tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10671466148250581822024-03-17T23:02:49.523-04:00The Spirit of the GothicThe website of Robert A. Douglas, author of That Line of Darkness, Encompass Editions, 2012 and 2013Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.comBlogger292125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-71721666267475291852024-03-06T07:54:00.005-05:002024-03-16T16:53:53.765-04:00Resources for Week Ten: Cultural Challenges to White Supremacy<div class="separator"> <span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Films</b></span></div><span><p style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE0kalV4Gl0TdL92CvfXm6UMx-7I3LMPX28kZX3qMKADhFTrBPq9vKOpSdMNUcAAz_iKhc9ddlv7GZL6P97Sg9D2CGcwfHCkSwLeNrFncD6sUCNOn-PHM6JoiyE4E2bAuAFUSLTuBcZV-Zb_bKTfHG2yQRdRg4gWlGz5dMngudrT36zc7KhfmUH8JZNdg/s267/the%20great%20debaters.jpg" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="189" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE0kalV4Gl0TdL92CvfXm6UMx-7I3LMPX28kZX3qMKADhFTrBPq9vKOpSdMNUcAAz_iKhc9ddlv7GZL6P97Sg9D2CGcwfHCkSwLeNrFncD6sUCNOn-PHM6JoiyE4E2bAuAFUSLTuBcZV-Zb_bKTfHG2yQRdRg4gWlGz5dMngudrT36zc7KhfmUH8JZNdg/w283-h400/the%20great%20debaters.jpg" width="283" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b></span><b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b></p><p style="font-size: x-large;"></p><p style="font-size: x-large;"></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Set in a Texan community during the 1930s,<b> </b>this excellent film features a Black teacher who hones the debating skills of some of his students. They excel in a milieu that seethes with racism. The youngest student becomes a superb debater who later in life became a political activist. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUmdBKVZqOfsl3qUk6r2j_lTnRdXMuzO-3qEv5bWyOamMagBAPQFrkIR38CYBRS9PoeGbCv2R72DMVFxX_M2T_0IlxVAzAeR40hq9oR0LsIaU8ur97kn1hS81PJvptfJos-75pFA7rR-Y1XNtWXIp9DL1sW71xg8xvBfzYz-9zHxCC0WJsk7QgwPUqLMQ/s301/buck.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="168" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUmdBKVZqOfsl3qUk6r2j_lTnRdXMuzO-3qEv5bWyOamMagBAPQFrkIR38CYBRS9PoeGbCv2R72DMVFxX_M2T_0IlxVAzAeR40hq9oR0LsIaU8ur97kn1hS81PJvptfJos-75pFA7rR-Y1XNtWXIp9DL1sW71xg8xvBfzYz-9zHxCC0WJsk7QgwPUqLMQ/s1600/buck.jpg" width="168" /></span></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: center;">Two worthy 1972 films that feature Black characters in major roles are </span><i style="text-align: center;">Sounder</i><span style="text-align: center;"> about a loving family set in rural Louisiana during the Depression and </span><i style="text-align: center;">Buck and the Preacher, </i><span style="text-align: center;">a Western that Sidney Poitier also directs. </span><span style="text-align: center;">In the former, what is most memorable is how a Black family struggles with Jim Crow racism and still maintains their humantity.</span><i style="text-align: center;"> </i><span style="text-align: center;">One interesting twist in the latter is its presentation of the relationship between Blacks and native peoples and its difference with traditional Westerns. </span></span></p><b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b></span><b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTz92qqZVSmMNeDA_-35-6ogMlB3dEvfE-aiTDst4kqW6XW81cquiyxZvjay9stVTdRlQezVt1DJYTndSBeWyd_NxmmljhnZN6GwIL44WMJc6eObPUXpEOYB4u_c5Q776jNch7FYf3grhjXCJd3n4MnHWnDiPfAnQbnGXlt105ZoFi8SW7Z6_ihyphenhyphensmCGk/s273/lee%20daniels%20the%20butler.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="184" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTz92qqZVSmMNeDA_-35-6ogMlB3dEvfE-aiTDst4kqW6XW81cquiyxZvjay9stVTdRlQezVt1DJYTndSBeWyd_NxmmljhnZN6GwIL44WMJc6eObPUXpEOYB4u_c5Q776jNch7FYf3grhjXCJd3n4MnHWnDiPfAnQbnGXlt105ZoFi8SW7Z6_ihyphenhyphensmCGk/w270-h400/lee%20daniels%20the%20butler.jpg" width="270" /></a></td></tr><tr></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-size: x-large;"> </b><span style="font-size: large;">Based loosely on the life of a butler who served Presidents from Truman to Reagan, this moving film narrates both his life and the civil rights movement from the horrors of Jim Crow to the election of a Black president. </span></div><br /><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj07DLtg_WefXDEebLBHyWD3ddeu4DIv_-TokwshBvxlQsRshN5ZKMyJbD5m7E4MR5bGOUM2NEzcYHVqJiQK3BJSrX-iC8EMBnsHDPnS4eZbvLkEin7_6brRNt87-KxdBlJIkL1mdfCauHSg5TnmZlFFuN0AnYDp6h7-Iyy1TR0HWKs3e07gFo-ky9sVok/s275/killers%20of%20the%20flower%20moonjpg.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj07DLtg_WefXDEebLBHyWD3ddeu4DIv_-TokwshBvxlQsRshN5ZKMyJbD5m7E4MR5bGOUM2NEzcYHVqJiQK3BJSrX-iC8EMBnsHDPnS4eZbvLkEin7_6brRNt87-KxdBlJIkL1mdfCauHSg5TnmZlFFuN0AnYDp6h7-Iyy1TR0HWKs3e07gFo-ky9sVok/s1600/killers%20of%20the%20flower%20moonjpg.jpg" width="183" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejMsuqnWjg5Fpk4LAjFYWXnPeIWKsuRILtvVWIfKcz_dDugNfrehlvPkVs0BN4g5rrLryoCFV3_TiwXRd8BFRLbORBd7bmRIrthXiXqZKe6IAE7_zKbLz3hSJDrbaG9jqk_-uVZlPsSYSt4UBWHxcG8XDq-1-jDchtIUCx4AhJbJA5wgxb_eLK3crNQU/s251/blackklansman.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="201" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejMsuqnWjg5Fpk4LAjFYWXnPeIWKsuRILtvVWIfKcz_dDugNfrehlvPkVs0BN4g5rrLryoCFV3_TiwXRd8BFRLbORBd7bmRIrthXiXqZKe6IAE7_zKbLz3hSJDrbaG9jqk_-uVZlPsSYSt4UBWHxcG8XDq-1-jDchtIUCx4AhJbJA5wgxb_eLK3crNQU/w201-h351/blackklansman.jpg" width="201" /></a></div></div><span style="font-size: large;">Based upon the book with the same name by David Gram, this powerful film available on Apple TV, focuses on Molly Burkhart and her Osage family and the men who murder her family in order to acquire the oil rich land; whereas Gram widens the lens and places Tom White, the chief investigator of these murders at the centre of his absorbing study. I recommend seeing the film and reading the book in tandem. <br /> <b><span> </span></b></span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcdQoGrrhtVD9-6kx9eLz-J3NlbUeGl4GcRWJjH2MnvxaueTBDGVx68d2ewu5zQLL8iNTUnxtWUlTbPoA6sahYeYpzfoZDVMJow-GJ4NK6VBRJXaf9HRaPMz9FxgPcAf6mx1k5vMXK69-4tvxuuD1fXp0dfESQmfCeTDOgTUAlA6F2FrOcHVkmU9-2KTY/s267/get%20out).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="188" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcdQoGrrhtVD9-6kx9eLz-J3NlbUeGl4GcRWJjH2MnvxaueTBDGVx68d2ewu5zQLL8iNTUnxtWUlTbPoA6sahYeYpzfoZDVMJow-GJ4NK6VBRJXaf9HRaPMz9FxgPcAf6mx1k5vMXK69-4tvxuuD1fXp0dfESQmfCeTDOgTUAlA6F2FrOcHVkmU9-2KTY/w282-h400/get%20out).jpg" width="282" /></a><b><span style="font-size: large;"></span></b></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Likewise, Spike Lee's wonderful film is based on the autobiographical account of Ron Stallworth, a Black officer in 1970s Colorado who infiltrates the Klan. Lee makes a numbe</span><span>r of changes that render the film stronger and more compelling than his source material.</span></span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-tqU6g8mJu7bokxILx9e_dBC71u3ZyEKGvdQn5OJwDDloYieL6-aaSrxOsA7ew8QpeVkd0Cbkcy5bxRhpCcpISXAxPy5RpTTDOtK0mcEp3S1JtsICQPvnmJe3AvjQI8muEUXQvIlPtul7461lXgtoVs9v27Chf85xXT-sW2xT7lwq3YrCGTCGbSFoqos/s268/12%20years%20a%20slave.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="188" data-original-width="268" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-tqU6g8mJu7bokxILx9e_dBC71u3ZyEKGvdQn5OJwDDloYieL6-aaSrxOsA7ew8QpeVkd0Cbkcy5bxRhpCcpISXAxPy5RpTTDOtK0mcEp3S1JtsICQPvnmJe3AvjQI8muEUXQvIlPtul7461lXgtoVs9v27Chf85xXT-sW2xT7lwq3YrCGTCGbSFoqos/w400-h281/12%20years%20a%20slave.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Set in contemporary upper state New York, Jordan Peele's <i>Get Out</i> is<i> </i>part comedy, horror and racial commentary. This wonderfully directed film is a must see.</span><p></p><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>12 Years A Slave</i>,<i> </i>based on a memoir of the same name, is the most realistic film on slavery but it is artfully crafted by director Steve McQueen. It may be difficult to watch at times but this film should disabuse viewers of any trace of the romanticized <i>Gone-With-The-Wind</i> representation of slavery. Even a relatively humane</span><span style="font-size: large;"> slaveholder becomes terribly compromised by a vicious, cruel system. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhug0agwdUwYFrJDdnsGYf-zUc-cl2OocptMqKtImh77rGQwSlARYOtpJmkxR4hfb8wwIbWSnyaxIXo7m1WuHzGfiznNaS3IhkzlH7DZ1F-lVJTlrgP5mR9em8YdsTiAzwA6XHA_2IR2UBPXRhp8jpIEEd8RiR0uyWSd9nKuK8e14yKoA9wpdAoqXUDlJs/s275/selma).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhug0agwdUwYFrJDdnsGYf-zUc-cl2OocptMqKtImh77rGQwSlARYOtpJmkxR4hfb8wwIbWSnyaxIXo7m1WuHzGfiznNaS3IhkzlH7DZ1F-lVJTlrgP5mR9em8YdsTiAzwA6XHA_2IR2UBPXRhp8jpIEEd8RiR0uyWSd9nKuK8e14yKoA9wpdAoqXUDlJs/s1600/selma).jpg" width="183" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLhj_qgZm-Te7zLXqw3JVUiwKAYpCr5PtJ_gvjAN-t4ZkaI00270kIMjHctNgayTueaEwQ-gO2VFk9i_ZSb58JFbXwdSeRRDGthakv_TutlE65rknz2Inx0B4d3LsuAkICu140CwKn65cBb0q15rOBpcAb5u8ruT8Wb5HVEzhpwGO1vRCdE0mCZoQtJ3k/s300/till%20film.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLhj_qgZm-Te7zLXqw3JVUiwKAYpCr5PtJ_gvjAN-t4ZkaI00270kIMjHctNgayTueaEwQ-gO2VFk9i_ZSb58JFbXwdSeRRDGthakv_TutlE65rknz2Inx0B4d3LsuAkICu140CwKn65cBb0q15rOBpcAb5u8ruT8Wb5HVEzhpwGO1vRCdE0mCZoQtJ3k/s1600/till%20film.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div><i style="font-size: x-large;">S</i><span style="font-size: large;"><i>elma</i><span>, based on the struggle to secure voting rights in 1965, may be the most familar film on this list but</span></span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span>it is well worth a second viewing in part because it gets the history mostly right, and part because of the solid performances that director Ava Du Verney draws from the actors.</span><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The heart of the film <i>Till </i>is not the murder of Emmett Till in 1955, a sequence that avoids exploitation but his mother Mamie Till-Mobley who channels her grief into becoming a civil rights activist by seeking justice for her son. Danielle Dealwyler provides an unforgettable performance. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>Novels and Television Productions</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivWssgn141IkvSbqZHOPW8YcZ9D21TEnn2TUFr0W20LuXc5FQEyeOVKf1mw6c3aVg-djAQxx-iBuHDGeHXNvSNUp57WkonCetxye3uyXUy3bxlRoSvJ8WDX3NW35N972tgdfiwTecYuUD0mmiKdjFvhOb61G2ZowwWSiX-MWcOuF_ZXRUJOiFO4CG0_iU/s275/underground%20railroadjpg.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; font-size: x-large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivWssgn141IkvSbqZHOPW8YcZ9D21TEnn2TUFr0W20LuXc5FQEyeOVKf1mw6c3aVg-djAQxx-iBuHDGeHXNvSNUp57WkonCetxye3uyXUy3bxlRoSvJ8WDX3NW35N972tgdfiwTecYuUD0mmiKdjFvhOb61G2ZowwWSiX-MWcOuF_ZXRUJOiFO4CG0_iU/s1600/underground%20railroadjpg.jpg" width="183" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7gKP5wMiu-fYIWeJbtuybiIpJkbFJy4iA7kGTryGF8uslTCVQPSwdEq3MYDC_szPcvsmdVnu87ep_XZze5-gAeXq-v_YLD34KebS4-b3_lv6r_SEZKRfzId1pEbOqdzEoZQLduLPgjlxX0oOXsWgnkLMXpZEQscB0pHhBIqAkr-j2RgLXjtMPoZa7Jyk/s279/colson%20whiteheadjpg.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="181" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7gKP5wMiu-fYIWeJbtuybiIpJkbFJy4iA7kGTryGF8uslTCVQPSwdEq3MYDC_szPcvsmdVnu87ep_XZze5-gAeXq-v_YLD34KebS4-b3_lv6r_SEZKRfzId1pEbOqdzEoZQLduLPgjlxX0oOXsWgnkLMXpZEQscB0pHhBIqAkr-j2RgLXjtMPoZa7Jyk/s1600/colson%20whiteheadjpg.jpg" width="181" /></a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Whitehead's superb novel and the Barry Jenkins Amazon television production compliment each other so well that the novel, that transcends the conventions of a historical novel and the ten-part series should be read first and seen second. Jenkins makes some astute changes from the source material without in anyway violating the spirit of the book. The first episode that closely follows the first chapter contains a most disturbing but not unrealistic scene. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Collectively, the novel and the series do more than expose the cruelties of slavery; they provide insight into the history of racism in America.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN7CPGqmez648M7ybsZmWYzUV5RNmb5UCtMSuOMP_1MAsVXgnMeqmB0t3hj9QW99oXLy3c8Cw7Go89z0NxJW3qiHIKLIbVTkgclOckObxZHBiP599ke4MeDPtl3yYVb4sHdnCP7POoii_yCuso5W6ArQQmTNGsVDkVzCLadxW6cF-F-sAB62tHTi-pLrs/s275/the%20treesjpg.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN7CPGqmez648M7ybsZmWYzUV5RNmb5UCtMSuOMP_1MAsVXgnMeqmB0t3hj9QW99oXLy3c8Cw7Go89z0NxJW3qiHIKLIbVTkgclOckObxZHBiP599ke4MeDPtl3yYVb4sHdnCP7POoii_yCuso5W6ArQQmTNGsVDkVzCLadxW6cF-F-sAB62tHTi-pLrs/w213-h320/the%20treesjpg.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYZFUINJvBgJMrFRLI24EYNylrxszrkoomGGH8h4yk_Y-jOfTeZqXD2a4dV2-EDAkoKkHFvC4UVCuRRDJV3h-sPj13NW1v8lIMYU4utcZjw3L7n13mF68YYqsPE578J0x-dWB86QpmrG0ZGhE7al5F9kl-xZ44FsoGlEHOa7sITrrmkjWPDHwH0hXJiio/s350/kindred.jpeg" style="font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="236" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYZFUINJvBgJMrFRLI24EYNylrxszrkoomGGH8h4yk_Y-jOfTeZqXD2a4dV2-EDAkoKkHFvC4UVCuRRDJV3h-sPj13NW1v8lIMYU4utcZjw3L7n13mF68YYqsPE578J0x-dWB86QpmrG0ZGhE7al5F9kl-xZ44FsoGlEHOa7sITrrmkjWPDHwH0hXJiio/s320/kindred.jpeg" width="216" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Octavia Butler's <i>Kindred </i>and Percival Everett's <i>The Trees </i>are both genre-bending superb novels. <i>Kindred</i> is part science fiction, historical novel and political commentary while <i>The Trees</i> is part a contemporary police procedural and a Gothic novel. The former is about a 1970s Black Californian woman who is repeatedly drawn back into the early nineteenth-century slave state of Maryland and finds her humanity tested. The latter is a powerful riff on the legacy of the murder of Emmet Till.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqk4DwFx5JCf37ZDUfTXV4SwA9a5-Qm1GIucxHBsyiFLAzmr0uSwn5pRxK9o46KbpyNtbDZRtke2IU_Bsl5u2DNJW7GoX7tmfrdhNxzbpjYUdktjXPYNBzx61B6DL_rzaBoJDEN5CtZMzpIdOph-38whGjjgBrZJdmlA_NH01D53ZpZ9pnXCPCLJ8PTic/s300/s%20a%20cosby%203.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqk4DwFx5JCf37ZDUfTXV4SwA9a5-Qm1GIucxHBsyiFLAzmr0uSwn5pRxK9o46KbpyNtbDZRtke2IU_Bsl5u2DNJW7GoX7tmfrdhNxzbpjYUdktjXPYNBzx61B6DL_rzaBoJDEN5CtZMzpIdOph-38whGjjgBrZJdmlA_NH01D53ZpZ9pnXCPCLJ8PTic/w400-h224/s%20a%20cosby%203.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">S. A. Cosby specializes in crime noir, novels set in contemporary rural Virginia which feels like the Jim Crow era. His latest and best is <i>All The Sinners Bleed </i>in which a police chief tries to win respect from the Black community and the larger white community that is bent on celebrating Confederate events. His job becomes more difficult when a Black student kills a beloved white teacher who has successfully hidden from the public a dark history of killing Black children. And a serial killer is still at large. Cosby uses the crime genre to explore racism in his state and how</span><span style="font-size: large;"> the past infects the present.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWWRpZ0m1T92DN5OZbQZOZj2MmbTl__EiIW0QODrdDgMfWpNAjhW8pjGoJ1qItQg2V5sqcHzK-ANyjdw1g7UEUkgLCP2_539RIQBCiV3TwIvv4eCJL80TqO83lbDhkD83_f9NZgLEnql0gHXFQJLfL8JjrdHyGtqCGhU87u3IUUOPrfPcbe4q7q4yu1tc/s1000/dear%20martin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="652" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWWRpZ0m1T92DN5OZbQZOZj2MmbTl__EiIW0QODrdDgMfWpNAjhW8pjGoJ1qItQg2V5sqcHzK-ANyjdw1g7UEUkgLCP2_539RIQBCiV3TwIvv4eCJL80TqO83lbDhkD83_f9NZgLEnql0gHXFQJLfL8JjrdHyGtqCGhU87u3IUUOPrfPcbe4q7q4yu1tc/s320/dear%20martin.jpg" width="209" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">A young scholarship student difficult encounter with a police officer disabuses him that his accomplishments will protect him from racism. Not knowing whom to turn to, he begins writing letters to Martin Luther King. This is the premise behind a very good novel that is billed for young adults but any adult could profit from.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDV2oyEQhd3prjlZqGBC8hvXta80HbkV474Vbi4pHKy_1BrRvQTUXpK5Gf-P7RJIbI0GdFZ7UUqxk9kBeDnhZ_iJ6CO43dJ4BTU9iWmJ0coWwZ17SFtF0ybPmGTtF_jFSr9DSl0LD-e84NjjIiTNdDawTULvk9MyvOYeRE2t1YXsgsyMXyMMJDQcAZhaA/s273/home.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="185" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDV2oyEQhd3prjlZqGBC8hvXta80HbkV474Vbi4pHKy_1BrRvQTUXpK5Gf-P7RJIbI0GdFZ7UUqxk9kBeDnhZ_iJ6CO43dJ4BTU9iWmJ0coWwZ17SFtF0ybPmGTtF_jFSr9DSl0LD-e84NjjIiTNdDawTULvk9MyvOYeRE2t1YXsgsyMXyMMJDQcAZhaA/s1600/home.jpg" width="185" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"> <br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZqkFimcShMgo24-IMv5OJ3d-2HHfMi6fKrcvTh1OkmCricFHWgPTSGTGmF8HEbC477gdgJrNpBWniJSrwXRCT62DeYwGjVps69NA5kIQL_motGmcXA5R74TR1NgQrWmu55rJoa0EMHK1vK0JbZYCF2AlBeomFix3KoKiM4dOULGrcAdDJ-ZQHT1-X_N8/s289/a%20mercy.jpg" style="clear: left; font-size: x-large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="289" data-original-width="174" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZqkFimcShMgo24-IMv5OJ3d-2HHfMi6fKrcvTh1OkmCricFHWgPTSGTGmF8HEbC477gdgJrNpBWniJSrwXRCT62DeYwGjVps69NA5kIQL_motGmcXA5R74TR1NgQrWmu55rJoa0EMHK1vK0JbZYCF2AlBeomFix3KoKiM4dOULGrcAdDJ-ZQHT1-X_N8/w174-h289/a%20mercy.jpg" width="174" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps two lesser known Toni Morrison novels but both are well worth reading. In <i>A Mercy, </i>Morrison explores the early history of enslavement in the seventeenth century in which an enslaved mother encourages a white visitor to acquire her young daughter because she believes that she will have a better life if she is no longer under the control of her current owner. In <i>Home, </i>a Black damaged Korean veteran returns </span><span style="font-size: large;">home to his small community in Georgia to save his younger sister from a doctor who conducts dangerous experiments. Along the way, he encounters the racism widely prevalent in the Jim Crow era.</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b> Memoirs</b></span></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVrHbth2d7P21Q4mOy45H-vzrX30rKHlfjZ4JtxPNuE02wZzRySJ_1xEgA9d42NSpfaq7k7-2rVOpKY5bi08cFxtaiRbR_DWWGlBkFZKqqZOMykiQZDWb7daLsuBODvt6_K7W9696aR08Yu8PqhPqsqqzCNaCCxVmPYz1jexJg7yK5D65ZuQ34zjEv4q0/s275/souith%20to%20america).