's family or get Leonard his job back, so I give her a hug and a prescription for anti-depressants.

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  • Link Roundup

    Chris Finan (From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America) was featured as a Change Maker in Publishers Weekly for his work on free speech issues. You can read Finan's Beacon Broadside posts here.

    Speaking of free speech… is this the future of censorship?

    David Bacon's Illegal People is "An Island of Rationality."

    Kim Nielsen discusses writing about Anne Sullivan Macy.

    Jeff Sharlet answers three questions for Moby Lives. 

    Advice for authors about how to handle local bookstore signings. 

  • Frederick S. Lane: Bachmann’s Anti-Census Fear-Mongering is Nothing New

    Today’s post is from Frederick S. Lane, an author, attorney, expert witness, and lecturer who has appeared on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. His fifth book, American Privacy: The Four-Hundred-Year History of Our Most Contested Right, will be published by Beacon Press in November 2009. For additional information, visit www.FrederickLane.com

    Cover image for American PrivacyDuring questioning by Senator Al Franken (what a pleasure to finally write those words!), Judge Sonya Sotomayor noted that the U.S. Constitution is a mixture of broad principles (“due process,” “free speech,” etc.) and specific commands.

    While broad principles allow room for adaptation and interpretation, the specific instructions are meant to be followed. For instance, she said, the Constitution states that an individual must be at least 30 years old in order to serve in the United States Senate. There’s not a lot of wiggle room in that provision.

    Another example is contained in Article
    I, Section 2 of the Constitution     (and the 14th
    Amendment)    , which states that the members of the United States House of Representatives shall be apportioned among the various states “according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed.” “The actual Enumeration,” the Constitution says, “shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct.”

    The use of the word “shall” is a pretty clear tip-off that the Framers meant what they said; the nation is required to conduct a head count each decade, and Congress is given the discretion to determine how the Census should be conducted. Initially, under the direction of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Census takers limited themselves to just six questions, all of which were designed to count various categories of people in a given household. Over the succeeding decades, however, Congress expanded the Census beyond a raw headcount by adding questions designed to collect a wide range of information necessary for creating and implementing public policy. The specific questions varied from decade to decade, but popular topics included levels of education, employment, property ownership, types of illness, national origin, and so on.

    Not surprisingly, as the information collected by the Census expanded beyond mere enumeration, a tension arose between civic duty and personal privacy. In 1850, for instance, when Census takers began collecting information about individuals by name, the practice of posting Census results in public locations was stopped. By the time the 10th Census rolled around in 1880, Congress was sufficiently worried about non-compliance that it established a $100 fine for individuals who refused to answer a census taker’s questions (the same fine still applies today). At the same time, it also created a $500 fine for census takers who disclosed an individual’s private information without authorization. In addition, individual census responses are sealed for a period of 70 years; only the aggregate data is reported to Congress and the public.

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  • Video: Kate Clinton the Wiseass White Woman

    If you can’t see the video in your reader, click here.

    Kate Clinton, author of I Told You So, is a faith-based, tax-paying, America-loving political humorist and family entertainer. With a career spanning over 25 years, Kate Clinton has worked through economic booms and busts, Disneyfication and Walmartization, gay movements and gay markets, lesbian chic and queer eyes, and ten presidential inaugurals. She still believes that humor gets us through peacetime, wartime and scoundrel time. You can see this and many other vlogs at kateclinton.com.

    You can also check out Kate on the Progressive this week “reviewing” Bruno.

  • In the News: Former Liberian President Charles Taylor on Trial for War Crimes

    As former Liberian President Charles Taylor defends himself against charges of war crimes in Sierra Leone, you should read Philip C. Winslow’s post about that’s country’s brutal civil war here. Winslow wrote the piece after three commanders in that war were found guilty on multiple counts of war crimes.    

    From Philip C. Winslow: Sierra Leone photos

  • Farnoosh Moshiri: An Open Door in the Bend of an Iranian Alley

    Author Farnoosh Moshiri was born in a literary family in Tehran, Iran. She holds a B.A. in dramatic literature from the College of Dramatic Arts in Tehran, an M.A. in drama from the University of Iowa and an M.F.A in creative writing from the University of Houston. Her novel The Bathhouse is the story of a young woman arrested and detained during the fundamentalist revolution in Iran.

    Cover Image for The Bathhouse, links to Beacon Press page for book“It’s happening and I’m not there,” I embrace my belly, as if having unbearable cramps of a miscarriage. I hold back tears and move back and forth like a mother on her child’s grave. On the TV screen Iranian youth chant, demanding justice. The election has been a fraud and they want re-counting of the votes. They want their elected president, not the little dictator, the puppet of the old despot, the “Absolutist Ayatollah.” They march peacefully, some with tapes over their mouths, meaning they are quiet, all wearing green shirts, waistbands, or bandanas, holding flags and banners, arms up, showing V signs. They are millions—men and women, boys and girls, children, babies, sitting on the shoulders of fathers, green ribbons decorating the crown of their fluffy hair. It’s a massive demonstration, a reminder of 1979, when I was one of them and we fought for a republic—not an Islamic one. This was before the West aimed the spotlight on Khomeini and he was shipped from Paris with his entourage and the people’s revolution was hijacked.

    I watch all this, remember my youth, sway like a pendulum, and swallow my tears. But suddenly men in black shirts attack the green sea of the peaceful rally and blood covers the streets of Tehran. Cell phones capture the clubbing and stabbing. Someone’s camera records the shooting of a girl. I watch with disbelief. Blood gushes out of the girl’s chest, a young man presses his hand over the wound to stop it, an old man screams, “They killed her! They killed my daughter!”

    After this scene, I experience a turmoil unlike any emotional crisis in my life. Anger, sorrow, and the worst—guilt and self-hatred overcome me. I sob for a moment, then I shout at my husband, “Haven’t I been telling you? Haven’t I been writing for years that this is a fascist regime? Haven’t I? So why has no one believed me? No one ever believed me! I was right! They are fascists. Look! They’re killing our children!”

    He rubs my shoulder to calm me down and gently reminds me that no one has ever rejected my books; no one has ever defended this regime.

    But this does not help. I’m out of my mind. I contradict myself: “I haven’t done anything! Nothing!” I weep. “I escaped and they are getting killed–”

    With each new image, each YouTube film clip of beatings and stabbings of innocent people, I go through another wave of rage and sorrow, guilt and self-bashing. I mumble incoherently between tears—either insisting that I’d been right writing against this regime, or lamenting that I haven’t done enough.

    Have I been suffering from PTSD and have never been diagnosed? Am I remembering the Revolution, my forced exile, the execution of my comrades after I crossed the border, my father’s arrest and beating and his subsequent blindness and stroke? Am I remembering the harsh life of the refugee camp in war-infested Afghanistan? Am I remembering everything at once and experiencing a breakdown?

    And why such back breaking guilt, such self-condemnation?

    “I want to be there!” I demand childishly. “I want to be shot, get beaten up, clubbed, killed! Why am I here?”

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