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; font-size: x-large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVrHbth2d7P21Q4mOy45H-vzrX30rKHlfjZ4JtxPNuE02wZzRySJ_1xEgA9d42NSpfaq7k7-2rVOpKY5bi08cFxtaiRbR_DWWGlBkFZKqqZOMykiQZDWb7daLsuBODvt6_K7W9696aR08Yu8PqhPqsqqzCNaCCxVmPYz1jexJg7yK5D65ZuQ34zjEv4q0/s1600/souith%20to%20america).jpg" width="275" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6PBrEv83KgjnqrFF8ymQRTFjgvoGMLzu95LFv_DNiO4lAYkkqOh6T3AtEXBm89wjSwcHy601EYoJyVq30PGhJwpSXeETTGJ2ak17hEnTx6vNB7KdQOcmzND4UthOzzBsy_O6DN-LT6nuy58lapvhbVJPbe1ag5bVbGOOuSlE5TaCiiCQ2wTn7jNCS4WA/s293/i%20know%20why%20the%20caged%20bird%20singspg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="172" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6PBrEv83KgjnqrFF8ymQRTFjgvoGMLzu95LFv_DNiO4lAYkkqOh6T3AtEXBm89wjSwcHy601EYoJyVq30PGhJwpSXeETTGJ2ak17hEnTx6vNB7KdQOcmzND4UthOzzBsy_O6DN-LT6nuy58lapvhbVJPbe1ag5bVbGOOuSlE5TaCiiCQ2wTn7jNCS4WA/s1600/i%20know%20why%20the%20caged%20bird%20singspg.jpg" width="172" /></a></span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The first of her six memoirs,<i> I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings </i>explores the early life of Maya Angelou when she experienced the devastating effects of a childhood marred by ugly racism and a violent death that effected her for years. Yet by the time she graduates from high school, she has acquired a love for language and confidence that enables her to rise above her terrible early experiences. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Imani Perry's wonderful part memoir, travellogue, history and literary criticism, <i>South to America, </i>is one of the best books I have read that grapples with racism in America today. Her three chapters on Alabama are perhaps the most moving in a great book. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Coda</span></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghKZv3vlqounRNjO4Yp37zGszvC6kabF5AcrF3Lqk7yNLs_iBcNxsl1KIY0swNt6-1CkZ1KYvRH0tcR8dokexXBZO22-YglrW0YXPkGhffzboMxaIBljF-VpMcNs2ep_jFKYjITPA7OtQ6GTRT2yJEYbxKmeSJQTJ-018Nt2_Vz3UL_RgTvHbVQWn4VkA/s225/drew%20gilpin%20faust.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghKZv3vlqounRNjO4Yp37zGszvC6kabF5AcrF3Lqk7yNLs_iBcNxsl1KIY0swNt6-1CkZ1KYvRH0tcR8dokexXBZO22-YglrW0YXPkGhffzboMxaIBljF-VpMcNs2ep_jFKYjITPA7OtQ6GTRT2yJEYbxKmeSJQTJ-018Nt2_Vz3UL_RgTvHbVQWn4VkA/s1600/drew%20gilpin%20faust.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">This powerful coming-of-age memoir by a white American history professor does not fit into this week's overview of Black creativity. But it could serve as emblematic of what I have attempted over the last ten weeks. In terms of chronology, her account of her own life born into a conservative rural family in Virginia combined with her insightful social history of the 1950s and 60s is a meaningful contribution to the Jim Crow and Civil Rights weeks. But on a deeper level, her moving account of her challenges to the racial and gender arrangements of white supremacy, reverence for the Confederacy and female subordination that her parents and grandparents believed were immutable, exemplifies on a micro level what I have attempted on a macro level. Because of her white privileged background, it may be presumptious to suggest that Gilpin Faust's courage to challenge the status quo from the age of nine is reminiscent of Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Rosa Parks, Diane Nash to name a few. It may be more accurate to place her along a Derek Black and a Tim Wise. James Baldwin once wrote that he wanted whites to work with Blacks not for them. Gilpin Faust fits his criterion as she was no white saviour.<br /><br /><b>Travel Note: </b>In this series I mentioned a Civil Rights Tour I took in 2023. For anyone interested you need to google The Nation Travels Civil Rights Tour. If you wish to see their other tours, including a new trip "From Slavery to the Civil Rights Movement" you only need to google The Nation Travels.<br /><br /><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-3344410477104133042024-02-28T14:31:00.019-05:002024-02-29T13:13:09.773-05:00Resources for Week Nine: A Divided America<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq53RqBV7PmAxV0dy8gGQ0PiE2R4jlq5G0_tiR2zHI8ht_mPJwIMN5itL8AD5tcyS3BZx86hWFEGmqgKKuBuhvEXOcToFmeJAzwvMoUPh98SQKSpmjT-_-12wp15uk1fOgAmnvRicEQk0Zd8QkSDxW5iPswicP3woFch7gmeZzay5Oahr9pce6i5ehjwc/s275/the%201619%20projectjpg.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="184" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq53RqBV7PmAxV0dy8gGQ0PiE2R4jlq5G0_tiR2zHI8ht_mPJwIMN5itL8AD5tcyS3BZx86hWFEGmqgKKuBuhvEXOcToFmeJAzwvMoUPh98SQKSpmjT-_-12wp15uk1fOgAmnvRicEQk0Zd8QkSDxW5iPswicP3woFch7gmeZzay5Oahr9pce6i5ehjwc/w184-h228/the%201619%20projectjpg.jpg" width="184" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span><b>B</b></span><b>ooks</b></span><br /></p> <p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Created by Nikole Hannah Jones, who has assembled a wide assortment of historians, poets and fiction writers, <i>The 1619 Project</i> is a controversial but thoughtful compendium that has shaped my own thinking in the development of these presentations. Anyone with a curious and open mind would benefit from reading essays such as on crime, medicine, music and justice to name only a few.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp7Im8bEvP91CTtf3BiNdnApk1c9CjCTKOcG_JIPf8X1TneVRX7WTqk-7yR-EFbeG7QG1V_WIjCen1_rj_uc8TFfOpjx1dGFSjaE6AaSIjCIGX82rjcF4kRb1_q6rz185eFazrZd5uxzS1C4HJPrQxVYmMR2zkCn3zYERI3MONn4h1LtvglA6uVp9cPVw/s273/the%20cruelty%20is%20the%20pointpg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="273" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp7Im8bEvP91CTtf3BiNdnApk1c9CjCTKOcG_JIPf8X1TneVRX7WTqk-7yR-EFbeG7QG1V_WIjCen1_rj_uc8TFfOpjx1dGFSjaE6AaSIjCIGX82rjcF4kRb1_q6rz185eFazrZd5uxzS1C4HJPrQxVYmMR2zkCn3zYERI3MONn4h1LtvglA6uVp9cPVw/w400-h270/the%20cruelty%20is%20the%20pointpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Atlantic</i> writer Adam Serwer has collected a series of essays that focus on the Trump era and reveals insightful connections from the past, the Civil War, Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras. For example, he shows that Trump's incitments of violence at his rallies is not something new but resembles the photographs of whites enjoying the lynchings of Black people. </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>Article</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6cVTl4F6ryDEMl-iGiX5E6blJZ55TXppp6zicebVhychJWckFvoeB9xZq2kP2UX5n4XgwwXiBV2loRdd2sF6I9XAuUriu-GksrcxyDI7Atvti0gFCxqDQsuNlNm3qxaUCryUHgD3wUfPBQxIDB3Vs8MNDmVxk6CK5cSjBAi9mWAuSzadKo4kVLvtT4oY/s275/adam%20hochschildpg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6cVTl4F6ryDEMl-iGiX5E6blJZ55TXppp6zicebVhychJWckFvoeB9xZq2kP2UX5n4XgwwXiBV2loRdd2sF6I9XAuUriu-GksrcxyDI7Atvti0gFCxqDQsuNlNm3qxaUCryUHgD3wUfPBQxIDB3Vs8MNDmVxk6CK5cSjBAi9mWAuSzadKo4kVLvtT4oY/w400-h266/adam%20hochschildpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Adam Hochshild, " History Bright and Dark," <i>New York Review of Books, </i>May 25, 2023. This is the cover that prefaces Hochshild's excellent review of how history can be taught, which explores the dark historical corridors of America, and from a more conservative perspective that highlights American exceptionalism while ignoring or minimizing its uglier features.</span><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>Fiction and Film</b></span> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhueh3dNckEh2Dkf1Uf3VD-n1eBGDHz5CRMrJO3CRSUYbUvBE_rN5meL2418sOhFMRTdOhEFIl1IVAZ2dQFyGRXh0HVL8FlOyxQb_OdwHlfxvfTbyDbY0W53GMeoXCxMXRLq5Stc9c9RkTHZPOLab4twcZgUE6BNK4wQhDXtgNgRSAYh20j56KRMjan0jM/s259/the%20hate%20u%20give.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhueh3dNckEh2Dkf1Uf3VD-n1eBGDHz5CRMrJO3CRSUYbUvBE_rN5meL2418sOhFMRTdOhEFIl1IVAZ2dQFyGRXh0HVL8FlOyxQb_OdwHlfxvfTbyDbY0W53GMeoXCxMXRLq5Stc9c9RkTHZPOLab4twcZgUE6BNK4wQhDXtgNgRSAYh20j56KRMjan0jM/w400-h300/the%20hate%20u%20give.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnAMMfFwHkSzFiiMXkokLMgr5WQRnOmf9r9B6quTufKUcTAaUAPKnjDt4lXpfEggLTHV2Ww3j4S0rO-cAgoQ9-1U9UfQCoLaE2kARbi8sOIFecZpUJtKgggg_nEhk7EW4-MQtoZN8iG0e3OHgdtOLdN2vyVMHfne71wwA17QQuXCpokHEs0JHl5eiRnmg/s269/the%20hate%20u%20give%20filmjpg.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="187" data-original-width="269" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnAMMfFwHkSzFiiMXkokLMgr5WQRnOmf9r9B6quTufKUcTAaUAPKnjDt4lXpfEggLTHV2Ww3j4S0rO-cAgoQ9-1U9UfQCoLaE2kARbi8sOIFecZpUJtKgggg_nEhk7EW4-MQtoZN8iG0e3OHgdtOLdN2vyVMHfne71wwA17QQuXCpokHEs0JHl5eiRnmg/w400-h278/the%20hate%20u%20give%20filmjpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Rarely does a film based on a book excel the resource source but I think the film is exceptional. It is about a teenage girl who tries to keep her homelife in a Black community separate from her school life which is largely white private school. A tragic event makes that no longer possible as her two worlds collide. A powerful film about the difficulties that Blacks face with the police that whites are impervious about.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The following presents the title of a disturbing article and link to that article. </span></p><div class="row" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212438; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; font-family: Quicksand, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-left: -15px; margin-right: -15px;"><div class="col-8" style="-webkit-box-flex: 0; box-sizing: border-box; flex: 0 0 66.6667%; max-width: 66.6667%; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; position: relative; width: 520px;"><div class="article__info mb-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; margin-bottom: 0.5rem;"><div class="article__info-item mr-auto" style="-webkit-box-align: center; align-items: center; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; margin-right: auto;"><p class="text-uppercase text-low" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #a5a6b7; font-size: 0.8125rem; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><b>DECEMBER 5, 2022</b></p></div></div></div><div class="col-4" style="-webkit-box-flex: 0; box-sizing: border-box; flex: 0 0 33.3333%; max-width: 33.3333%; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; position: relative; width: 259.984px;"></div></div><h1 class="text-extra-large line-low mb-2" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212438; font-family: Quicksand, sans-serif; font-size: 2.1875rem; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0px;">Student 'slave auctions' illustrate the existence of a hidden culture of domination and subjugation in US schools</h1><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p class="article-byline text-low" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #a5a6b7; font-family: Quicksand, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 0.8125rem;">b</span>y Barbara Harris Combs, <a class="article-byline__link" href="https://theconversation.com/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #a5a6b7; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Conversation</a></p><p class="article-byline text-low" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #a5a6b7; font-family: Quicksand, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="article-byline text-low" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span face="Quicksand, sans-serif"><span style="color: #a5a6b7; font-size: large;">https://phys.org/news/2022-12-student-slave-auctions-hidden-culture.html</span></span></p><p class="article-byline text-low" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span face="Quicksand, sans-serif" style="color: #a5a6b7;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="article-byline text-low" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0px;"><br /></p></div>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-60986627089397455152024-02-21T08:37:00.000-05:002024-02-21T08:37:15.841-05:00Resources for Week Eight: Racial Reckoning<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Books</b></span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiooq7Sb9BBqpm60kLueexukXcvte-gf6qSEPKsH13edvEMbKbSnq3cZbWoTLT6l9MUMYhaNTsEWa9nQES_SQziviCYqFCHm6sOGVNHAdDaw_dwOw_gwu0syBrJqg_MG4GcJfqxnquOKxCvv-fUdVlwjAXoQLGyXAoM4DbUkV0JVHz4lCMzqti0EW_tliA/s278/in%20the%20shadow%20of%20statuesjpg.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="181" height="369" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiooq7Sb9BBqpm60kLueexukXcvte-gf6qSEPKsH13edvEMbKbSnq3cZbWoTLT6l9MUMYhaNTsEWa9nQES_SQziviCYqFCHm6sOGVNHAdDaw_dwOw_gwu0syBrJqg_MG4GcJfqxnquOKxCvv-fUdVlwjAXoQLGyXAoM4DbUkV0JVHz4lCMzqti0EW_tliA/w260-h369/in%20the%20shadow%20of%20statuesjpg.jpg" width="260" /></a><br /><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> The former mayor of New Orleans in his part memoir and part political commentary recounts his struggle to dismantle the Confederate monuments that disfigured his city. He includes his powerful speech that went viral after they were dislodged.<br /></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin6d15extgT1mao9l1YQeKnRLunel7h1YzoCTqY6dwe7oTmGllslByAa4GlipSJPhBtilNoa43AGvfMIeNYJrSkzVx3dz8hm92OznX0FXv3rAV6U2fZYgcBU0TxYhm2w3dTemc04_omZLyLfdlt5cfX4RZm9fTos_ZwbFnxYTJG3WK5pxy5E2z6JS6sQ4/s280/how%20the%20word%20is%20passed.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="180" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin6d15extgT1mao9l1YQeKnRLunel7h1YzoCTqY6dwe7oTmGllslByAa4GlipSJPhBtilNoa43AGvfMIeNYJrSkzVx3dz8hm92OznX0FXv3rAV6U2fZYgcBU0TxYhm2w3dTemc04_omZLyLfdlt5cfX4RZm9fTos_ZwbFnxYTJG3WK5pxy5E2z6JS6sQ4/w257-h400/how%20the%20word%20is%20passed.jpg" width="257" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Journalist, author and poet Clint Smith offers several compelling essays about former plantations, a slave site in New York, a Confederate burial suite and one essay about Senegal in Africa, the gateway for the enslaved that were dispatched to the Americas. Highly recommended.</span></p><p><br /><br /><br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu0cbqT0ByUcID-Dtpzj-Omcitw4TxI2oGsZuw1K27bsjZkq9Ho05MgS-rnpi7JVpE4twQa6s4Jvma1LchV-8lxgSCtjGPCTsahnnjnKUe1Fl7bdxcFw5hel7vUEZbkxgb8W_ofPPQXg239bsoU8kwaRPVo-EVQ9Tu5XPdaqWJxzSCSDTt64Sbdt6kn84/s604/robert%20e%20lee.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="604" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu0cbqT0ByUcID-Dtpzj-Omcitw4TxI2oGsZuw1K27bsjZkq9Ho05MgS-rnpi7JVpE4twQa6s4Jvma1LchV-8lxgSCtjGPCTsahnnjnKUe1Fl7bdxcFw5hel7vUEZbkxgb8W_ofPPQXg239bsoU8kwaRPVo-EVQ9Tu5XPdaqWJxzSCSDTt64Sbdt6kn84/s320/robert%20e%20lee.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ty Seidule, a former senior military officer and a current history professor at West Point, grew up imbibing an idealized image of Robert E. Lee until his historical research challenged his preconceptions. He showed great courage to often unsympathetic Southern audiences when he spoke publicly about the historical Lee, a flawed man with racist views who disdained African Americans. Highly recommended. </span><br /> </td></tr></tbody></table><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiWNcSFk54dugews2doXv9HOHjuEcmsWpl2ARrS-ajQxHs-ysdHHc0HlyeMAMpFcbx9LxK7kIr7in02fVVT35zm218m0BILvBYiFHWeyA4Y9lyS_m-kusnmi_H9ELJ8ZdbNisehVgrdK8Wme09T7JXWk0FLmsyfI_9eFIY_yvTSQQIqDoms7Vv_-JctIw/s450/the%20inconvient%20indian.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="277" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiWNcSFk54dugews2doXv9HOHjuEcmsWpl2ARrS-ajQxHs-ysdHHc0HlyeMAMpFcbx9LxK7kIr7in02fVVT35zm218m0BILvBYiFHWeyA4Y9lyS_m-kusnmi_H9ELJ8ZdbNisehVgrdK8Wme09T7JXWk0FLmsyfI_9eFIY_yvTSQQIqDoms7Vv_-JctIw/w197-h320/the%20inconvient%20indian.jpg" width="197" /></a><br /><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;">King an academic, novelist and short story writer has written a unconvential overview of Indigneous North American history with no footnotes and several personal anecdotes. Yet he engages with historians and offers insightful comments on popular culture: films, television, art and novels. A natural story teller, he spices humour and wisdom into his account that vigorously challenges the settler version of history.<br /><br /><b>Two novels on the damaging effects of Residential Schools<br /><br /></b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEityY65xtPQf9iq8xDNGQLKrKUKmhB5uO1UubTTsqU64Fdr3VA33Rq4MzRtWCPOXYegLn7z7HztjHYDMImH6yF4pd24_GYysjRuU0ejAbVeYpc3r5_U7UrW6QDQ6FrZrfk-aKiksLw8Xkewewg3D12V_kaGhuwjPlN00c-6H0ooGsDETqexO-gIUfskkOo/s1000/indian%20horse_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="624" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEityY65xtPQf9iq8xDNGQLKrKUKmhB5uO1UubTTsqU64Fdr3VA33Rq4MzRtWCPOXYegLn7z7HztjHYDMImH6yF4pd24_GYysjRuU0ejAbVeYpc3r5_U7UrW6QDQ6FrZrfk-aKiksLw8Xkewewg3D12V_kaGhuwjPlN00c-6H0ooGsDETqexO-gIUfskkOo/s320/indian%20horse_.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8QdNiLuy2_Zf9ZqeUZPqL98fkQ00Ntp3rYcuSkVKxe0Gymh3JlbXn7D_OYa7-kEWLWWxfx9wjyaJVsfD3ZHBhhrNeflC77YMGGkOSfru5lXMgxUsvkPoY9U9YIJ7gcLAzPZA0DBts4e4jKkfDYjo7vQJP2be7_pOYKKLwLv4clK66lSy8AOgR6STjCpA/s274/five%20little%20indiansjpg.jpg" style="clear: right; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8QdNiLuy2_Zf9ZqeUZPqL98fkQ00Ntp3rYcuSkVKxe0Gymh3JlbXn7D_OYa7-kEWLWWxfx9wjyaJVsfD3ZHBhhrNeflC77YMGGkOSfru5lXMgxUsvkPoY9U9YIJ7gcLAzPZA0DBts4e4jKkfDYjo7vQJP2be7_pOYKKLwLv4clK66lSy8AOgR6STjCpA/s16000/five%20little%20indiansjpg.jpg" /></a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i> Indian Horse </i>explores how one young Indigneous boy finds an outlet for his traumatic experiences in a residential school through hockey, but even as the years pass and he achieves success on the rink the ghosts of that trauma continue to haunt him. The novel was turned into a powerful film.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i> Five Little Indians</i> is a compelling novel that tracks the lives of five adolescent survivors of a residential school as they transition to the world outside, some coping better than others.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6jhaIR6URbwW7xFEV4u6sRDV_euo8Sb-9-urLDzgEWp6keTIVTIY-bIfrrJeHXRHtZko3-I-K1sNtkGdqz3ap6gtI1l4z2hNDBEsSojP_Hrk-7ELEmBreN-2GVFSBv-KZeGgpfqN0qJ0J6vTzoiNpYHpAXGDr_GfUWgoepYBWYTPubicCs2UsDIjPToM/s282/rising%20out%20of%20hatred.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="282" data-original-width="179" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6jhaIR6URbwW7xFEV4u6sRDV_euo8Sb-9-urLDzgEWp6keTIVTIY-bIfrrJeHXRHtZko3-I-K1sNtkGdqz3ap6gtI1l4z2hNDBEsSojP_Hrk-7ELEmBreN-2GVFSBv-KZeGgpfqN0qJ0J6vTzoiNpYHpAXGDr_GfUWgoepYBWYTPubicCs2UsDIjPToM/w254-h400/rising%20out%20of%20hatred.jpg" width="254" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">This powerful and moving account of Derek Black's transformation from the son of a far-right white nationalist to a committed believer in a multiracial society, that must regard everyone with respect, dignity and endowed with equal rights, is one ot the most memorable books that I have read in my study of white supremacy.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsKkNmC1AigxkGOrivPb42ClSMwc07E7B0prxoO-wGQRJB3UYX4Mo7J63wlE4DZwmpMGawEXcXpBG_A84HCKhW63Osml0wFuusPHtZNCIWwCWQF1san7FLI7j2v6tuQEou7xCYrvgDmMTF1SUNN5RqBoxLEar87-h4Btk14cC8cjMAhAqoN-LIIE98HOA/s281/white%20like%20me.%202jpg.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="180" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsKkNmC1AigxkGOrivPb42ClSMwc07E7B0prxoO-wGQRJB3UYX4Mo7J63wlE4DZwmpMGawEXcXpBG_A84HCKhW63Osml0wFuusPHtZNCIWwCWQF1san7FLI7j2v6tuQEou7xCYrvgDmMTF1SUNN5RqBoxLEar87-h4Btk14cC8cjMAhAqoN-LIIE98HOA/w256-h400/white%20like%20me.%202jpg.jpg" width="256" /></a><br /><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tim Wise's book, more autobiographical than his DVD, convincingly conveys how structural racism is baked into the education, justice and prison systems, as well as in housing and employment practices. An excellent companion to his DVD.</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Magazine Article</b></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEissfj-bQkIXB0L6tg0RU5Mpv50a_5qzWIhH8NCvdDZe9pLPoqTEP-VaYTHr7rS7WGGU1eeMsJh6o5FSiofqJnXd9N7xPZMVwgyZvSD17Qet28vH445OBa6_zhGd3ipvHwFJYxNmOfdj_E_WAuHk_KS-I2I3X3jbDsWkcFhVJTet-v4nNxMvlH7nuLkMks/s234/the%20case%20for%20reparations.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="234" data-original-width="216" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEissfj-bQkIXB0L6tg0RU5Mpv50a_5qzWIhH8NCvdDZe9pLPoqTEP-VaYTHr7rS7WGGU1eeMsJh6o5FSiofqJnXd9N7xPZMVwgyZvSD17Qet28vH445OBa6_zhGd3ipvHwFJYxNmOfdj_E_WAuHk_KS-I2I3X3jbDsWkcFhVJTet-v4nNxMvlH7nuLkMks/w369-h400/the%20case%20for%20reparations.jpg" width="369" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">The June 2014 edition of <i>The Atlantic </i>contains an in depth, historically grounded, article on reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates that offers the best overview of the case for reparations.</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b> Films and Television</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijXPdVPZrS0CkaYMMc2CXvYW-cFUO9arF7C69jT2U_DBae4AeRMgUrkzlql2BvDMh4NJvzODxdZIuEb1VYZ_HvNDbn4YUS5KrJpaYUUZ0Gc_kB_aoEi7Z-DOvlxDwGvo8oR3-fk4lJMPH8y7HYGvSLi1wtLy2NcxuJwnjRksQDP5Rfv-ugYFAyvcMvxtI/s279/just%20mercy.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="181" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijXPdVPZrS0CkaYMMc2CXvYW-cFUO9arF7C69jT2U_DBae4AeRMgUrkzlql2BvDMh4NJvzODxdZIuEb1VYZ_HvNDbn4YUS5KrJpaYUUZ0Gc_kB_aoEi7Z-DOvlxDwGvo8oR3-fk4lJMPH8y7HYGvSLi1wtLy2NcxuJwnjRksQDP5Rfv-ugYFAyvcMvxtI/w259-h400/just%20mercy.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Based on his memoir of the same name, this moving film dramatizes Bryan Stevenson's attempt to save Black men who have been sentenced to die in Alabama.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnuY0fE-D7qV041TJPnmqP3nYNDS7QmwKj0vtBQBQuzEqstfLAmOG4_wz9kNegv3-DxWVPKpMsWGrU_PP7Uhq3wYx2j4RTYxMKVbVqcuOc2vemfL32BKzdhgr6ELI0NkxLl82OXnkRIqna-wUEeuk9lVqkySjleIb73dKWojkm8bXrdb0wLwMVtrRPjZM/s273/son%20of%20the%20south).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="184" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnuY0fE-D7qV041TJPnmqP3nYNDS7QmwKj0vtBQBQuzEqstfLAmOG4_wz9kNegv3-DxWVPKpMsWGrU_PP7Uhq3wYx2j4RTYxMKVbVqcuOc2vemfL32BKzdhgr6ELI0NkxLl82OXnkRIqna-wUEeuk9lVqkySjleIb73dKWojkm8bXrdb0wLwMVtrRPjZM/w270-h400/son%20of%20the%20south).jpg" width="270" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Based on Bob Zellner's autobiography, <i>The Wrong Side</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><i style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-family: times; text-align: left;">of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-family: times; text-align: left;">this film portrays how a Southern young man with family roots in the Klan became immersed in the Civil Rights movement and was regarded by whites as a race traitor. This film that has not received the attention it merits is worth seeing.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-family: times; text-align: left;"> </span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjksa96tl0AGsGMLhz5WaiT4lyc8tIkx2Wr9_W7Aqz6flDF2iySDot_prWin6vLWjtQKheHrRkkK40YZEi3f6qd5g-jxotFwtXmavFn2a8rotjhLDPqobzFgMeuOGVqOCKcbMiSJenXWcE6xAG3XXTRAW16wycG4NYdNz4JZJFpskAATAs3RJkAAmrLFL8/s275/lovingpg.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjksa96tl0AGsGMLhz5WaiT4lyc8tIkx2Wr9_W7Aqz6flDF2iySDot_prWin6vLWjtQKheHrRkkK40YZEi3f6qd5g-jxotFwtXmavFn2a8rotjhLDPqobzFgMeuOGVqOCKcbMiSJenXWcE6xAG3XXTRAW16wycG4NYdNz4JZJFpskAATAs3RJkAAmrLFL8/w266-h400/lovingpg.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">This powerful film dramatizes how an interracial couple,</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> Richard and Mildred Loving, challenged the miscegenation law in Virginia by eventally taking their case to the Supreme Court of America and winning. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiD6HFI45bPWbFyK0mZCzS8cvQIDijYSO7sf0eCqUPQwARGl6YK6yNoV2MIC3PlUd682V_ds74kLc0OUE9wdCHR3LbcyAdT5DApdQayAwfrwYVCJEXsk8SmAIyFSwtFejR_KG0zwbhOG2mLbXdB3Gps9_34Dx5oK1poUM8Nuv85EYR_9SQV2OVb2E-Lq8/s300/till%20film.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiD6HFI45bPWbFyK0mZCzS8cvQIDijYSO7sf0eCqUPQwARGl6YK6yNoV2MIC3PlUd682V_ds74kLc0OUE9wdCHR3LbcyAdT5DApdQayAwfrwYVCJEXsk8SmAIyFSwtFejR_KG0zwbhOG2mLbXdB3Gps9_34Dx5oK1poUM8Nuv85EYR_9SQV2OVb2E-Lq8/s1600/till%20film.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">An extremely powerful film about the mother of the fourteen year old Emmett Till, who was brutally murdered in 1955 Mississippi, and channelled her grief into social activism as she sought justice for her son's killers.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUPFhRG4cKN2_MZGwOMxBBZ-ptnreipMFYSZgdXr1RDFpld9pM9i9y85s3vdMXtSCWMBc3qPqLNi2IeN0xCrm029Z2M9e_rLkcawnMi318DDMjKN_Pnc6bUYUYc7ay8msHGNL3pUecEGvXPkLYlaFTfEQey0VeMSbcyjeZHevY1vd9O_uPtE9k12OLAjw/s299/colin%20in%20black%20and%20white%202.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUPFhRG4cKN2_MZGwOMxBBZ-ptnreipMFYSZgdXr1RDFpld9pM9i9y85s3vdMXtSCWMBc3qPqLNi2IeN0xCrm029Z2M9e_rLkcawnMi318DDMjKN_Pnc6bUYUYc7ay8msHGNL3pUecEGvXPkLYlaFTfEQey0VeMSbcyjeZHevY1vd9O_uPtE9k12OLAjw/w400-h225/colin%20in%20black%20and%20white%202.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">This Netflix minseries is an excellent part drama, part documentary about the former NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernik, who looks back on his youth and the difficulties he experienced as the adopted child of white parents. Directed by the talented Ava DuVernay.</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><b><br /></b></span><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-29479208309155584182024-02-14T14:44:00.000-05:002024-02-14T14:44:11.131-05:00Resources for Week Seven: Trump's Gaslighting of America<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh__Q-CiAgb_5J0p8D-fE-shr98iFrMLCeYOCTk7auvRRUt7LApWX6Ic-X0mUqU4BGzGq67bPXSFnFhAOf8559vwJyn19uH7rZ6mqH6UZCuYS0P0gqleI3f4CqLuF4PPxOAQlz4q3g22B1e1HV3YPaEWcLGshV4NUgrPxeNhp1BFKN8oMzORcD4J1TdyzQ/s450/on%20tyranny.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="319" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh__Q-CiAgb_5J0p8D-fE-shr98iFrMLCeYOCTk7auvRRUt7LApWX6Ic-X0mUqU4BGzGq67bPXSFnFhAOf8559vwJyn19uH7rZ6mqH6UZCuYS0P0gqleI3f4CqLuF4PPxOAQlz4q3g22B1e1HV3YPaEWcLGshV4NUgrPxeNhp1BFKN8oMzORcD4J1TdyzQ/s320/on%20tyranny.jpg" width="227" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">This insightful slim volume is especially relevant for our times.</span></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEAWOpoSQ9MYN8RKOB0idVOOVJi1kPCdZysKF1IDeSHUL5DaJUFfCQqEwK6uinkW7PPsR46rR5JSmfxHKE3W3_p8LCOZSD28uZ0i-uawuWWTxRN33NuS61mhStsJR35np71JeCNqjeDhokwhyvM845hj107_-NZ022EWahKwtkSW8Okx8j9bZIyVl0pw8/s259/the%20atlantic.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEAWOpoSQ9MYN8RKOB0idVOOVJi1kPCdZysKF1IDeSHUL5DaJUFfCQqEwK6uinkW7PPsR46rR5JSmfxHKE3W3_p8LCOZSD28uZ0i-uawuWWTxRN33NuS61mhStsJR35np71JeCNqjeDhokwhyvM845hj107_-NZ022EWahKwtkSW8Okx8j9bZIyVl0pw8/w400-h300/the%20atlantic.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-size: large;">The January/February 2024 edition of <i>The Atlantic</i> contains twenty-four sobering articles warning about a second Trump presidency. It also contains a moving personal essay by Tim Alberta "The Church of America."</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwe8oULYyJL34arYMGtHc1ysKDvgyJ_2gtMtTiYF3WacCe1pwfEmGl_8NfwxaQ6GzvPz5ARSFSK_EUim5AruqmIS5dRVARRn93e6BMmYLdo3xoHI-2IGmlVDAwwYYSVy71D29r3AuhGLp1CERlwNWpK0RfxOLDxkkZd_ze7bZv2BIXJnZtMqZbbqUlRGM/s276/strongmen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwe8oULYyJL34arYMGtHc1ysKDvgyJ_2gtMtTiYF3WacCe1pwfEmGl_8NfwxaQ6GzvPz5ARSFSK_EUim5AruqmIS5dRVARRn93e6BMmYLdo3xoHI-2IGmlVDAwwYYSVy71D29r3AuhGLp1CERlwNWpK0RfxOLDxkkZd_ze7bZv2BIXJnZtMqZbbqUlRGM/s1600/strongmen.jpg" width="183" /></a></div> This is an excellent study of authoritarism in which Ben-Ghiat demonstrates that the former President has much in common with his totalitarian predecessors and shares similar traits to contemparies such as Putin and Orban whome he admires</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi150IK0RNfSkAhnYEmyxgh0nW3ZDkAcyo-sPfPwbn3zgJuumPIqSBlG2uIluU9QHnbb1MDzinsHCzIOv3lzbn94FqDqSs7jXTEvDMwC8XN2BEPUgTblT4fyYmrTrCe5-HWXwJ4eCQqeBSI5PUuEFBQjJ-ab41gKE9rB3XVYuc1Zy9xkv_CuxMLyI0Tz90/s275/souith%20to%20america).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi150IK0RNfSkAhnYEmyxgh0nW3ZDkAcyo-sPfPwbn3zgJuumPIqSBlG2uIluU9QHnbb1MDzinsHCzIOv3lzbn94FqDqSs7jXTEvDMwC8XN2BEPUgTblT4fyYmrTrCe5-HWXwJ4eCQqeBSI5PUuEFBQjJ-ab41gKE9rB3XVYuc1Zy9xkv_CuxMLyI0Tz90/s1600/souith%20to%20america).jpg" width="275" /></a></div><br />Imani Perry's <i>South to America</i> - part memoir</span><span style="font-size: x-large;">, part travelogue and part social commentary - is an excellent overview for much that we have explored in this series.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjApZIZGOk3SZZv6X0JjKNvjQH7XdMufuog57Zt_Gvh84z18vJeai2bDw3KXfjQXA6aVx2FrMvu4WkARfRgWVs7JsdZdaWyJMOjr1wSGPs7SBPCKGndVo4P3QThG1lVxQD5OoKNK27o8FIlVthQWN3xaRI6xbrMDBUHHEJOdyb4kTxeSeGs1HdB2r9llPA/s277/prequel%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="182" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjApZIZGOk3SZZv6X0JjKNvjQH7XdMufuog57Zt_Gvh84z18vJeai2bDw3KXfjQXA6aVx2FrMvu4WkARfRgWVs7JsdZdaWyJMOjr1wSGPs7SBPCKGndVo4P3QThG1lVxQD5OoKNK27o8FIlVthQWN3xaRI6xbrMDBUHHEJOdyb4kTxeSeGs1HdB2r9llPA/s1600/prequel%20(1).jpg" width="182" /></a></div></div><br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">I mentioned this wonderful book in week one but it should be underscored because Maddow explores fascism in America during the 1930s and 1940s in America and the book serves as a warning for what could happen in the near future. What she also highlights is how ordinary people challenged this dangerous movement.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">I do not usually recommend books that I have not yet read but I will make an exception for these two books written by two conservatives who have challenged the former president when so many Republicans have been unwilling. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtlGZ5SOMs9q58K8uHBnR404spE46CNx1uvOIPzFHWaGoeHzqgaUMgC1QE-c_zqr5ZSQdPnZxPERMMcmYokClLlpoQaBp21t7Io8Ojv81Dcm8J1iNLhRnr3DfeXC2dfNagwzAJguudGdGDh_CPJ18cTWcdaEPa_n0ChXXZN9Axn_UwWZpl6yOhI13iBXk/s277/enough.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="182" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtlGZ5SOMs9q58K8uHBnR404spE46CNx1uvOIPzFHWaGoeHzqgaUMgC1QE-c_zqr5ZSQdPnZxPERMMcmYokClLlpoQaBp21t7Io8Ojv81Dcm8J1iNLhRnr3DfeXC2dfNagwzAJguudGdGDh_CPJ18cTWcdaEPa_n0ChXXZN9Axn_UwWZpl6yOhI13iBXk/s1600/enough.jpg" width="182" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghyPjFWt65mioph96_3968mcOl4pd9uJo_7j34BmKicQZZSam5mkMIMuZxWdY4X-n4iuPua2eYUWeqDyrzez2MhWY4Z_y8_Xa9zl3kjaBCwxykFB9wbO38sPF2fX7QpWNY-_CNYgVIFWgcSiTKeRlMt7P8VHGKQzn6lodKJtnLnP_TDCwwTZdq94AgZqg/s279/oath%20and%20honor(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="180" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghyPjFWt65mioph96_3968mcOl4pd9uJo_7j34BmKicQZZSam5mkMIMuZxWdY4X-n4iuPua2eYUWeqDyrzez2MhWY4Z_y8_Xa9zl3kjaBCwxykFB9wbO38sPF2fX7QpWNY-_CNYgVIFWgcSiTKeRlMt7P8VHGKQzn6lodKJtnLnP_TDCwwTZdq94AgZqg/s1600/oath%20and%20honor(2).jpg" width="180" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><br /><br /><p></p><div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-19544612938678052382024-02-04T09:31:00.003-05:002024-02-14T13:30:12.967-05:00Week Six: Resources on the Responses to Civil Rights<p> </p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> <b>Documentaries and Feature Films</b></span></p><p><span><b style="font-size: large;"> </b><span style="font-size: large;">Some students in the program have asked me about the Civil Rights Tour that I travelled with last year. Below is the website. I noticed that only the new tour "From Slavery to the Civil Rights Movement" is advertised at this point not the original civil rights tour. I think that is the case because that tour is currently taking place. I expect in the near future that the Nation will be advertising that trip.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">https://www.thenation.com/all-destination/</span></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoMLv1B7uP3meZE3wCKj-BWfIRmHu1AdsgfuUxo2Uttu2uyk2gKXGzj3x7C7oIF7vPYy8RG-3k0v2hqvu57nt8ShtodbMH-OJeT0Cwh7HfeN7WfXY0vhwVdiV-7zLO_nx7UARuNYKYtqcLk9ck23A6ReF6UwsXXEq-4VO2In_yTVVnNeItQsBXmj-0eso/s275/selma).jpg" style="clear: left; display: inline; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoMLv1B7uP3meZE3wCKj-BWfIRmHu1AdsgfuUxo2Uttu2uyk2gKXGzj3x7C7oIF7vPYy8RG-3k0v2hqvu57nt8ShtodbMH-OJeT0Cwh7HfeN7WfXY0vhwVdiV-7zLO_nx7UARuNYKYtqcLk9ck23A6ReF6UwsXXEq-4VO2In_yTVVnNeItQsBXmj-0eso/s1600/selma).jpg" width="183" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOWRvdDTFFqBs-_6dMnOtgFJjVT09RWzt67nRFhiL5OGDV3OP1h7BR9aJsx4C_qikPlli_MtiImvQdYPxZMb0YLPJ3jIpHJmY21kAkAmfZG0AiOR_qTTpau2II-5EuTjFQqrCc88n32hnyU0GAydJ_jRXDn56bzkTNWS9_qlgr4u6C_JWIryRNqGB7zlk/s259/rustinjpg.jpg" style="font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOWRvdDTFFqBs-_6dMnOtgFJjVT09RWzt67nRFhiL5OGDV3OP1h7BR9aJsx4C_qikPlli_MtiImvQdYPxZMb0YLPJ3jIpHJmY21kAkAmfZG0AiOR_qTTpau2II-5EuTjFQqrCc88n32hnyU0GAydJ_jRXDn56bzkTNWS9_qlgr4u6C_JWIryRNqGB7zlk/s1600/rustinjpg.jpg" width="194" /></a></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">These two feature films are valuable because the first focuses King at the centre at the effort to achieve the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the more recent drama portrays Bayard Ruskin as the architect of the 1963 March on Washington whose energy and organizational skills made that historical event happen. <br /><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Uk7IaHyvkg8QBhCWcWsONNmjNlTD4eFAL2SwQp-_c5M5dxr_Ct3Ifhu9Tg2dYk-fm3Vo2AOigtK9LVRttb49gb5thDeYis-NUOI1CaaEFLwRSxAnWL4_QTs8xzoYLbzqsbeDI-Ku00B4tqERK61Wjvp-nWzZwONgH5qerak-eDYDb5UJIb8hXXBJ0E8/s310/john%20lewis%20good%20troublejpg.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="310" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Uk7IaHyvkg8QBhCWcWsONNmjNlTD4eFAL2SwQp-_c5M5dxr_Ct3Ifhu9Tg2dYk-fm3Vo2AOigtK9LVRttb49gb5thDeYis-NUOI1CaaEFLwRSxAnWL4_QTs8xzoYLbzqsbeDI-Ku00B4tqERK61Wjvp-nWzZwONgH5qerak-eDYDb5UJIb8hXXBJ0E8/w400-h210/john%20lewis%20good%20troublejpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">A stirring film about the life of the remarkable John Lewis</span></td></tr></tbody></table>..<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbCe9445ZqMbhHP6hz6IKseT6p4VeSNy3bZ9pBjg9IycnaCe68zF1ZU_HWntG2Jr-akPkbx0LTAov0NPF0kfDhRXutp6DWccMj86o1YFu3D86_nr7g6Q3-F_P7wkpE9OQMmFX10YdNaspM7RL7QXcJ24J2LdL2J3zxujFhK9lof3IGMLKmNvsahDhjplk/s1486/white%20like%20me.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="1486" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbCe9445ZqMbhHP6hz6IKseT6p4VeSNy3bZ9pBjg9IycnaCe68zF1ZU_HWntG2Jr-akPkbx0LTAov0NPF0kfDhRXutp6DWccMj86o1YFu3D86_nr7g6Q3-F_P7wkpE9OQMmFX10YdNaspM7RL7QXcJ24J2LdL2J3zxujFhK9lof3IGMLKmNvsahDhjplk/s320/white%20like%20me.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> </span><div><span style="font-size: large;"> Tim Wise offers a compelling portrait of white privilege that reveals vivid clips and insightful <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span> comments, a film that should be seen. <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span> </span><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD1rcyanBdZwrco__azquO8S5ZQNbYRbrk7hE37ywwzFmIxkwmMROIA4UDvwpNpA2TZPNF6qR3lcmOeV2KKkv1F4flcQ-w2dyAHUrXtZjrwYNWnnCxuZ3g7YxyCpIizZ1jc5H97bUkuJRf86-q29LGMnBw9U620AMepBAWWDiVFeA_nJCfgT1_ByXUO-U/s259/freedom%20summer).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD1rcyanBdZwrco__azquO8S5ZQNbYRbrk7hE37ywwzFmIxkwmMROIA4UDvwpNpA2TZPNF6qR3lcmOeV2KKkv1F4flcQ-w2dyAHUrXtZjrwYNWnnCxuZ3g7YxyCpIizZ1jc5H97bUkuJRf86-q29LGMnBw9U620AMepBAWWDiVFeA_nJCfgT1_ByXUO-U/s1600/freedom%20summer).jpg" width="194" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">Freedom Summer is a powerful documentary about the Summer of 1964 when Northern University Students travelled to Mississippi to assist Blacks in voting registration and teach at Freedom Schools, an experience that was both rewarding and terrifying. </span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDynJ3JHmPoWo655HyeV-Dc_mIfK8YxrDmGRb_DIJ-WOL4OJI0_T7flJMEOmZUaul5Ix0LvqQsG4lk9q_X6HgvVkqYzXS2MMmhMwS3yvp28bTBtIlM2Jn87rsazzhXZo25DFcT0a0UHapG3v2ZkLZCed352gCnj6msSsbrxg0amihv-q3JDohIqN1CRGs/s300/last%20white%20knight.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDynJ3JHmPoWo655HyeV-Dc_mIfK8YxrDmGRb_DIJ-WOL4OJI0_T7flJMEOmZUaul5Ix0LvqQsG4lk9q_X6HgvVkqYzXS2MMmhMwS3yvp28bTBtIlM2Jn87rsazzhXZo25DFcT0a0UHapG3v2ZkLZCed352gCnj6msSsbrxg0amihv-q3JDohIqN1CRGs/w400-h224/last%20white%20knight.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Canadian Paul Salzman's compelling documenary is about what happened to him when he first visited Mississippi in 1965 and his return forty-six years later when he engaged in a conversation before the camera with the man who assaulted him, a Klansman who was the son of the man convicted of killing Medgar Evers.</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbsaUCi-vLrdaxYpAAUH-8MnW3Oed_PArII_hY8xkghFmMtvstXAAHcZFq03JK4H5snhReX7Pe2qN-P118jbCKsIO7uZAX6xevDuNvNxh2TDlxcCZn_pYwRzfK9ZTVZm9o-1iSqkZ8vtbA1rUvHFSdYrK8iYO4d2q4b14ouFkAfPRtmUzHJFlGxUSk3CA/s300/king%20in%20the%20wilderness.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbsaUCi-vLrdaxYpAAUH-8MnW3Oed_PArII_hY8xkghFmMtvstXAAHcZFq03JK4H5snhReX7Pe2qN-P118jbCKsIO7uZAX6xevDuNvNxh2TDlxcCZn_pYwRzfK9ZTVZm9o-1iSqkZ8vtbA1rUvHFSdYrK8iYO4d2q4b14ouFkAfPRtmUzHJFlGxUSk3CA/s1600/king%20in%20the%20wilderness.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><div>This film follows King in the last years of his life as he encounter hatred in the North and a split in the movement as many young Blacks are drawn to the Black Power Movement.</div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><b> Books</b></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvgetsAIY3BoG_buuwSfGeRYmTbAGuaHvrENDsTGR8-kR1GXrIBf7UGTXP4u-_Ua6h7345VdOBPaHhak740jv0Nyo-NG4db3vYNd4QtCv1tQbOvSrmCFLFmcsHmwvxflfImB8AIx8D6_oyMNdEfU9bqsP7iiSwLvJrK8ujEoCG8jLqPDSueUbYxQcYivs/s350/waging%20a%20good%20war.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="232" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvgetsAIY3BoG_buuwSfGeRYmTbAGuaHvrENDsTGR8-kR1GXrIBf7UGTXP4u-_Ua6h7345VdOBPaHhak740jv0Nyo-NG4db3vYNd4QtCv1tQbOvSrmCFLFmcsHmwvxflfImB8AIx8D6_oyMNdEfU9bqsP7iiSwLvJrK8ujEoCG8jLqPDSueUbYxQcYivs/s320/waging%20a%20good%20war.jpeg" width="212" /></a></div><br />This 2022 account of the Civil Rights movement may be the best overview of that struggle, and Ricks provides a military lens to view that effort and I think it works. There is a particularly good chapter on the Summer of 1964 and the last chapter on Memphis 1968 offers some illuminating and moving passages on how so many of the movement's participants suffered from PTSD.</div><div><br /></div></span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFGL2wz1zL918jIIHHWq7_b2fF2lhZIOcRrIereTfMERKt4qKu6NdBszITumkuzNkMv0KgtHTrbL0ls9UD00HdhDuKzDjpZx9v0T-CA6HAP1psyNdFClGPm5DEror6iQZu0CXrSnHaNl2WgzjWqjpRcAsn7zjTaclxYs67C9ZlEqMl6tKS1HAy-dQd9f8/s277/king%20a%20lifejpg.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="182" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFGL2wz1zL918jIIHHWq7_b2fF2lhZIOcRrIereTfMERKt4qKu6NdBszITumkuzNkMv0KgtHTrbL0ls9UD00HdhDuKzDjpZx9v0T-CA6HAP1psyNdFClGPm5DEror6iQZu0CXrSnHaNl2WgzjWqjpRcAsn7zjTaclxYs67C9ZlEqMl6tKS1HAy-dQd9f8/s1600/king%20a%20lifejpg.jpg" width="182" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">A memorable new biography about a giant of the Civil Rights movement that contains fresh new material that reveals both King's strengths and his flaws. Much he writes about is new: how President</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> Johnson connived with J. Edgar Hoover in an effort to destroy King's reputation, and the relationship between King and Malcolm X. The book also contains some moving passages, especially on the 1963 March to Washington.</div></div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGI1cSXtb3NeNGhSII7XQxlZQ-zsoLbCOnO0AKlWWSkoCRRrosJTjlVIOeiRS0ZCaLFstVAdneJRw4uErFPV2t99UqInWlQk_j9N0qev1K4TkI0I4bdICX0Xj6w_NMxdm1iIhFSENQ3n56ycla_QjeIVLp3HIx9TwCIi794iTjbFWOniApbSOsRPswvbI/s276/small%20merciespg.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGI1cSXtb3NeNGhSII7XQxlZQ-zsoLbCOnO0AKlWWSkoCRRrosJTjlVIOeiRS0ZCaLFstVAdneJRw4uErFPV2t99UqInWlQk_j9N0qev1K4TkI0I4bdICX0Xj6w_NMxdm1iIhFSENQ3n56ycla_QjeIVLp3HIx9TwCIi794iTjbFWOniApbSOsRPswvbI/s1600/small%20merciespg.jpg" width="183" /></a></div><br />A fascinating crime novel that explores the racism between the Irish and the Blacks in Boston during the busing crisis. Highly recommended.</span></div></div></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The New Jim Crow </i>by Michelle Alexander has become a classic as she persuasively argues that the current system of mass incarceration that disproportionally sends Black men of colour to prison has much in common with the <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>historical Jim Crow era.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuN5BilSQFH1DDBzajIFhgS_6Y3zcBVTWjTkzQEOLI5UjY7A3dvowgl2Ebv_GYRoHftXXo2SU3-SGxuHBKvGvztxvqSSXkLH7YjWnI1MMBeP0XnpYyeGaHqBBirjUTxIlWFQ4U99fBhh0FdRuKV_38TztcBeQ5B64zjC8qWJsa2OoD74oxSkZRiscQc0/s259/the%20New%20Jim%20Crow.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuN5BilSQFH1DDBzajIFhgS_6Y3zcBVTWjTkzQEOLI5UjY7A3dvowgl2Ebv_GYRoHftXXo2SU3-SGxuHBKvGvztxvqSSXkLH7YjWnI1MMBeP0XnpYyeGaHqBBirjUTxIlWFQ4U99fBhh0FdRuKV_38TztcBeQ5B64zjC8qWJsa2OoD74oxSkZRiscQc0/w400-h300/the%20New%20Jim%20Crow.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div></div>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-47377494532668902752024-01-26T23:15:00.307-05:002024-02-02T10:36:30.163-05:00Resources for Week Five<p><span><span style="font-size: large;"> Responses to the Nightmare of the Jim Crow Era <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span></span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>Motion Pictures</b></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwHf10bU0d6rfolGoQbNWJSK3-9ffs1OYmAdZMW39J3P_PqBYD77Dd7gNJmey5kx_hp9S-QFY_y_26yoz1BJ1ifvJMPrdHh-CjshlytsBeFohjzysKr1CVeUsPOSzvV0Iv8IgU10Pf9gTtRfYXH4X3WSmsF98k-DF7285GoYwih4K84mdT6XZZwX3oci0/s267/the%20long%20walk%20homejpg.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="189" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwHf10bU0d6rfolGoQbNWJSK3-9ffs1OYmAdZMW39J3P_PqBYD77Dd7gNJmey5kx_hp9S-QFY_y_26yoz1BJ1ifvJMPrdHh-CjshlytsBeFohjzysKr1CVeUsPOSzvV0Iv8IgU10Pf9gTtRfYXH4X3WSmsF98k-DF7285GoYwih4K84mdT6XZZwX3oci0/s1600/the%20long%20walk%20homejpg.jpg" width="189" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYCRDE2srW8hR9Ld5B7r2maxI3QPZ91zRqw0sNKMYKFbjVbLSxwblH5IQtxtoWyK2fIrra375QUHN-QIgqmQT62DNi9KtMZonRqImarHBxrr76EVHa-2vKxXIpdYU7R_s3GWW7NSRSKkkVbLwfQ3W1cuBdo_W1AGVzeZ-ln-6bQ1f0uJXVdFA04wEb-yM/s267/marshall.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="188" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYCRDE2srW8hR9Ld5B7r2maxI3QPZ91zRqw0sNKMYKFbjVbLSxwblH5IQtxtoWyK2fIrra375QUHN-QIgqmQT62DNi9KtMZonRqImarHBxrr76EVHa-2vKxXIpdYU7R_s3GWW7NSRSKkkVbLwfQ3W1cuBdo_W1AGVzeZ-ln-6bQ1f0uJXVdFA04wEb-yM/s1600/marshall.jpg" width="188" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW33cW-Ap33mhfMCijstRmKCD3_SC5Mu8NejAUk-9zORhiD26i4cobINunUq3suwJdS2_rJE0SsJNKS1r9L1bVuyZ3oYippJ5SkaJ5G_19LA4Sg5PuUBaQtppIoPCNkx5fRhKBwaFff7nA8yPDJQci7roI7K-wPulE39choO65pPAjeOXdtdfeNyvGiqo/s267/the%20great%20debaters.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="189" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW33cW-Ap33mhfMCijstRmKCD3_SC5Mu8NejAUk-9zORhiD26i4cobINunUq3suwJdS2_rJE0SsJNKS1r9L1bVuyZ3oYippJ5SkaJ5G_19LA4Sg5PuUBaQtppIoPCNkx5fRhKBwaFff7nA8yPDJQci7roI7K-wPulE39choO65pPAjeOXdtdfeNyvGiqo/s1600/the%20great%20debaters.jpg" width="189" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">All three films vividly portray contentious issues of the Jim Crow era: <i>The Great Debaters</i> is set in a small all Black college in a small community in 1930s Texas in which several students develop formidable debating skills; <i>Marshall </i>is about a racial assault case in which the young Thurgood Marshall defends a Black defendant in 1940s Baltimore, and <i>The Long Walk Home </i>is set in 1956 Montgomery Alabama during the year-long bus boycott led by Martin Luther King in which a white woman and her Black maid decide how they will respond to the boycott. Based on a true story.</span><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Documentaries</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLyfdR3PMKXUhdY0UjfMtuRlPRt0NC8TqOhgsUBlK_1pSRuR3Uzv07QxeRwQG23MLYdxGeSOZIlX6NvrBeS49Kvd_d09sd3NGJ_Y1MztydR8aXZXG4KiltLCJTfgrGSdsq08_-xvofLbfsbPaOa7GySSa_uewk-X9jy5mib8W7PbGee4FCe3OMBHyxE1M/s273/the%20little%20black%20school%20housepg.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="184" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLyfdR3PMKXUhdY0UjfMtuRlPRt0NC8TqOhgsUBlK_1pSRuR3Uzv07QxeRwQG23MLYdxGeSOZIlX6NvrBeS49Kvd_d09sd3NGJ_Y1MztydR8aXZXG4KiltLCJTfgrGSdsq08_-xvofLbfsbPaOa7GySSa_uewk-X9jy5mib8W7PbGee4FCe3OMBHyxE1M/w270-h400/the%20little%20black%20school%20housepg.jpg" width="270" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div></div><span style="font-size: large;">This documentary explores racism in schools, housing and jobs in Canada during the first half of the 20th century: revealing and poignant.<br /><br /></span><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4LLFWjJHirItv5ZMrCR0fgKdmCg8nXwNvYXfLGCWGjtGTmc69OFZNkCYjwfkEqOkXSGigl8CigcByQ_gZ898gxuprIY6T5heS1JWXSXB7ckwMkv957f9ZvdPCAP9NzKZ1I5fNnBVdUKcHxySZdbS7LJBrLmd8f-VIR-FB3zXmKG-ki1vy7pNFXVk0898/s300/freedom%20ridersjpg.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4LLFWjJHirItv5ZMrCR0fgKdmCg8nXwNvYXfLGCWGjtGTmc69OFZNkCYjwfkEqOkXSGigl8CigcByQ_gZ898gxuprIY6T5heS1JWXSXB7ckwMkv957f9ZvdPCAP9NzKZ1I5fNnBVdUKcHxySZdbS7LJBrLmd8f-VIR-FB3zXmKG-ki1vy7pNFXVk0898/s1600/freedom%20ridersjpg.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">A powerful documentary about a group of courageous young supporters of civil rights who risked their lives to ride throughout the South on interstate buses in 1961 to challenge unconstitional laws that banned interracial people from sitting together.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwwg6QS-QAvCEWQih4ZCx06HCOaYOlD8s5J_8sRdtsOvflT4ira71Jl-mLLuCSrCXVCEHuydZ1Ckfoe0Jo4XhFfGXk7bblbYuQxrmIIwGbwwn7uF8bNhyphenhyphen9hfL-3gZ3exD16vwShstdle4ad9mtNBAKbpDO1fyMJjLfAVlM6Pb356pF4UMyWj3NLB-vEQY/s1200/making%20black).jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwwg6QS-QAvCEWQih4ZCx06HCOaYOlD8s5J_8sRdtsOvflT4ira71Jl-mLLuCSrCXVCEHuydZ1Ckfoe0Jo4XhFfGXk7bblbYuQxrmIIwGbwwn7uF8bNhyphenhyphen9hfL-3gZ3exD16vwShstdle4ad9mtNBAKbpDO1fyMJjLfAVlM6Pb356pF4UMyWj3NLB-vEQY/s320/making%20black).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Another insightful series written and hosted by Henry Louis Gates</span></td></tr></tbody></table><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRoVNkb5piINH4IxihjJ489UOuKAZHsiiHnNc8jrkO4Q72J1zgpfbjVhn1JO6daYJeVSj7PS5yF_z2et24wXknhywkOCsBoV6urgMEtKWH2UJxsQgWsbIe6R1Nf5-O3yqQ1p-lXThCB3jyVtUuIoS6tjUuzckmKMIsRkU9MHrWyge92gCjo5S3fgwI680/s286/the%20african%20americans.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="286" data-original-width="176" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRoVNkb5piINH4IxihjJ489UOuKAZHsiiHnNc8jrkO4Q72J1zgpfbjVhn1JO6daYJeVSj7PS5yF_z2et24wXknhywkOCsBoV6urgMEtKWH2UJxsQgWsbIe6R1Nf5-O3yqQ1p-lXThCB3jyVtUuIoS6tjUuzckmKMIsRkU9MHrWyge92gCjo5S3fgwI680/s1600/the%20african%20americans.jpg" width="176" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">This earlier series by Gates spans the history of African Americans from their time in Africa to the Civil Rights movement. Everything that Gates does is enriching.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><p> <span style="font-size: large;">Books</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBpRZoVhyphenhyphenDyhjngQOs4eg-Axci6Mb9s8h_GEWGvt2t75ua2V52rVCmanS8ksT4yiEquZo3TEGJR8Eq40BY7z1esVV8FO9YcVDYXIZy7copRyhWoYlvQIwltUI_ROBMDTqTCbjDRPZz3ykpuO18kGHusbE_5Rn1CAeh1_ChCLaEHD9u33HLR9oFD5rvc5M/s275/the%20blinding%20of%20isaac%20woodard.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBpRZoVhyphenhyphenDyhjngQOs4eg-Axci6Mb9s8h_GEWGvt2t75ua2V52rVCmanS8ksT4yiEquZo3TEGJR8Eq40BY7z1esVV8FO9YcVDYXIZy7copRyhWoYlvQIwltUI_ROBMDTqTCbjDRPZz3ykpuO18kGHusbE_5Rn1CAeh1_ChCLaEHD9u33HLR9oFD5rvc5M/w266-h342/the%20blinding%20of%20isaac%20woodard.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">This powerful film is based on the book<i> Unexampled Courage;</i> I highly recommend both<i> </i>the book and the film. </span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn9PgNxstPncANmHfC_lVdWyqcSgoxVzexH6tS9uoxPiLsPRsuV_kgdgSVFTHV4dbu-qN6CN3xvSLA8qNtEiWFjeB_ikZoC7VJpARrK7s5Ih7P3VJQ1ISOBxkrCdmGnBa2x6TDgvhodASLKEJ093U1TE7dV5AV-v0q5aWUYA8LP3kSkqD7eNAqNCuPGMU/s275/unexampled%20couragejpg.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn9PgNxstPncANmHfC_lVdWyqcSgoxVzexH6tS9uoxPiLsPRsuV_kgdgSVFTHV4dbu-qN6CN3xvSLA8qNtEiWFjeB_ikZoC7VJpARrK7s5Ih7P3VJQ1ISOBxkrCdmGnBa2x6TDgvhodASLKEJ093U1TE7dV5AV-v0q5aWUYA8LP3kSkqD7eNAqNCuPGMU/w266-h400/unexampled%20couragejpg.jpg" width="266" /></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF-K26pGI-yrrEGuVplVMh4xwZS6HvoDlgFnPvNK9_BEvx242fFhN4cYLZBNd6NF8-LM8fw7mbW3td7JGvlFD3nwu9UV9CWPqXzNWoyl0HpcJhoRhJa-zRPVLZJJsXnjvg6Gi4nDUdbNvrWrZ4HCVXag9cgD1vEsdLGNPKTv-HMZSl2Bw8zVw0q1Z8PY4/s600/elizabeth%20and%20hazel.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="394" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF-K26pGI-yrrEGuVplVMh4xwZS6HvoDlgFnPvNK9_BEvx242fFhN4cYLZBNd6NF8-LM8fw7mbW3td7JGvlFD3nwu9UV9CWPqXzNWoyl0HpcJhoRhJa-zRPVLZJJsXnjvg6Gi4nDUdbNvrWrZ4HCVXag9cgD1vEsdLGNPKTv-HMZSl2Bw8zVw0q1Z8PY4/w263-h400/elizabeth%20and%20hazel.jpg" width="263" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">This powerful book examines the difficult long-term relationship between Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan, her tormentor who is behind her in the iconic 1957 photograph. The book also reveals the difficult life that Eckford experienced as a result of her decision to be one of the Little Rock Nine to desegegrate the local high school.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLTmQr9LxASSDYTSajbBCX8YdUMLAtOGjdtLsLzJk60scIQ7smKlvuUa5wxH1otEHVxciqfzxgGt1W5BMunYMBSrlPeSJT5duUvcWkiV9v-OnHPUUj6_pxOSvzTk3LwDUk8l0UC-Zugf8Ks6g3MrAA_Uucf1LtViLH_JQu6jd585Fg2vQxspiRX9LdQwA/w265-h400/up%20homejpg.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="265" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">A wonderful, inspiring memoir about a young girl who was born into a poor sharecropper's family and yet eventually became a University President. </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLTmQr9LxASSDYTSajbBCX8YdUMLAtOGjdtLsLzJk60scIQ7smKlvuUa5wxH1otEHVxciqfzxgGt1W5BMunYMBSrlPeSJT5duUvcWkiV9v-OnHPUUj6_pxOSvzTk3LwDUk8l0UC-Zugf8Ks6g3MrAA_Uucf1LtViLH_JQu6jd585Fg2vQxspiRX9LdQwA/s276/up%20homejpg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></a><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-20229252829294182172024-01-24T17:37:00.063-05:002024-01-25T14:42:00.735-05:00<div class="separator"><br /></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Suggested material for Week Four on the power of the Lost Cause</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Three motion pictures set out below and the PBS series <i>Reconstruction </i>is a good start for this week.<br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0NKBLI9Z17JKiAgW7uiD8sZt7smckXzV6f5q6hLXQ47oF5WxvZQjCFz-gnbMvHZYnDX2PfzQd1vYEWl84qR-Nbw1LCMFcnGgw4cTkqNLbMe8yNQ5JP7ji45Ytbp5I-Pr18f_si-aS1lQBKaEhyphenhyphenUHGnVSzow4XXaL4U5LJR37HMqfFIOpTnVdoOsMFMPI/s237/the%20helppg.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a></span></div></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj22WFmdU5JDlswIt8CvyhEObzZ-gZOMFWs8jld-oMsLu1-YMUbY66xu4o6gGKuIbQdFRxO-5btH6KildO7kzaEqRONL8VgQn7SoDpMJfxsiKynesQ3az0usTev_Gi9UDviN9_RHGTJSMfwH6OdqjXL2s0FLpT8ZZBgJzFgQ2Pa-6wspqirTSC2tDENjQ/s300/reconstruction%20america%20after%20the%20civil%20war.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj22WFmdU5JDlswIt8CvyhEObzZ-gZOMFWs8jld-oMsLu1-YMUbY66xu4o6gGKuIbQdFRxO-5btH6KildO7kzaEqRONL8VgQn7SoDpMJfxsiKynesQ3az0usTev_Gi9UDviN9_RHGTJSMfwH6OdqjXL2s0FLpT8ZZBgJzFgQ2Pa-6wspqirTSC2tDENjQ/w400-h224/reconstruction%20america%20after%20the%20civil%20war.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8NSxbaHUFsxiXRmZlQYKSiB4w9LTAWJi6JDqGUBn8Ra5L0FH2VvZH8uVCZglotWRPgyx42nZyMNkF9vAwFwUMWAz8spzFilKHX_TU4Da2Rc3ymkcyshU1M4MOM1Encd4zMTbThnHPJLJ_7nTPU0_-YK7jTNY1M7dwwF8bmASr7Q8nuAy0ZN_ib6feFj0/s278/gone%20with%20the%20w).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="181" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8NSxbaHUFsxiXRmZlQYKSiB4w9LTAWJi6JDqGUBn8Ra5L0FH2VvZH8uVCZglotWRPgyx42nZyMNkF9vAwFwUMWAz8spzFilKHX_TU4Da2Rc3ymkcyshU1M4MOM1Encd4zMTbThnHPJLJ_7nTPU0_-YK7jTNY1M7dwwF8bmASr7Q8nuAy0ZN_ib6feFj0/w208-h320/gone%20with%20the%20w).jpg" width="208" /></a><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4gx6ksOqNd_HOe5EclS5_xVS9Na54hrm9qbwcw6if6pkxZlc42ZTCoaBUx9IuOwB1IuCyK7XH-Y5dOnlncrpBnDSoVmk9RWZMLlXQvTdOg4oPzI8Akm8nadYSxYq3s8B7q4mhtTmBETlgGNLir0YBZgOql9fluphUeBqyUnZaaRgSJB2hxbOGrHazTIY/s259/birth%20of%20a%20nationjpg.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4gx6ksOqNd_HOe5EclS5_xVS9Na54hrm9qbwcw6if6pkxZlc42ZTCoaBUx9IuOwB1IuCyK7XH-Y5dOnlncrpBnDSoVmk9RWZMLlXQvTdOg4oPzI8Akm8nadYSxYq3s8B7q4mhtTmBETlgGNLir0YBZgOql9fluphUeBqyUnZaaRgSJB2hxbOGrHazTIY/w194-h321/birth%20of%20a%20nationjpg.jpg" width="194" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0NKBLI9Z17JKiAgW7uiD8sZt7smckXzV6f5q6hLXQ47oF5WxvZQjCFz-gnbMvHZYnDX2PfzQd1vYEWl84qR-Nbw1LCMFcnGgw4cTkqNLbMe8yNQ5JP7ji45Ytbp5I-Pr18f_si-aS1lQBKaEhyphenhyphenUHGnVSzow4XXaL4U5LJR37HMqfFIOpTnVdoOsMFMPI/s237/the%20helppg.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="237" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0NKBLI9Z17JKiAgW7uiD8sZt7smckXzV6f5q6hLXQ47oF5WxvZQjCFz-gnbMvHZYnDX2PfzQd1vYEWl84qR-Nbw1LCMFcnGgw4cTkqNLbMe8yNQ5JP7ji45Ytbp5I-Pr18f_si-aS1lQBKaEhyphenhyphenUHGnVSzow4XXaL4U5LJR37HMqfFIOpTnVdoOsMFMPI/w320-h287/the%20helppg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Also</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRdAQnWXm5htFVMZqaFMFnXVwI_PU7MmIC_-JtBSKRCP1XCz0Ryd6Kgr0KuAdkzocmn7t-p5MFTAhyzHq6wIJsgR1y7hGfpXJxY9mA9vDEUF5ufD477bG324MvdqGudiBPLlvkxgfYElzYTdgJBF_NldMjiZvki0vLX16JJ46H82F4IGLFONUSDfewrm4/s273/birth%20of%20a%20movement.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="184" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRdAQnWXm5htFVMZqaFMFnXVwI_PU7MmIC_-JtBSKRCP1XCz0Ryd6Kgr0KuAdkzocmn7t-p5MFTAhyzHq6wIJsgR1y7hGfpXJxY9mA9vDEUF5ufD477bG324MvdqGudiBPLlvkxgfYElzYTdgJBF_NldMjiZvki0vLX16JJ46H82F4IGLFONUSDfewrm4/s1600/birth%20of%20a%20movement.jpg" width="184" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">A PBS film that explores the controversy over Griffith's film <i>Birth of a Nation</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_UYO3PCr0W55hpCrQ9pwQlqrgi5EOjDQzZuPJBs7dCcw8P5fH8bFPXqJW-dt9ZW4WL4VeglzDBczntZea8dmpXBUBGYQRthp6PJe_0FpK_lx6nBJxqaAVdACN-ypcQqNqbA36ChGRweyQm61cqTIc1npFxCNFgsBJzQ6RW2xYfdfph8wxHrV7-rExLo0/s259/the%20last%20white%20knightjpg.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_UYO3PCr0W55hpCrQ9pwQlqrgi5EOjDQzZuPJBs7dCcw8P5fH8bFPXqJW-dt9ZW4WL4VeglzDBczntZea8dmpXBUBGYQRthp6PJe_0FpK_lx6nBJxqaAVdACN-ypcQqNqbA36ChGRweyQm61cqTIc1npFxCNFgsBJzQ6RW2xYfdfph8wxHrV7-rExLo0/s1600/the%20last%20white%20knightjpg.jpg" width="194" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Canadian Paul Salzman returns to Mississippi aftter forty five years to encounter the individual who beat him up back in 1965. This excellent film would also be valuable for the subsequent </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">week on the nightmare of Jim Crow</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIG9Au5EfRjMZuGujONL93L-u3uVq0NR3kb5mpJc6AG6K2Ue19jGjVvHbi9GFPrwpVIFSTVcXEYmjks5xbYheS-I1ZYYL54pumIR_wHUoV_xACDMIMT_24hYlGrlDOnJxsU1sen51UlofDhalcEzvu6WUPExGMjQHv-VptH6DfvBOB7dl2WRfOUF6QFAI/s350/roots_.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="321" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIG9Au5EfRjMZuGujONL93L-u3uVq0NR3kb5mpJc6AG6K2Ue19jGjVvHbi9GFPrwpVIFSTVcXEYmjks5xbYheS-I1ZYYL54pumIR_wHUoV_xACDMIMT_24hYlGrlDOnJxsU1sen51UlofDhalcEzvu6WUPExGMjQHv-VptH6DfvBOB7dl2WRfOUF6QFAI/s320/roots_.jpg" width="293" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">The first major television series to challenge the Lost Cause</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /> <br /><span style="font-size: large;">Three articles worth reading are "Mildred Rutherford's War" in <i>The New York Review of Books</i>, Dec. 7, 2023 and "Here's the Civil War They Don't Want You Know," in <i>The Washington Post, </i>Dec.20, 2023</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">and "Kennedy and the Lost Cause," in <i>The Atlantic</i>, Dec. 2023.<br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Si4qS_gtHxKxMw3Ac7saX9NWi_Pf8Y6Bthzvbb-oiKUl2knxr8rUjzhel5hkoog4mny6zU6RIk8HMEI_MTQv2w35mGcRxYXeo5L-x_ykIVMLXZJJtGDygqaA2RHSoeOJfMbKARSXYfVlMbwNl2inlSgIRt7tJQ7bJqklx-LfllWLdV-dJjmc9WNDs7Q/s278/gone%20with%20the%20w).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha3XpGGXGgjbTcSNGL41ihJCgdrMVxZYTBTwJT9JkgnXqeoseUufR9d-TP3iExC7qnms18vxjoAV6ndugEPBocWfEdOpM1DVC0GzP2_gE0kcr4LidY6wxYzy4pZ1u-JJid240OMf6rI3X71qDSr7HdxtCLIg_rpNevlPvoWczsBPvNL1ZUnftcnyYMtlo/s280/how%20the%20word%20is%20passed.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="180" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha3XpGGXGgjbTcSNGL41ihJCgdrMVxZYTBTwJT9JkgnXqeoseUufR9d-TP3iExC7qnms18vxjoAV6ndugEPBocWfEdOpM1DVC0GzP2_gE0kcr4LidY6wxYzy4pZ1u-JJid240OMf6rI3X71qDSr7HdxtCLIg_rpNevlPvoWczsBPvNL1ZUnftcnyYMtlo/w206-h320/how%20the%20word%20is%20passed.jpg" width="206" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Clint Smith, poet, scholar and writer for <i>The Atlantic </i>has written a series of essays about sites throughout America that examines how they are currently dealing with the racial cultural changes of recent years. In one of them, a Confederate cemetary he listens to Sons of Confederates who insist that messages that they learned over the years about the nobility and rightness of the Lost Cause are important to preserve. Smith rightly remains sceptical. This is a fascinating book.</span><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-76571335422708434372024-01-17T14:54:00.000-05:002024-01-17T14:54:04.083-05:00<p> <span style="font-size: large;">Suggested Books and Films for Week Three </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPqJJ6E6CBYqJU89jhAtFQ99j_z8wfZRLeM7AKFk5w_ngDHKz8HYppxwHDcitqbhigahrlj9Lz3VWrLvzvFl0V_vcbqW2kFGk7KjjcmQR1bLF2ch75PxMDp3US28A3utwqZiN07DbHBCA6e_jBXXJR5zGufuljE6GSQCRCtvE5C4gCTlDhbOggktcTr_s/s300/reconstruction%20america%20after%20the%20civil%20war.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPqJJ6E6CBYqJU89jhAtFQ99j_z8wfZRLeM7AKFk5w_ngDHKz8HYppxwHDcitqbhigahrlj9Lz3VWrLvzvFl0V_vcbqW2kFGk7KjjcmQR1bLF2ch75PxMDp3US28A3utwqZiN07DbHBCA6e_jBXXJR5zGufuljE6GSQCRCtvE5C4gCTlDhbOggktcTr_s/w400-h224/reconstruction%20america%20after%20the%20civil%20war.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: large;">The best overall four-part documentary for understanding Reconstruction, hosted by Henry Lewis Gates. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgevsOeSuJjY4pFlXR_gy4FmsnBvKlJstwB5AvNmugzGVINGtIR7eT7pbBP2UUhIekivFTKWUHhayx3DWt-oovg0p4A-4rNBgXmzNvNdwYeUjsMS74Ht_N7tY0Px-KlTFPbkvvdPQrrc0axkaHmKE12IckyRChFC5yAS2FZKSoJTxe7ZZCKe0J_GycNcHU/s270/free%20state%20of%20jones.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="187" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgevsOeSuJjY4pFlXR_gy4FmsnBvKlJstwB5AvNmugzGVINGtIR7eT7pbBP2UUhIekivFTKWUHhayx3DWt-oovg0p4A-4rNBgXmzNvNdwYeUjsMS74Ht_N7tY0Px-KlTFPbkvvdPQrrc0axkaHmKE12IckyRChFC5yAS2FZKSoJTxe7ZZCKe0J_GycNcHU/s1600/free%20state%20of%20jones.jpg" width="187" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;">The motion picture dispels the notions that the Confederates were united and it is perhaps the film that dramatizes the attempt at Reconstructing the South and the vicious backlash to it. Based on a true story.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8TWwSGyAgMdsxdStKlFf0pT1-7wttI-IMIWCUwqF6SJAwJtgSBDBzp2LV0hKxIbSVgwEyrz3agC8gqAv5VKYoNq4P06ineYz0T08EpQprvV6Nl3LOVYtD10ZvKRQXE1VgqCEHnA_W-RI2-6xcd1AKMLf9w1lZmPe_D4EIVcxKOrZjX4MCseB3nQJ_qW0/s184/slavery%20by%20another%20name.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="104" data-original-width="184" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8TWwSGyAgMdsxdStKlFf0pT1-7wttI-IMIWCUwqF6SJAwJtgSBDBzp2LV0hKxIbSVgwEyrz3agC8gqAv5VKYoNq4P06ineYz0T08EpQprvV6Nl3LOVYtD10ZvKRQXE1VgqCEHnA_W-RI2-6xcd1AKMLf9w1lZmPe_D4EIVcxKOrZjX4MCseB3nQJ_qW0/w400-h316/slavery%20by%20another%20name.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This documentary makes clear that Southern states made every attempt to punish Blacks that included the peonage system which those convicted of the most minor crimes were sent to mines and plantations to work in which some lost their lives. This oppressive system lasted until the 1940s.</span></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvRHAw2Cscp2WBa2ZR2B1Ra4fbEqVjcjfZqAoLy8Vie9BJOF-RxQqXgLypy_Xgd6K9R1-0bCE2eIAfqb46IK0ogGYGfUA8q8e-Op813bzraDwtqGkfXvIdO8na7B9Kfzi87gxiEPHPyi-rcGzDi49Kli1af3VYhpswB3FEdj0wHUBdweLmF2nxCg6Rs2w/s279/forever%20free.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="181" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvRHAw2Cscp2WBa2ZR2B1Ra4fbEqVjcjfZqAoLy8Vie9BJOF-RxQqXgLypy_Xgd6K9R1-0bCE2eIAfqb46IK0ogGYGfUA8q8e-Op813bzraDwtqGkfXvIdO8na7B9Kfzi87gxiEPHPyi-rcGzDi49Kli1af3VYhpswB3FEdj0wHUBdweLmF2nxCg6Rs2w/w259-h400/forever%20free.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">An excellent overview of Reconstruction by one of the great historians on the subject. This book is enriched by supplementary visual essays.</span><p></p><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-57258585312350607762024-01-11T12:34:00.011-05:002024-01-13T16:09:54.167-05:00<span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><b><span style="font-size: large;">Films and Books that may be helpful to Week Two
</span></b></span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMLIFGIXS1mx6ljDpqLnVflYg1nUACirRarqpAvUOSWmVxiTMv1GuR4gx33V4YT8tQJehgPBs0Pt0DgikgU4QtZNGiyXu2efb_IetDvAhQuSkgbKLkNIthwwt6SO7XkumvxhaB7Yuu9y6vMBzKAMOPTvv3sjC-Sp3uJH1Lr7TRt75Mx-ukxw5XN3CEagw/s259/black%20life%20untold%20stories).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMLIFGIXS1mx6ljDpqLnVflYg1nUACirRarqpAvUOSWmVxiTMv1GuR4gx33V4YT8tQJehgPBs0Pt0DgikgU4QtZNGiyXu2efb_IetDvAhQuSkgbKLkNIthwwt6SO7XkumvxhaB7Yuu9y6vMBzKAMOPTvv3sjC-Sp3uJH1Lr7TRt75Mx-ukxw5XN3CEagw/w400-h300/black%20life%20untold%20stories).jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">This eight-part CBC series that can be seen on Gem or Googled is a good overview of topics about Canadian Blacks that may not be familar to most viewers. Part One explores the history of slavery in French and English Canada </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUo7fwx-eH3SAEV3JTFFMVT3eRBv3alp7OajESVk75LMSk0V5EtB99qm4aQQwgF36XtrJ1lTRKMwRNYFQUH6fikTakDS4-ssEqOn0bMeRoSmMYfFCo4Vs64HBYLk9hkZ4HN9CUtDyIuM6NLhWzp54nBzq2havr6qbz5C3EO0QqrVQUs8JqmRHQwtseIi0/s275/lincoln's%20dilemma.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUo7fwx-eH3SAEV3JTFFMVT3eRBv3alp7OajESVk75LMSk0V5EtB99qm4aQQwgF36XtrJ1lTRKMwRNYFQUH6fikTakDS4-ssEqOn0bMeRoSmMYfFCo4Vs64HBYLk9hkZ4HN9CUtDyIuM6NLhWzp54nBzq2havr6qbz5C3EO0QqrVQUs8JqmRHQwtseIi0/w266-h400/lincoln's%20dilemma.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">An excellent four-part documentary on Lincoln that gives a large billing to Frederick Douglass but at this point the series can only be seen on Apple TV</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRh-BAmclWjsJnUCfYOpZpJ4u-lTHN1SgUnFOqBJDtFu2F536NWNqmozt__qkUXZW-BKynmbbSFACDuZkHe_facaST5IOxC0_Rn2tt8Pax17XodehEtGT6-bq_vX0NBxpoJ4-mYlFTxNIHJMG0YXR6t46EZLU0_XqyAAdym_M3VZ6unD672teOr9U0tag/s268/12%20years%20a%20slave.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="188" data-original-width="268" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRh-BAmclWjsJnUCfYOpZpJ4u-lTHN1SgUnFOqBJDtFu2F536NWNqmozt__qkUXZW-BKynmbbSFACDuZkHe_facaST5IOxC0_Rn2tt8Pax17XodehEtGT6-bq_vX0NBxpoJ4-mYlFTxNIHJMG0YXR6t46EZLU0_XqyAAdym_M3VZ6unD672teOr9U0tag/w400-h281/12%20years%20a%20slave.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Possibly the most realistic and powerful motion picture on slavery, sometimes painful to watch but full of striking insights. The film is available on DVD in the public library system.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGXJeqYbaSIAhLKU8GUR1o0k8Of9r4s9iO_kJAAHti5pCHOT3ntI7JbAB2PhU7G7FrBc1sKo5wTzhvsZO2TLg6TmZ_PHoDLA7GgDg-ZGSoz_NMYymYZwq8Nd-WJElBqh_DAxNSu40hrzEp7dR4BtPAEGEI7iy3yHHAJ5eLKUCqFwXMp9ZlIhJURorshM4/s310/amistad%202)%20(2023_05_12%2015_43_36%20UTC).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="310" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGXJeqYbaSIAhLKU8GUR1o0k8Of9r4s9iO_kJAAHti5pCHOT3ntI7JbAB2PhU7G7FrBc1sKo5wTzhvsZO2TLg6TmZ_PHoDLA7GgDg-ZGSoz_NMYymYZwq8Nd-WJElBqh_DAxNSu40hrzEp7dR4BtPAEGEI7iy3yHHAJ5eLKUCqFwXMp9ZlIhJURorshM4/w400-h210/amistad%202)%20(2023_05_12%2015_43_36%20UTC).jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Based on a true story about a revolt on a slave trip, <i>Amistad</i> is also</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">at times a difficult film to watch at times but the scenes on the ship are visceral, more compelling than the trial that follows. The film features two memorable performances. You will know who they are if you see this 1997 film available on DVD.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJdOSHpBTK7YB-nVaatNysf8s7DckbvcdqDf-gPN-6rWMWkPiWSofOv8asY7U4CfHcOcOl-T-DNa-G7duV02pI-WIs7MUPISodrECIlqticKsmgQzb7zVux8cLoaq6YaRVW2LJnL2grU3TxuQp5TrA8ezNmrfKZ6o6GKZA4lv-ku0IPaOXfCJ6aTQtXQ/s275/glory.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJdOSHpBTK7YB-nVaatNysf8s7DckbvcdqDf-gPN-6rWMWkPiWSofOv8asY7U4CfHcOcOl-T-DNa-G7duV02pI-WIs7MUPISodrECIlqticKsmgQzb7zVux8cLoaq6YaRVW2LJnL2grU3TxuQp5TrA8ezNmrfKZ6o6GKZA4lv-ku0IPaOXfCJ6aTQtXQ/w266-h400/glory.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span>This 1990 </span><span>film is the first motion picture to celebrate the Black military participation during the Civil War.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5oRxS8woBkQQkXwsrcxCisx5yRJLubh2h3KktR-IWuJQt9rE3cmuzEECn7FOLfQ3aFUv8bmk-xa4ibnbNiUqfDG4xgSrBUuWCIId495A36cZ1Lt7NTstf9J_-Tlo58SgPnfb-ZqTX44GKcLNJtbvuY670X9fydmCmO5VsfoLNi0o6a51k7u0CFNE2hyphenhyphenQ/s275/underground%20railroad).jpg" style="display: inline; font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5oRxS8woBkQQkXwsrcxCisx5yRJLubh2h3KktR-IWuJQt9rE3cmuzEECn7FOLfQ3aFUv8bmk-xa4ibnbNiUqfDG4xgSrBUuWCIId495A36cZ1Lt7NTstf9J_-Tlo58SgPnfb-ZqTX44GKcLNJtbvuY670X9fydmCmO5VsfoLNi0o6a51k7u0CFNE2hyphenhyphenQ/s1600/underground%20railroad).jpg" width="183" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span><i><span style="font-size: large;"> The Underground Railway </span></i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span>(2021) now </span><span>only available on Amazon</span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">is based on the terrific 2016 novel of the same name by Colson Whitehead. Director Barry Jenkins masterful ten-part adaptation</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> is well worth watching for how he replicates and alters the novel. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXk-VqabF5gEp3TuZwKoK4z4NXBC1Zw_lwyk07UBBrxfu75zvhxP7xuEofxEhPog8n5Hn4uaD1QW4EhPOwJGdKQhyphenhyphenDS1IIW7wP3au4U-YZunDcDnoFhGiyatpMhOBawzXcGBYY3q1McDME0wAjh7JifExX1q071sp_WHZ7OkBHQEyR-Q2I1K3tTy9FxAc/s275/harriet.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXk-VqabF5gEp3TuZwKoK4z4NXBC1Zw_lwyk07UBBrxfu75zvhxP7xuEofxEhPog8n5Hn4uaD1QW4EhPOwJGdKQhyphenhyphenDS1IIW7wP3au4U-YZunDcDnoFhGiyatpMhOBawzXcGBYY3q1McDME0wAjh7JifExX1q071sp_WHZ7OkBHQEyR-Q2I1K3tTy9FxAc/s1600/harriet.jpg" width="183" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Harriet </i> is a powerful </span><span style="font-size: large;">film that celebrates the accomplishments of the most important conductor of the underground railroad.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaTy387GJKC8xU97c-cn8EpJf5R7wppLrfBD1AK25_eOVowUJYd4UNLgBekMAb6-VKIjQH7arYEz2iTEV9yrF4RoCfRSDDeydW8ZxhXakna5ASMPrAAmF-auN73Sy_4oSkLd_A_Ahlh98gm9EqrisNLE6kouUSsec4TSRZpZsWTrdXlM2cJCgN48jRFcQ/s275/harret%20tubman).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaTy387GJKC8xU97c-cn8EpJf5R7wppLrfBD1AK25_eOVowUJYd4UNLgBekMAb6-VKIjQH7arYEz2iTEV9yrF4RoCfRSDDeydW8ZxhXakna5ASMPrAAmF-auN73Sy_4oSkLd_A_Ahlh98gm9EqrisNLE6kouUSsec4TSRZpZsWTrdXlM2cJCgN48jRFcQ/s1600/harret%20tubman).jpg" width="183" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfRVBWqZLRvGkIb002FdDQuR9YrHEtm4_bJ95U_8n3-AICwA_2jhJpC8HjsSOTXueFurFBXw13BTYLI2mj0dhisliDcK9eeL4-VhcXKDb9jird6M2Sk4YgwbHMuDpooAL-2rLUIOTluGTNqZ5EO5D9iZw0SzdElLFkjs0ONkKJWvIlfo7QN8o2JJkkSTA/s300/frederick%20douglassjpg.jpg" style="clear: right; font-size: x-large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfRVBWqZLRvGkIb002FdDQuR9YrHEtm4_bJ95U_8n3-AICwA_2jhJpC8HjsSOTXueFurFBXw13BTYLI2mj0dhisliDcK9eeL4-VhcXKDb9jird6M2Sk4YgwbHMuDpooAL-2rLUIOTluGTNqZ5EO5D9iZw0SzdElLFkjs0ONkKJWvIlfo7QN8o2JJkkSTA/w400-h224/frederick%20douglassjpg.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Two PBS documentaries available in the public library system well worth watching are <i>Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom </i>and <i>Becoming Frederick Douglass.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLwP4xzd_pdUu1Nsl47-Al3uZLIVPJD-RYauDSd911_O8cQcGtfMcHgue9K3adjmCiX9uab3wyNLEEJXW3D_mz31HxJqlyf_XB4JB6SYjJz7FB1LxViAujKkOpD9pX9lwroeZ3cIi2Dv3kBMgU9vwkdE0GJEL32cJy9O0-aOtUOybBZScGEAVZ9kXWXdk/s300/black%20church.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLwP4xzd_pdUu1Nsl47-Al3uZLIVPJD-RYauDSd911_O8cQcGtfMcHgue9K3adjmCiX9uab3wyNLEEJXW3D_mz31HxJqlyf_XB4JB6SYjJz7FB1LxViAujKkOpD9pX9lwroeZ3cIi2Dv3kBMgU9vwkdE0GJEL32cJy9O0-aOtUOybBZScGEAVZ9kXWXdk/w400-h224/black%20church.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table>Henry Louis Gates' <i>The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song </i>on PBS<i> </i>is a four-part series that explore the history and culture of the American Black Church. The series is available through the public library system. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="240" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0pfmuLriI8RLosE0rguKOVZeRTpvOcOa7eWeK2VnTJlFV2YZLsarLv8vA0uKfEuYKQptz7CV8Qn8fWp_GtldclYXyeYpinRtDi2IvmvZHNYza6URVX6bYdKTmQMFEdoLOvCjDdEZsnE264F8NzjvuyDMFvGnzyw5WW2x5vWjhp-3l6aOE3CWxhf9a4w8/s320/slavery%20and%20the%20making%20of%20america_.jpg" width="219" /></div>A good four-part overview of the history of slavery that is available in the public library system and some of it can be seen online. <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgaG82slKk4E7DPLA8l7FVdEOi1gzxUaDb_ujXg4P62pVUePKKyXzDu_ql-RiI9Bl1b9MCX61luLWOHJmb353Lmvck_ilibYp3FPgtRQBRl5zI0lpMLkPjyLF9eJ-uojbHvNoSnLT_VGB6sh3hEit8SdL1ADY-J5jN20BVbEy8hE2wKip_9PR0dg_3E7g/s275/harriet.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgaG82slKk4E7DPLA8l7FVdEOi1gzxUaDb_ujXg4P62pVUePKKyXzDu_ql-RiI9Bl1b9MCX61luLWOHJmb353Lmvck_ilibYp3FPgtRQBRl5zI0lpMLkPjyLF9eJ-uojbHvNoSnLT_VGB6sh3hEit8SdL1ADY-J5jN20BVbEy8hE2wKip_9PR0dg_3E7g/s275/harriet.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> </a></div><br /> <b>Novels</b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MUiWQFqonsSXlS7oS8kCfuCKquMJMrho79Glc65PR1tt7iofvsFwZBKfMNK4zyQA49aWJebK6Zfiubbo2F4v43Wb9Rn6PNoA1754cmW8nfm7x5mz4AzymPlXLJ_hi-y08qOHdOoB-0dMWSjX5GODToRwW3B_iouM6iqMBp2HxTJ29atagDnZ57ukSKs/s350/a%20mercy.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="210" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MUiWQFqonsSXlS7oS8kCfuCKquMJMrho79Glc65PR1tt7iofvsFwZBKfMNK4zyQA49aWJebK6Zfiubbo2F4v43Wb9Rn6PNoA1754cmW8nfm7x5mz4AzymPlXLJ_hi-y08qOHdOoB-0dMWSjX5GODToRwW3B_iouM6iqMBp2HxTJ29atagDnZ57ukSKs/w240-h400/a%20mercy.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div>Set during the 17th century, <i>A Mercy </i>explores why an enslaved woman might ask a stranger to take possession of her daughter and the generational repercusions of that decision. A powerful and insightful novel about the early period of slavery.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjya9BW1S8Mt5hkM6EWDD_LM4oM17kJ5J0foBUFrR42ezmn7zIIfPbSFmlnaQ64haK5HNqtuqLoQ2VpGIloSmY_auDBrARrZ_MSGLxHeIW5F0eVp2P-Rc83fBwr5_qqoz1HnwHM6tayLabf3pTq2wxsg7k9lzvR8tktnHOTTgh8FAaNWPMnYUPRLD7hj2U/s277/march).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="182" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjya9BW1S8Mt5hkM6EWDD_LM4oM17kJ5J0foBUFrR42ezmn7zIIfPbSFmlnaQ64haK5HNqtuqLoQ2VpGIloSmY_auDBrARrZ_MSGLxHeIW5F0eVp2P-Rc83fBwr5_qqoz1HnwHM6tayLabf3pTq2wxsg7k9lzvR8tktnHOTTgh8FAaNWPMnYUPRLD7hj2U/s1600/march).jpg" width="182" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz9cYuGvtJTdFA6CJ7fRHOGZT5OA5p0YAfgGRCNph_88eWQBkCy1_cKxyJTZNDo0PLymtmXb0vMOg74raEYpaTkUm5R7ji78gJ2vY-YCe8euUSa1qCt6nRx19ijnRiB_ETeyvuGq5A5iQUt-OwuRBycvZ1bC_MvO9GhDmgns60J0f6uR-5DlOf_08_wS0/s276/horse%202.jpg" style="clear: right; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz9cYuGvtJTdFA6CJ7fRHOGZT5OA5p0YAfgGRCNph_88eWQBkCy1_cKxyJTZNDo0PLymtmXb0vMOg74raEYpaTkUm5R7ji78gJ2vY-YCe8euUSa1qCt6nRx19ijnRiB_ETeyvuGq5A5iQUt-OwuRBycvZ1bC_MvO9GhDmgns60J0f6uR-5DlOf_08_wS0/s1600/horse%202.jpg" width="183" /></a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Two wonderful novels by Geraldine Brooks, the first imagines the life of the absent father in Louisa May Alcott's, <i>Little Women, </i>whose idealism is shattered during the Civil War, and the second toggles between 1850s Kentucky in which an enslaved young groom trains the greatest race horse of the 19th century and 2019 Washington D.C. in which a young Black academic finds a discarded painting of a Black groom and a horse. Brooks reveals the continuities between the forms of racism displayed during slavery and how they are expressed in the present. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> <b>Nonfiction</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgwfKmP_E6ZPwJGIW7DCwh432IIQKjBoCoD2YygMJHUHmnw2-Fr9vUi6TMfdGg0hgd2-WG_O0LJR9zg9_9vf_RU4eaygz53NCgwNumlF7Q1lI_5rt0ISJjjPCLG5_rXWwAyKTe5ZOuucHBciZPFUlkSnsIYAjbE5TgHl9-oorOme3tbo8SNL2b1M38h04/s278/masterslave).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="181" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgwfKmP_E6ZPwJGIW7DCwh432IIQKjBoCoD2YygMJHUHmnw2-Fr9vUi6TMfdGg0hgd2-WG_O0LJR9zg9_9vf_RU4eaygz53NCgwNumlF7Q1lI_5rt0ISJjjPCLG5_rXWwAyKTe5ZOuucHBciZPFUlkSnsIYAjbE5TgHl9-oorOme3tbo8SNL2b1M38h04/w260-h400/masterslave).jpg" width="260" /></a><br /><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Regarded by the <i>New York Times </i>as one of the ten best books of 2023, <i>Master Slave Husband Wife </i>chronicles the extraordinary <br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: large;"> escape of an enslaved husband and wife from Georgia to Nova <span> </span><span> </span>Scotia to Britain as the light-skinned wife poses as the master over <span> </span>her darker skinned husband. This is a scholarly book that could <span> </span>become a film adaptation. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqZt4Qw__0r7UuGOa2-h2LZYQA6-o1njuuM00Y3bZSIX4VErCcpVCRaNbFv_4XJaeDXmc7iYIPmR2Vw7ia2BPI2_YlGUxmiuVdCkOTgjn4tgjOFMTumnRmyk06S3X6MV81uKs-5meQ6sYcwis2mqL-TwJa5lr-iHW4csodysVeqAEWawTXJpCmyeZx4XM/s275/the%20north%20starjpg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqZt4Qw__0r7UuGOa2-h2LZYQA6-o1njuuM00Y3bZSIX4VErCcpVCRaNbFv_4XJaeDXmc7iYIPmR2Vw7ia2BPI2_YlGUxmiuVdCkOTgjn4tgjOFMTumnRmyk06S3X6MV81uKs-5meQ6sYcwis2mqL-TwJa5lr-iHW4csodysVeqAEWawTXJpCmyeZx4XM/w266-h400/the%20north%20starjpg.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br />During the Civil War, Confederate agents used Montreal as a base to concoct plots, including an operation of biological warfare, against the Union government and Northerners. Canada after the Civil War became a haven for fugitive Confederates, including Jefferson Davis, who were welcomed by the most of the media and financial elites. These are only two of the compelling stories narrated by Julian Sher about the role of Canada during the War and how Canadians supported both sides in his highly readable account.<b><br /></b><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-38616231989146341712024-01-02T13:25:00.001-05:002024-01-10T14:47:25.784-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;"><b>Books and Films that may be helpful to Week One</b></span></div><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLTzufBS1OfJTTLIlmaQKO42DzWVZGPBTcAdyIsE2sjrDI_H4zTyTfm7FpYDkACMkqo9zdIh1FnQQQUzWICYO5OoXH_g78ixId7rBL9KGvjPIplCl5-tPbunYaj2NrVFlFjs1WP2KY2v-BhyPuDS41GIFmkKgRGbENs4BTPdtsxE5W_IBVJAb-PF4sz2E/s225/go%20set%20a%20watchman.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLTzufBS1OfJTTLIlmaQKO42DzWVZGPBTcAdyIsE2sjrDI_H4zTyTfm7FpYDkACMkqo9zdIh1FnQQQUzWICYO5OoXH_g78ixId7rBL9KGvjPIplCl5-tPbunYaj2NrVFlFjs1WP2KY2v-BhyPuDS41GIFmkKgRGbENs4BTPdtsxE5W_IBVJAb-PF4sz2E/s1600/go%20set%20a%20watchman.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh90bMPGoi9M8k2q9WGVAsbLl5mITo7cF_jFuCRukwJk9Bb_w6rqvF8C57_XDm4VSZdlPVfqlu-p3bpvxQq8nf-VSqgrjmn6MEDHfmDZpc-x-8K5ZY_PFz6ZLwKli1EOMWHz_68TyjaNCqFU4GujK2l93FMfFh_nLD5dYFdxO-zH2LDmArnyBgmLMwbyoE/s250/novel%20to%20kill).jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="202" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh90bMPGoi9M8k2q9WGVAsbLl5mITo7cF_jFuCRukwJk9Bb_w6rqvF8C57_XDm4VSZdlPVfqlu-p3bpvxQq8nf-VSqgrjmn6MEDHfmDZpc-x-8K5ZY_PFz6ZLwKli1EOMWHz_68TyjaNCqFU4GujK2l93FMfFh_nLD5dYFdxO-zH2LDmArnyBgmLMwbyoE/w202-h222/novel%20to%20kill).jpg" width="202" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh78I0VW0eRQA0aZcOd_boUlB5vb562Q38OwPFGPey9HLNdKQod9g-oBAE7Ap58IBzUUi1no2uMq5jCtsPkrVILIROSMBiu7GR12H75VA2Ua8_WdKDe4nDVSQO5oUPEGvCQtAaKEG9t2LxUL8Ey_Dv8rv4mIVAd9FALMpHNNvhp-jlm6FJmPTe1aR3SO1I/s276/lies%20my%20teacher%20told%20me.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh78I0VW0eRQA0aZcOd_boUlB5vb562Q38OwPFGPey9HLNdKQod9g-oBAE7Ap58IBzUUi1no2uMq5jCtsPkrVILIROSMBiu7GR12H75VA2Ua8_WdKDe4nDVSQO5oUPEGvCQtAaKEG9t2LxUL8Ey_Dv8rv4mIVAd9FALMpHNNvhp-jlm6FJmPTe1aR3SO1I/w183-h248/lies%20my%20teacher%20told%20me.jpg" width="183" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGsY9TdIFUssavRCWv8fy98bU-LFdv_RLsBmyvBsTv6z91imHstL3vAxmzu6howy5qhIYE0Wh3iXgxOq563XoSjm_CSG25Vi7FDqznT8P10PFAGp13vgLXRckKK9i9kJYbyMPgCEyHPSbDGnuaaC3m2-QM54L1ppLwS-jL-hFVcsvrqY_qMK4DMKlPiqY/s279/the%20long%20road%20home.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="180" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGsY9TdIFUssavRCWv8fy98bU-LFdv_RLsBmyvBsTv6z91imHstL3vAxmzu6howy5qhIYE0Wh3iXgxOq563XoSjm_CSG25Vi7FDqznT8P10PFAGp13vgLXRckKK9i9kJYbyMPgCEyHPSbDGnuaaC3m2-QM54L1ppLwS-jL-hFVcsvrqY_qMK4DMKlPiqY/w259-h320/the%20long%20road%20home.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwnKmdsCatFGsuisOqbHKAHdcB2CAfrsDxKMUhkAnKOoB1uzxxAW8g2_2yxYBdi8MSuAbMWfBEJSQZq7lZZwoOVRhmjK2k2q54sOF6odPUm7dpBK-GYHCbODykIebyU8xBSekUSEeKn2rdA880PuAtIELNGmSJEAxxORFWNgBI_faISE0slXqlyvYZ0I4/s310/blacks%20in%20white%20spaces.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="162" data-original-width="310" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwnKmdsCatFGsuisOqbHKAHdcB2CAfrsDxKMUhkAnKOoB1uzxxAW8g2_2yxYBdi8MSuAbMWfBEJSQZq7lZZwoOVRhmjK2k2q54sOF6odPUm7dpBK-GYHCbODykIebyU8xBSekUSEeKn2rdA880PuAtIELNGmSJEAxxORFWNgBI_faISE0slXqlyvYZ0I4/w320-h167/blacks%20in%20white%20spaces.jpg" width="320" /></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIVjjnHCBEeF2MKmuE24eCKJc5e97VvVSj4Px6KzU9qHt28_7w1DBb8nROCS9L1IrKaCbYClw6X658uG3dli-c3Zs7xXqsPBB1AzxhzMXTrfrrDU0GBRkHyDQMMb9m8ZL7vXdS3-UWnInC0rErbwAbdHZxurxMaDAUwnpfvK_iGkb9tv6lShyphenhyphenfpeoQLdg/s300/where%20the%20light%20felljpg.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIVjjnHCBEeF2MKmuE24eCKJc5e97VvVSj4Px6KzU9qHt28_7w1DBb8nROCS9L1IrKaCbYClw6X658uG3dli-c3Zs7xXqsPBB1AzxhzMXTrfrrDU0GBRkHyDQMMb9m8ZL7vXdS3-UWnInC0rErbwAbdHZxurxMaDAUwnpfvK_iGkb9tv6lShyphenhyphenfpeoQLdg/w300-h264/where%20the%20light%20felljpg.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQBJ8w6vekjWTUkTiDHAxmd8JWFgZAZcRMd4TP5oALgjWJ4ui_N-Bm_8G3WmFAzkXikKGjdCv8ukdtzCFZ9bt6xR95kmId92tokOL4dizBRb1qlIrvE5BFvQxLDfCXi_TdsIoEK570MLiiwfwPqKgl0SdbHVbVJLZAH9t8w1UyX9Dx_jN5y-exB1Q2ZWQ/s279/the%20recruit%20alan%20drew.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="180" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQBJ8w6vekjWTUkTiDHAxmd8JWFgZAZcRMd4TP5oALgjWJ4ui_N-Bm_8G3WmFAzkXikKGjdCv8ukdtzCFZ9bt6xR95kmId92tokOL4dizBRb1qlIrvE5BFvQxLDfCXi_TdsIoEK570MLiiwfwPqKgl0SdbHVbVJLZAH9t8w1UyX9Dx_jN5y-exB1Q2ZWQ/w180-h313/the%20recruit%20alan%20drew.jpg" width="180" /></a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div> <span style="font-size: large;"> <b> Films<br /></b></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEOcAUtmE7ovbK6HahovrTv_aFojbnfJhtsWyvOW1YLkDvbZ38i0qgivJiMoLu8zT4_k9pmRH_REUXo0VNWA49z_B5hkaQui-8uRA1A5yKdwh6ZdvfFObDCfeQCIQO2WkhwB7mEw_aI4isCCZX0sgDnhLI-sw9813h4PzsN-p1uqUM3LpGWUOj257wQWA/s500/mississippi%20burning_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEOcAUtmE7ovbK6HahovrTv_aFojbnfJhtsWyvOW1YLkDvbZ38i0qgivJiMoLu8zT4_k9pmRH_REUXo0VNWA49z_B5hkaQui-8uRA1A5yKdwh6ZdvfFObDCfeQCIQO2WkhwB7mEw_aI4isCCZX0sgDnhLI-sw9813h4PzsN-p1uqUM3LpGWUOj257wQWA/w200-h200/mississippi%20burning_.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2VA49-cvhxMDdf5czaJrfdy3vWbyt7jMNUUx0CgP5pUDkCHBbY6y0w3Po7SNqOrbufLBO9Gu2xhDycd51SOW8-Z2GRHF6FOziyg0Whhci5OresiW3sidyH3ChtzBLNy3xVjkXTD4kM-wa7iIQljRjI4TNnU3OlLEKa1Nneocdoh9sh5IuL8hBSzLOUEU/s475/black%20like%20me_.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="257" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2VA49-cvhxMDdf5czaJrfdy3vWbyt7jMNUUx0CgP5pUDkCHBbY6y0w3Po7SNqOrbufLBO9Gu2xhDycd51SOW8-Z2GRHF6FOziyg0Whhci5OresiW3sidyH3ChtzBLNy3xVjkXTD4kM-wa7iIQljRjI4TNnU3OlLEKa1Nneocdoh9sh5IuL8hBSzLOUEU/s320/black%20like%20me_.jpg" width="173" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDi8gTPSSoruuWDDViQ9hVPZ7NEHMkVZXPl1O6WN8r5FUa4ijqHd0HWFDjWWw1E-F6LfUsd1AypVoYVGcamjM7sjSUbQlyuOxia3_3IDJ2GHAr405fBZJahRmIJcy7sgVraMQZ3MscKZIG80-_t0tqRRotUNQ2xtJdti_GZf5tVohP3waF0zX5DEQ7o7s/s247/guess%20who's%20coming%20to%20dinner).jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="247" data-original-width="204" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDi8gTPSSoruuWDDViQ9hVPZ7NEHMkVZXPl1O6WN8r5FUa4ijqHd0HWFDjWWw1E-F6LfUsd1AypVoYVGcamjM7sjSUbQlyuOxia3_3IDJ2GHAr405fBZJahRmIJcy7sgVraMQZ3MscKZIG80-_t0tqRRotUNQ2xtJdti_GZf5tVohP3waF0zX5DEQ7o7s/w204-h318/guess%20who's%20coming%20to%20dinner).jpg" width="204" /></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj426y8qGZba-pad-haQ32tLH-bOvxmdYLnwVuuq4x67g4Hxu_MuvxUb1cGO9KPvrUmXvZq0NERGW00AJZ759xS2LPgZyZgX5K_WSkfvOfJQ9oeG4A1Qa6DfLPrakfIJEmXkUFs6FnlOum9bQEKYjR6JC6eyq_2oUx5DPiMor2FQsP70W2I-4aGTrxP6wI/s255/stamped%20from%20the%20beginning).jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="255" data-original-width="170" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj426y8qGZba-pad-haQ32tLH-bOvxmdYLnwVuuq4x67g4Hxu_MuvxUb1cGO9KPvrUmXvZq0NERGW00AJZ759xS2LPgZyZgX5K_WSkfvOfJQ9oeG4A1Qa6DfLPrakfIJEmXkUFs6FnlOum9bQEKYjR6JC6eyq_2oUx5DPiMor2FQsP70W2I-4aGTrxP6wI/w233-h320/stamped%20from%20the%20beginning).jpg" width="233" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">An excellent historical overview of racism<br /> in America</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhReu7lBZIKuCIm1aEjm-nGPUbPAtevp6gSGRQxHRtNEcUN499IRNZB5GJT38kiA3fidmJz3GApyEDe6NplfzNY2Q8dmBuvd6mo6IbDKYixsD-GpK1IesnU9jQ5r6zAX27ctG7_QlkXTGhX3i2xXlp-vX-d0x1aU5ijea1okNhe-bWQVPZDK7l6GStR03k/s1486/white%20like%20me.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="1486" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhReu7lBZIKuCIm1aEjm-nGPUbPAtevp6gSGRQxHRtNEcUN499IRNZB5GJT38kiA3fidmJz3GApyEDe6NplfzNY2Q8dmBuvd6mo6IbDKYixsD-GpK1IesnU9jQ5r6zAX27ctG7_QlkXTGhX3i2xXlp-vX-d0x1aU5ijea1okNhe-bWQVPZDK7l6GStR03k/w347-h276/white%20like%20me.jpg" width="347" /></a></div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLbOiaf-iO6AVLNlbqHmxkI93-yUK-oDl_9qvTxbnL5xciFzzO4NnIyFjoAmvwzNsf_2oyhk_yyEwscefWMTrf50uApBxjleb3Ndfd01TaK5vsaQbXfH83FG6bQhy1HGniVR75c_XGPIpKHXLdeXQEg4JKlIdSxSzB8BslTp9IwWJP4tCqoGLAcydWDDQ/s259/rustinjpg.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinGftqtbgiOEeA5Ok1XKz7hVgtJve6yXssgPIuRbkSraJ5O7t3j0p3vxMu5cMjWp7P0JNP8ZCwMFQs5v5Yke-aMVDHkJLHfnEaAc_H_BcXZ1rdBFDSyg3RSCuO8MtAMU7prH-mOW9s6jhTFVNVabguA_tkUzhTe_ar-iIsArhXC3hrmGnGEljlRZvrP4E/s328/reel%20injun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="154" data-original-width="328" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinGftqtbgiOEeA5Ok1XKz7hVgtJve6yXssgPIuRbkSraJ5O7t3j0p3vxMu5cMjWp7P0JNP8ZCwMFQs5v5Yke-aMVDHkJLHfnEaAc_H_BcXZ1rdBFDSyg3RSCuO8MtAMU7prH-mOW9s6jhTFVNVabguA_tkUzhTe_ar-iIsArhXC3hrmGnGEljlRZvrP4E/w320-h262/reel%20injun.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">An overview of how indigneous peoples have been protrayed historically in films</span></td></tr></tbody></table><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAPXA8s3xRxTZffQe8F9_6G5r613Bzyskj6kFAywVMUZH2CZK7Vh11UwYRfk3RrNh8BDy7YZlUUhjGMTG6JzvdGEAHYTxCci7yHEzNbbWqv7K_j_MV7ZHiCf_dsRExXPM_rO3zeMudv61NTigssIMkeLmQ0gyURXcuXVal-h0c-N-bgf11zniELm4UD2M/s259/rustinjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAPXA8s3xRxTZffQe8F9_6G5r613Bzyskj6kFAywVMUZH2CZK7Vh11UwYRfk3RrNh8BDy7YZlUUhjGMTG6JzvdGEAHYTxCci7yHEzNbbWqv7K_j_MV7ZHiCf_dsRExXPM_rO3zeMudv61NTigssIMkeLmQ0gyURXcuXVal-h0c-N-bgf11zniELm4UD2M/w300-h400/rustinjpg.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">An excellent portrait of a little-known civil rights<br />leader who organized the 1963 March on Washingto</span>n</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT7PxS0MjGNjWWj3hbBT0aLvpAckYgR_ocSMO1qGnbwBEfoLC2gmAhShD8NYbRPzC4nxcw5VkvcfCjFW_0pboWu-Thofas_0jHSipIifVvj2Qpj_gQBgpaJd7UediBmkShPaF7aZ3FwIj0Jg-wIauJFTEgqtRJbSrvUXZAGb-HOcSrrsK6AnWLrLJ70TQ/s267/get%20outjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; font-weight: 700; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="188" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT7PxS0MjGNjWWj3hbBT0aLvpAckYgR_ocSMO1qGnbwBEfoLC2gmAhShD8NYbRPzC4nxcw5VkvcfCjFW_0pboWu-Thofas_0jHSipIifVvj2Qpj_gQBgpaJd7UediBmkShPaF7aZ3FwIj0Jg-wIauJFTEgqtRJbSrvUXZAGb-HOcSrrsK6AnWLrLJ70TQ/w226-h320/get%20outjpg.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4eh_f2yvma-X9DTK6HNkdK6uqfqi5x8ioxowWQCGQkpy_p_9xgddfQhI_hVBxYoYH62JPTPhqSUxwOMSyp75g22ZIgeUFqppbkwvkDvS7sJuLGdRygKtYSnAuD1zRFToHWqU-u549o055xG_8wW3rm1nhrVoj8zNv7lAyGJn-EXPWFrhT4qKa7F57l88/s300/the%20help.jpg" style="clear: left; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4eh_f2yvma-X9DTK6HNkdK6uqfqi5x8ioxowWQCGQkpy_p_9xgddfQhI_hVBxYoYH62JPTPhqSUxwOMSyp75g22ZIgeUFqppbkwvkDvS7sJuLGdRygKtYSnAuD1zRFToHWqU-u549o055xG_8wW3rm1nhrVoj8zNv7lAyGJn-EXPWFrhT4qKa7F57l88/w290-h343/the%20help.jpg" width="290" /></a></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><br /></div>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-29747339276710008612023-12-03T22:02:00.007-05:002023-12-10T18:50:44.238-05:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiq7GQqZ2ORA9Lfj9a1VI0ng_CPAFlTIJqbRDjh8lFqmy2Gd_kvbk1hhOPmr1Eei25_-GMU2dJLhmRj5BYNm4GvjzAe7CTO26TqPcGFkwEIEp4xAS5h1QtF0KtfEIIRY0Md4fnpquziJ5GqCButW_NkLHMMULNXIqRMosno3haTgTgz_LhwPwbLd5FZ94s" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiq7GQqZ2ORA9Lfj9a1VI0ng_CPAFlTIJqbRDjh8lFqmy2Gd_kvbk1hhOPmr1Eei25_-GMU2dJLhmRj5BYNm4GvjzAe7CTO26TqPcGFkwEIEp4xAS5h1QtF0KtfEIIRY0Md4fnpquziJ5GqCButW_NkLHMMULNXIqRMosno3haTgTgz_LhwPwbLd5FZ94s=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /></div></div> <b><span style="font-size: large;">Overview of Course on the History of American White Supremacy</span></b><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I will be presenting over zoom the following ten-week course under the auspices of <b>Learning Unlimited </b>in Etobicoke in the west end of Toronto from Wednesday January 10 to March 13, 2024 at 10AM E.S.T. If you are interested in this course, you can go to their website. Prior to each week, I will be offering a post with books and films relevant to that week.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">American White Supremacy, its History and Spreading Threat </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Presented
by Robert Douglas MA</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">What does
the history of racial superiority, including the attempt to rewrite part of
that history, tell us about the resilience and creativity of Blacks and other
non-whites who resisted the assumptions underpinning white superiority and the
horrific conditions they endured? To what extent did that struggle affect the
development of Canadian history? How did that legacy in America morph into the
Big Lie of our own times and pose threats to democracy, threats that could
spill across the border into Canada?</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">1:
Expressions of White Supremacy: An Overview</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Manifestations
of white supremacy, not only in the most overt forms of control and terror, but
in its more subtle and myriad expressions, are pivotal in understanding the
American experience. Beyond power politics or issues of war and peace, the
corrosion of racism can be a central lens through which to view American
history and its Canadian reverberations. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">2: Free
and Enslaved Blacks Challenge White Supremacy during Slavery and the Civil War</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">White
Supremacy enabled exploitative enslaved labour to enrich Southern planters and
Northern financial interests. Despite the exercise of raw power, Blacks
demonstrated courage and resiliency through different forms of resistance to
challenge the assumption of Black inferiority. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">3:
Reconstruction: A Multiracial Democracy Thwarted by the Re-emergence of the
forces of White Supremacy</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The end
of the Civil War heralded the possibility of a biracial democracy but after a
dozen years, that dream was eclipsed by white supremacists who instituted
racial terror, economic control through sharecropping and disenfranchisement of
black males, conditions that the nation accepted to promote national unity. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">4: A Big
Lie: Whitewashing the Narrative about Slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The
narrative of the Lost Cause and its persistent power will be critiqued to
demonstrate how it influenced historiography, education, memorial sites, and
popular culture, notably films like <i>Birth of a Nation </i>and <i>Gone with
the Wind</i>. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">5:
Responses to the Nightmare of Jim Crow: The Great Migration, and the Birth of
the Civil Rights Movement</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">From the
1890s to the 1950s, the South exercised a power that came close to recreating
chattel slavery in which Blacks were subjected to police and vigilante violence
supported by lawmakers and the courts. The Great Migration led to a demographic
shift and the emergence of Black intellectual and cultural communities and
white resistance. Grassroot activists in both the North and the South laid the
foundation for the emergence of the civil rights movement.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">6:
Responses to the Civil Rights Gains: The Reframing of White Supremacy </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The
efforts of activists brought an end to legal segregation in 1965, but for over
half a century since, explicit and covert racism was adopted by Republican and
Democratic administrations and upheld by Supreme Court decisions. They
weaponized racial justice notably through mass Black incarceration, dog whistle
politics and policies that supported systemic racism. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">7: The
Consequences of Trump’s Gaslighting of America</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Racism
became more overt after the election of Barack Obama (2008) and contributed to
the rise and power of Donald Trump. The latter’s incendiary rhetoric, his
racist policies at American borders, his willingness to scapegoat others during
the pandemic and inability to tell the truth, notably about the 2020 election
and its violent aftermath, have resulted in an illiberal cult-like Republican
Party. Trump’s authoritarianism and illiberalism have cast a dark shadow over
Canadian life and politics. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> 8:
Attempts at Racial Reckoning: An Assessment </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The
widely publicized killings of Blacks, having spiked a national conversation
about race ignited multiple controversies: the disproportionate continuing
police violence against Blacks, the call for reparations, the efforts to
address medical abuse, the efforts to demythologize Confederate heroes and the
removal of historical symbols.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Despite the efforts of some
whites to address their own racism, how much has changed? </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">9: The
Racial and Cultural Divide in Contemporary America</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">While
Blacks fear physical assault and experience systemic racism, whites, fueled by
far-right disinformation, fear replacement and an honest exploration of their
history. These challenges are illustrated by the inequities and mistreatment in
the prison systems, controversies about what can be taught in schools, the
banning of books, and the inability of MAGA supporters to accept reality. To
what extent are these divisions present in Canada. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">10: The
Potential of the Arts to Challenge White Supremacy and Systemic Racism</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Whether
the arts – film, television, fiction, poetry, the visual arts, music – can
challenge assumptions about White Supremacy depends on the courage of the
artist to avoid sentimentality and sanitizing historical and contemporary
realities by offering honest, uncomfortable truths. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: New, serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: New, serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: New, serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></b></p>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-15398238757740801202020-06-25T20:36:00.000-04:002020-06-25T20:36:45.264-04:00A Potentially World-Destroying Virus: World on Fire<h3 class="post-title entry-title" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;"><br /></h3><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 680px;"><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 5px; position: relative; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WHHgB7AzjaE/XvUVllEf94I/AAAAAAAArmo/pk06NqnFX1EP-ZWBc1oiURxQZr29RfjogCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/world%2Bon%2Bfire%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #a70f0f; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WHHgB7AzjaE/XvUVllEf94I/AAAAAAAArmo/pk06NqnFX1EP-ZWBc1oiURxQZr29RfjogCK4BGAYYCw/s640/world%2Bon%2Bfire%2B2.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.56px;"><b>Zofia Wichlacz </b>in World on Fire.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><i><b>This review contains spoilers.</b></i><br /><br />Watching the sprawling, emotionally gripping seven-part drama <b>World on Fire</b> on <b>PBS Masterpiece Theatre</b> has increased my frustration with those (mostly) policy-makers who draw analogies between the COVID-19 virus and World War Two. Boris Johnson has fantasized that he is the second coming of Churchill and Trump absurdly sees himself as a wartime president in the mold of Franklin Roosevelt, a position that pundit Max Boot hilariously debunks in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/15/if-trump-had-been-charge-during-world-war-ii-this-column-would-be-german/" style="color: #a70f0f; text-decoration-line: none;">an acerbic column</a>. In a more serious vein, an historian who has written a book about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/national-mourning-coronavirus/2020/05/15/b47fc670-9577-11ea-82b4-c8db161ff6e5_story.html" style="color: #a70f0f; text-decoration-line: none;">the politics of mourning </a>wonders why Trump would urge the citizenry to see themselves as “warriors” and return to work even if it means sacrificing themselves, when there has not been even a hint about top-down national (as opposed to personal) mourning, given that, as of this writing, over one-hundred-thousand Americans have succumbed to this virus.<br /><br />What <b>World on Fire</b><i> </i>does is to put in perspective how our current crisis, even with an invisible enemy, pales in comparison (provided robust testing, contact tracing and isolation, social distancing and personal hygiene protocols remain in place) with a more lethal form of pestilence, World War Two. I say this with the caveat that the first season takes us only to the fall of France and the epic rescue of British troops from Dunkirk during the spring of 1940. Whereas most war dramas focus on leadership (<b>Darkest Hour</b><i> </i>about Churchill), a specific episode (<b>Dunkirk</b>) or the Holocaust (<b>Schindler’s List</b>), <b>Fire</b><i> </i>offers a larger canvas including Manchester, Paris, Berlin and Warsaw.<i> </i>Writer Peter Bowker, reflecting a modern sensibility, explores subjects that are usually passed over or given short shrift through the interlocking stories of ordinary people, their fears, the decisions they make and how the war changes them. What is noticeably missing are the usual nationalistic tropes – the flag waving, the inspirational speeches, the spotlight on masculine prowess – as the characters are primarily driven by personal motives.<br /><br /><a name="more"></a>In the table-setting first episode, we are first introduced to several storylines that provide a broad canvas. We begin with Harry (Jonah Hauer-King) and Lois (Julia Brown), two young lovers from vastly different backgrounds boldly attempting to disrupt a rally of British fascists. After they are arrested, we are introduced to Lois’s father Douglas (Sean Bean) and Harry’s mother Robina (Lesley Manville). Months later we meet Harry again working as a translator at the British Embassy in Warsaw, living with a Polish family, including Kasia (Zofia Wichłacz), with whom he has become romantically involved, and her brothers. Harry is a friend of Nancy (Helen Hunt), an American radio journalist who warns him to evacuate Poland with his new girl friend before the German army arrives. She is primarily stationed in Berlin, where her neighbours are a German family burdened with a secret. Nancy warns her nephew, Webster (Brian J. Smith), working as a doctor in Paris, to leave before the Germans arrive but he is in a cross-racial gay relationship with Albert (Parker Sawyer), a French-African jazz performer, and disregards her warning.<br /><br />From this summary of the first episode, it might appear that the content is a lot to absorb and the guns of war have not even started. Some viewers may even wonder whether <b>Fire</b><i> </i>has too many coincidences or wanders too frequently into melodrama territory. I do not deny that viewers can find evidence for their criticisms but I think there are solid reasons for watching this engaging miniseries. Without sentimentality, Bowker’s writing skillfully weaves the storylines together and, with one exception, they are compelling; he allows for character development, and the ensemble cast delivers nuance in their roles with strong performances against panoramic war scenes and more intimate, searing moments.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; color: #222222; float: left; margin-bottom: 0.5em; padding: 5px; position: relative; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WfxdYx3WxU4/XvUWf5zIepI/AAAAAAAArnA/MY-DoRfppLce2c-Ce7wciY7HKtGV2FpVQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/world-on-fire-pbs%2B3-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #a70f0f; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" height="368" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WfxdYx3WxU4/XvUWf5zIepI/AAAAAAAArnA/MY-DoRfppLce2c-Ce7wciY7HKtGV2FpVQCK4BGAYYCw/s640/world-on-fire-pbs%2B3-.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.56px;">Helen Hunt in <b>World on Fire</b>.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Bowker fashions psychological portraits that allow him to start with the individual experience before fanning outward toward the war. His decision to explore character is especially evident in how he etches Douglas and Robina, who do not experience this war directly, but in their different ways still bear scars from the Great War. Douglas is a conscientious objector whose worldview was shaped after he returned from the Somme in 1916, suffering from shell shock. That trauma still flares up during panic attacks when he experiences disabling flashbacks that he believes have prevented him from being a good parent to Lois and his ne’er-do-well son, Tom (Ewan Mitchell). Robina is emotionally distant, a snobbish, embittered person whose defenses gradually break down as circumstances in her life change and as we learn more about the reasons for her anger. Her rightwing politics is leavened by her acerbic sense of humour. Bean and Manville are standouts, bringing depth and complexity to their roles.<br /><br />In the Polish storyline, the most intense of the series, after a brief, almost idyllic prelude in which Harry experiences life with a Polish family, the Germans invade, wreaking indiscriminate destruction in their wake. Given the change in his personal life, he can’t take the decisive step to write Lois and end that relationship. He persuades Kasia to marry him so that she can return to England with him. She decides to stay instead, sending her younger brother, then enlists in the Polish Resistance. The subsequent scenes featuring her are among the most harrowing in the series. Survival depends more on luck than taking careful precautions; anyone could be arbitrarily chosen in a roundup for execution to avenge the death of a S.S. officer. Kasia undertakes actions that take a psychic toll, which would have been inconceivable to her before the war. The Polish actress, Zofia Wichłacz, is compellingly persuasive as Kasia.<br /><br />Harry arrives home with Jan (Eryk Biedunkiewicz), whom he introduces to his mother as a rescued Polish refugee who will live with them. In England Jan is lost and withdrawn until he begins a friendship with Douglas and manages to feel less intimidated by a thawing Robina; there is a wonderful scene in which she confronts the boys who have bullied Jan at school.<br /><br />Harry enlists in the army, acquiring an officer’s commission, but freezes at a crucial moment during a firefight and does not reveal leadership skills until his company reach the beaches of Dunkirk. He insists, over the objections of his own men, that he remain with shell-shocked soldiers not under his command until they are allowed to take seats in the rescue ships, a gesture of courage and compassion providing evidence of his own development as well as an insight into his damaged father.<br /><br />But it is the women who most impress with their steadiness and resilience. Lois, whose character according to Bowker was <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/04/05/world-on-fire-masterpiece-pbs-world-war-2-peter-bowker/" style="color: #a70f0f; text-decoration-line: none;">based on his own grandmother</a>, demonstrates a resolute quality of independence as she sings jazz tunes for the troops and is determined to raise her child, if need be on her own. The often brassy Nancy, whose character is based on the journalist Clare Hollingworth, serves as a Greek chorus, providing the wider context of the war with her broadcasts and refusing to be intimidated by her German minder. Moreover, in another gripping storyline, Nancy provides valuable support to the German couple desperate to protect their young epileptic daughter from the eugenics policies of the medical authorities who are euthanizing children judged as physically or mentally impaired. At great risk, she attempts to smuggle out of the country an investigative report on the subject. The award-winning Helen Hunt is excellent in this role, exhibiting both strength of character and her vulnerability.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 5px; position: relative; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9m79WG6ZIqg/XvUX1sYtUHI/AAAAAAAArnY/awwG8NF8FCkCxCx_uF1ASbVEtytwnOAmACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #a70f0f; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9m79WG6ZIqg/XvUX1sYtUHI/AAAAAAAArnY/awwG8NF8FCkCxCx_uF1ASbVEtytwnOAmACK4BGAYYCw/s640/download.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.56px;">Sean Bean in <b>World on Fire</b>.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />When the Germans occupy France after a six-week Blitzkrieg, the fear that the democratic countries could succumb to the efficient Nazi war machine deepens, prompting Robina back in Manchester to declare that England must negotiate with Hitler, a common sentiment at a time when few could conceive of the evil magnitude inherent in the Nazi system. In Paris the virus of anti-Semitism has contaminated the streets. The biracial gay relationship storyline becomes more fraught with danger as Germans occupy Parisian dwellings. Not even aware that he is gay, the Nazis arrest Albert for the crime of being black. At this point it is premature to assess the effectiveness of this subplot. Season one is more about setting up the tension. I think everything depends on how Bowker decides to play it out in the second season.<br /><br />The same suspension of judgment cannot be made for the episodes featuring Tom, Douglas’s troubled son, who eventually enlists in the navy over the wishes of his pacifist father. The sequences featuring Tom do not contribute to the overall strength of the series in part because his character feels flatlined. A naval battle in the South Atlantic is well choreographed, director Thomas Napper staging scenes of carnage and death, but there is little indication that Tom, who is primarily interested in gambling, has viewed his experience as a test of character except to be sobered by the casualties and show some generosity toward a wounded comrade. When we encounter him next in a war scene, he is on a Dunkirk rescue boat; we now recognize how Bowker has decided to integrate his story but it feels forced. Instead of assisting evacuees, he panics and flees to escape the Nazi strafing and runs along the beach until he is hit; we wonder whether that is the end of his story. Yet he shows up much later as a wounded soldier in a French hospital, attended by Webster. Now the interrelation borders on the risible. Most of the connections and coincidences associated with the intertwining stories, some of which I have not mentioned, make sense and can often be moving but Bowker will need to either drop this storyline or radically rethink Tom’s involvement for season two.<br /><br />Season one ends with Harry being dropped into Poland as an undercover agent to provide intelligence about the Polish Resistance. He is told by his superior in London that he might not survive, a comment that does not even faze him. This sequence provides a solid bookend for the series. First the character of Harry has evolved; he has grown and has shed the naive illusions and indecisiveness he displayed earlier. He has been chosen for this assignment because of his Eastern European experience and his linguistic skills. The actor Jonah Hauer-King is particularly well-suited for this role because his grandparents were Polish-Jewish refugees before 1939. He is therefore able to deliver the subtitled Polish lines with fluency. As one might expect this sequence is packed with nail-biting tension that culminates with a cliff-hanging conclusion whetting viewers’ appetite for the second season.<br /><br />In one very real sense, the fear in 1940 that ordinary people did not know how the war would end is similar to our anxiety that we do not know when the virulence of the Coronavirus will dissipate and when we can return to a more normal life. We can take comfort now that we know how things did turn out five years after Dunkirk and it was obviously a huge relief to the people who survived a war in which seventy-five million died. But the world was never the same again. I expect that our life will be irrevocably altered even if an effective treatment is found or a vaccine created that ends this virus. We may be better for it.<br /><br /><b>World on Fire</b> <i></i>can be streamed on <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/shows/world-on-fire/episodes/" style="color: #a70f0f; text-decoration-line: none;">PBS.org</a>.</div></div>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-91677806195679347512020-05-28T16:50:00.002-04:002020-05-31T09:50:04.233-04:00The Search for Human Connection in Songs for the End of the World<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">“Society is still worth protecting, don’t you think?
Maybe now more than ever.”</span><br />
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span>-<span style="font: 7pt "times new roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 21.3333px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 21.3333px;">– </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Saleema Nawaz, </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Songs for the End of the World</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Almost two months ago, the Montreal writer, Saleema Nawaz
received considerable attention in the Canadian media for her novel <i>Songs for the End of the World</i>, about a
respiratory pandemic ravaging 2020 America that bears startling similarities to
the current COVID-19 Virus. Among them: the devastation of New York City from a
mysterious infectious virus that originated in China; the inconvenience of self
quarantines; the individuals on the front line – police and health care workers
– risking their lives to save the lives of individuals afflicted with this
virulent pathogen; the need for personal protective gear; social distancing
ordinances; conspiracy theories posted on social media, and anti-Asian hate
crimes. The novel took six years to research and write, and Nawaz’s imagination,
combined with her knowledge about previous pandemics from the Spanish flu
(1918-1920) to SARS, is etched into her narrative. Still, given her prescience,
it is unsurprising that <i>Songs</i>,<b> </b>scheduled to be published in late
August, was rushed into an e-book in early April.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">But as compelling as Nawaz’s description of the
impact of the virus upon individuals and society, </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Songs</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> has much more to offer as she shifts back and forth in time
from 1999 to the months of the pandemic. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Beyond being a reflection of the current
zeitgeist, the novel raises interesting and provocative issues. Are acts of kindness and service more important than
words? Can a novel about a plague written years earlier by one of the novel’s
characters, enlighten or merely tantalize the public? What does philosophy, a
central focus of one chapter in a university setting, have to offer public
discourse during a pandemic over twenty years later? </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Nawaz also considers whether the seduction and
benefits of lengthy sea travel on a private yacht outweigh the perils, and
whether the power of song can offer a balm to individuals during a pandemic, music
in this instance that was first performed by a rock group at a Vancouver
benefit concert, that gathering triggering a wave of infections with subsequent
tragic results.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Saleema Nawaz</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Perhaps her most universal subject is the value of
human connection: the power of parenthood, notably mothers with young children
but also an aging academic attempting to overcome antipathy with an alienated
daughter. But she also charts the attachment between two sisters forged at sea when
they were young girls that has grown into a bastion of emotional support during
the pandemic even though they live oceans apart. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">If the trajectory of films and other novels about
pandemics often portray a society surrendering to despair or panic as fear
engulfs their lives, <i>Songs</i><b> </b>is a rich
character study that avoids apocalyptic scenarios without minimizing the
searing scenes that happen at a hospital. Nawaz signals her priority when she
affixes the name of a character as a chapter title. One of them is the
writer/celebrity, Owen, who ultimately feels guilt about his trysts and lies,
that ended his marriage and any further connection with his ex wife. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">The centerpiece of <i>Songs</i> are the lives of two individuals, Elliot, a New York police
officer and his sister, Sarah, who is raising a child on her own, that
highlights the unbreakable bond the siblings have with each other. Sarah’s life
was derailed for years by possibly misplaced guilt stemming from a college
incident. Elliot who feels he is flawed because he ended a relationship in
college and had a failed marriage. Yet Nawaz portrays Sarah and Elliot as
compassionate individuals who demonstrate courage and generosity. Through these
characters Nawaz offers hope about how it is possible to behave responsibly
during a pandemic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>Nawaz also
adds another touch that I can only describe as her reworking of the six-degrees-of-separation,
namely that every character in the novel is connected through a chain of
circumstances to almost everyone else. A major character in one chapter can appear
briefly then again in another context and time period, that enables the reader
to see that character in a different light. To take one example, a young Asian waitress
briefly meets an off-duty police officer, a seemingly inconsequential event,
except it will ignite a cascade of consequences that flare up throughout the
novel affecting every character directly or indirectly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">In sum <i>Songs</i><b> </b>can
be read as a vivid mirror of our time as we cope with the corona virus but its
more enduring appeal is how Nawaz reveals the complexity of individual lives
and how people can behave with decency as they make difficult choices during a
time of crisis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-51409910663257432222020-04-25T14:20:00.001-04:002020-04-30T15:10:29.822-04:00The Plot Against America: Adapting a Novel for Television<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">"It's about:
What if the magnetic forces at work in our country were just given a little
push in one direction. What if a certain kind of intolerance was just given a s</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">l<span style="background: white; color: #333333;">ight nod from powers on high?"</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">– Zoe Kazan, actor on the HBO series,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The Plot Against America<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">History
is a nightmare from which none of us can wake.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">– James Joyce, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This
review contains spoilers</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Michelle K. Short of HBO photographed the screenshots</span></i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ADe99nsQ88Y/XqNcQ4G1YgI/AAAAAAAADMU/4Ws-Fkte2v4t6XRRlIF7SDu1vd94E_XawCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/plot%2Bagainst%2Bamericajpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ADe99nsQ88Y/XqNcQ4G1YgI/AAAAAAAADMU/4Ws-Fkte2v4t6XRRlIF7SDu1vd94E_XawCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/plot%2Bagainst%2Bamericajpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Anti
Social</b>, a riveting account of the alt-right online trollers who elevate the
persuasive narrative above any semblance of accuracy, evidence or fairness,
Andrew Marantz interjects the wisdom of the philosopher, Richard Rorty, who
contends that history is not preordained but is contingent and depends on the
way people bend its arc. I thought about Rorty and Marantz’s far-right profiles
as I reread <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Plot Against America</b>
by Philip Roth and watched the six-part gripping HBO mostly-faithful television
adaptation by creator David Simon and his collaborator Ed Burns, widely known
for their productions among others of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Wire </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Treme</i>. I found the
gradual slide into fascism in America more convincing in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Plot</b> than I did when I first read it in 2004 – likely because
of the current American political climate – and that the Simon’s and Burns’s rendition
offers innovations that enhance the relevance of the novel by creatively blurring
the distinction between the early 1940s setting and our time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Philip Roth</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Roth at one point in the novel explicitly asserts
that the unspooling of history is not predetermined. It occurs when the
narrator, (who toggles between the young seven-year old Philip and the older
Roth retrospectively recalling this time sixty years later) recognizes the
difference between the history taught in school “harmless and inevitable” and
history as it is lived through, “the relentless unforeseen.” Given that
premise, the 1940 re-election of Franklin Roosevelt was never assured, and the
Republican nomination and election of a political neophyte, the America First
isolationist and anti-Semitic admirer of Hitler, Charles Lindbergh, was a
plausible possibility. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The worst of the Depression was over and the
electorate might have preferred a relatively young robust bona fide aviation
hero, perhaps the greatest hero of his generation, over an aging, frail spent
President who had already served two terms while no previous President had sought
the office for a third time. Isolationist sentiment exercised a strong appeal
for Americans disillusioned by the propagation of fabricated atrocity stories
that prompted so many Americans to support the Great War, by the belief that
the subsequent sacrifice of so many soldiers had not been worth the price and
that European wars were</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/the-debate-behind-us-intervention-in-world-war-ii/277572/" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 21.3333px;">"none of our business<i>"</i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/the-debate-behind-us-intervention-in-world-war-ii/277572/"> </a>Moreover, anti-Semitic sentiment increased during the 1930s and, according to
one poll, 53 percent believed that Jews were different and should be </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/1/The%20Plot%20Against%20America:%20Adapting%20a%20Novel%20for%20Television"><span style="font-size: large;">restricted</span></a><span style="font-size: large;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-true-history-behind-hbos-the-plot-against-america/"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E7MeXSZM6Ew/XqNeiPn095I/AAAAAAAADMo/UKPoVkUN80QmEFNSVolT3WfQUtwOyCvkQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Anne-Charles-Lindbergh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="686" height="291" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E7MeXSZM6Ew/XqNeiPn095I/AAAAAAAADMo/UKPoVkUN80QmEFNSVolT3WfQUtwOyCvkQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Anne-Charles-Lindbergh.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ann and Charles Lindbergh</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lindbergh never offered himself as a candidate but
he was approached by right-wing Republicans and he refused. But what if he had
accepted the invitation? He would certainly have easily defeated the
establishment candidate, Wendell Willkie, an internationalist, who was easily
defeated in the general election by Roosevelt. It does not take much for Roth
to rejigger history and to imagine Lindbergh winning the 1940 Presidential
election on an anti-war, tacitly anti-Semitic platform, and quickly
establishing an “understanding” with Hitler in Iceland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Unlike Sinclair Lewis’s 1935, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It Can’t Happen Here</b>,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>which
at times veers toward the author transplanting conditions from Nazi Germany
into America, one of the great strengths of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Plot</b> is that Roth’s depiction of the gradual devolution of the
country into fascism and the fracture of an American Jewish family feels rooted
in the American experience. For instance, when the Roth family (Levin in the
television series) travels from their Jewish enclave in Newark N.J. to
Washington D.C. for a holiday visit to see the historic sites, they experience
hostile reactions and discrimination, expertly dramatized in the television
series where much of the dialogue is lifted from the novel. The father, Herman,
an insurance salesman, who is outspoken in his opposition to the Lindbergh
presidency, becomes the target of an anti-Semitic slur from random strangers on
two separate occasions when he is reproached as a “loud-mouthed Jew.” The
family is denied entrance at a hotel, one that it had previously booked and
paid for. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It is debatable whether the family would have faced
this kind of garden-variety prejudice in the real world of Roosevelt’s America,
or that the election of Lindbergh would have emboldened ordinary Americans to
openly express sentiments that might have been more guarded in the real world
of that time. Regardless, it is this permission to utter ‘politically incorrect’
attitudes in Lindbergh’s America that renders parallels with Trump’s America,
not that the current incumbent resembles Lindbergh except that each incites
fear and loathing against a minority (or minorities – Muslims, Latinos, Asians) – cohort. After the first chapter which details the campaign and election of
Lindbergh, he becomes a shadowy distant figure who largely vanishes from the
text (and, apart from one brief anodyne radio speech, the television series);
no one would say that about the celebrity demagogue after the 2016 election. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The anti-Semitism in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Plot</b> becomes more official and overt with the creation of the
Office of American Absorption (O.A.A.). Roth’s portrayal of the Lindbergh creation
and its insidious policies is persuasive. Under its auspices, the accommodationist,
Rabbi Bengelsdorf, who becomes the leading mouthpiece and ‘useful idiot’ for
the administration, institutes the smarmily named “Just Folks” program that
encourages Jewish teenagers to spend a summer in the American heartland among
Christian families. Its purpose may seem benign but as it turns out it is more
an American version of the Hitler Youth movement which alienates the
participants from their families.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u-JWDHBb-J4/XqOBxTFmK8I/AAAAAAAADN4/sEXZQF-SjowH3YvSyRFH6X3likmloD-IgCEwYBhgL/s1600/plot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="178" data-original-width="283" height="401" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u-JWDHBb-J4/XqOBxTFmK8I/AAAAAAAADN4/sEXZQF-SjowH3YvSyRFH6X3likmloD-IgCEwYBhgL/s640/plot.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Rabbi Bengelsdorf (John Tururro)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Roth (Levin) family’s oldest son, Sandy, eagerly
travels to a tobacco farm in Kentucky despite the objections of both of his
parents. If Sandy is a representative sample, the program may be considered a
stellar success. After he returns from what he believes was a wonderful
experience, Sandy becomes the poster boy for assimilationist Jews like Bengelsdorf (John Tururro) who has been co-opted to promote Lindbergh’s goal, the erosion of the Jewish
communal identity. Shielded at that time from the malevolent presence of the Ku
Klux Klan stationed in Kentucky, he is brimming with enthusiasm for Lindbergh.
He dismisses his parents as “ghetto Jews” for their opposition to the program and
their contempt and hatred for the President. He despises their endorsement of Walter
Winchell, the gossip columnist and radio journalist, who becomes the leading public
opposition voice to Lindbergh.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rO0xziARH-c/XqNil7eLrlI/AAAAAAAADNQ/MgnGA2Mqt9QSCuNn29r_vYy0Mtes8npQACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/plot%2Bmorgan-spector-azhy-robertson-caleb-malis-plot-against-america.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<br />
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<span style="background: white; color: #373737; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If Sandy perceives
Winchell to be a loud, offensive rabble-rouser, his parents are desperate for a
spokesman to act on their behalf. They have received notification from the
sinister “Homestead 42” program requiring their involuntary relocation to the
“real America” in Kentucky, supposedly to help them better assimilate. (Given
that Lindbergh in real life lamented the large number of Jews in New York and
added in his diary,</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "garamond" , "serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> “</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A
few Jews add strength and character to a country, but too many create chaos.
And we are </span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/the-debate-behind-us-intervention-in-world-war-ii/277572/" style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 21.3333px;">getting too many</a><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">" further lends plausibility to Roth’s
depiction of a repressive Lindbergh America.)</span> <span style="background: white; color: #373737; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #373737; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #373737; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If the prospect of
forced displacement were not enough to unsettle Herman and Bess, a FBI agent is
hovering about harassing family members with questions about what others are
saying that could be construed as disloyal to the President. The agent is
especially interested in Philip and Sandy’s older cousin, Alvin (Antony Boyle).
After joining the Canadian army, Alvin loses a leg in the war, and on returning
home finds that he has trouble holding on to a job since he is regarded as anti-American
and politically suspect, likely a Communist, because he fought against the
Nazis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rO0xziARH-c/XqNil7eLrlI/AAAAAAAADNQ/MgnGA2Mqt9QSCuNn29r_vYy0Mtes8npQACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/plot%2Bmorgan-spector-azhy-robertson-caleb-malis-plot-against-america.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="425" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rO0xziARH-c/XqNil7eLrlI/AAAAAAAADNQ/MgnGA2Mqt9QSCuNn29r_vYy0Mtes8npQACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/plot%2Bmorgan-spector-azhy-robertson-caleb-malis-plot-against-america.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Herman (Morgan Specter) Philip (Azhy Robertson) and Sandy (Calib Malis)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Roth balances the larger historical material with
the family drama and its relationship with their community. In the first
chapter, readers will learn much about the history; Roth even quotes from
Lindbergh’s diaries to provide further evidence of the aviator’s anti-Semitism
and support for the Third Reich. By contrast, Simon and Burns wisely focus on
the micro level while utilizing the Newsreel Theater for Herman (Morgan
Spector) and his sons to watch and the Winchell radio broadcasts – that become
increasingly ubiquitous – to inform the family of the larger picture that is
happening in Europe and America. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Simon also shrewdly departs from Roth by abandoning
Philip’s limited narrative perspective and substituting a multiple viewpoint. Simon
presents Philip (Azhy Robertson) as a wide-eyed boy who observes much, is
deeply affected by the emotional stresses in his home and to what happens to
his next door friend, Seldon Wishnow (Jacob Laval). The two leading female
characters, Bess, (Zoe Kazan) Herman’s wife, and her sister Evelyn (Winona
Ryder) are perhaps the chief beneficiaries of this change.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For most of the
novel, Bess’s role is minimized and Evelyn is little more than a cipher but
Simon develops them, especially Bess, to be fully rounded characters. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16pt;">Apart from a couple of wonderfully touching scenes
between Bess and Herman, she is a quiet grounded presence exuding fear and
anxiety, whether it is from her husband’s public angry outbursts or the
attitudes of the outside Gentile communities. As a result, she feels a strong maternal
need to protect her children, even urging her husband to immigrate to Canada.
(A number of the family’s Jewish friends flee to Canada feeling that they would
be welcomed there. In the real world, the Canadian government was intensely
anti-Semitic. I wonder whether Roth was aware of that reality or that his
portrayal of a generous Canada is part of his alternative history.)</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pdDpUNNv5JU/XqNiZ8FxnBI/AAAAAAAADNI/rcdBWw1KH5wMMGUWMlhBByAFNhZzZxRVgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/plot-against-america-movieZoe%2BKagan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1200" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pdDpUNNv5JU/XqNiZ8FxnBI/AAAAAAAADNI/rcdBWw1KH5wMMGUWMlhBByAFNhZzZxRVgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/plot-against-america-movieZoe%2BKagan.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Bess (Zoe Kazan)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Bess generally avoids political discussion because
she, more than any other character, seems the most aware of the nightmare ahead
for Jews. But when Evelyn, engaged to Bengelsdorf (John Tururro) and an
administrator of the Just Folks program, obtains permission to invite Sandy
(Caleb Malis), without the approval his parents, to a presidential dinner honouring
the German Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop, Bess is furious. Her anger is less
about politics than her sister’s personal intrusion into her family. It is a forceful
scene, absent from the novel in which Bess finds her voice, which she will
continue to use to protect her family. She privately attempts to convince Bengelsdorf
to reverse the decision to reallocate the family to Kentucky. She challenges
her husband about his political engagement after he attends a Winchell Presidential
rally as the police standby and offer no protection for the candidate’s
supporters when thugs physically assault them. She further provides a calm
reassuring voice over the telephone to Philip’s friend, Seldon, who is
frightened and alone in a small community in Kentucky. As Herman retreats more
into the background, his faith in America’s better nature fading, recognizing
that he has become “the other,” she becomes the backbone of her family. Kazan
is riveting throughout, especially in a scene when she confronts her sister with
pungently personal and political salvos late in the final episode.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3mvVwJOt3ds/XqNiNnemzlI/AAAAAAAADNA/H0CG5oYj5uwl7oQdStR1gy3N0b9fnfObACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/plot%2Bagainst%2Bamerica%2BHerman-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3mvVwJOt3ds/XqNiNnemzlI/AAAAAAAADNA/H0CG5oYj5uwl7oQdStR1gy3N0b9fnfObACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/plot%2Bagainst%2Bamerica%2BHerman-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Herman at Winchell rally</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the novel, Evelyn is a minor character who does
not even appear until the second half when Roth presents her one-dimensionally
and unsympathetically, an opportunist only interested in exercising power through
her attachment to Bengelsdorf. Simon and Ryder turn her into a more nuanced
character: lonely, desperate to be loved, flirtatious but genuinely attracted
to the charismatic Rabbi. She shares his deluded belief that Lindbergh is a
good man who will protect the Jews and that she is providing in the “Just
Folks” program a positive service that will benefit, among others, her nephew,
Sandy. Ryder’s range broadens as she becomes increasingly confused, frightened,
even terrified as violence spikes against Jews and threatens her well being. Yet
she also seems oblivious to how her complicity with an administration, that has
encouraged a war crime, puts her sister’s family at risk.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bYejT7Nqw_Q/XqN5J0N8V4I/AAAAAAAADNo/8bZqrWZCpKYqvGQbzbAreQ5jyrQHdgnJACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/plot%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bYejT7Nqw_Q/XqN5J0N8V4I/AAAAAAAADNo/8bZqrWZCpKYqvGQbzbAreQ5jyrQHdgnJACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/plot%2B2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Evelyn (Winona Ryder) and Sandy</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #1b1916; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In th</span><span style="background: white; color: #1b1916; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">e final wrenching episode, Simon introduces both
dramatic and politically-charged departures from the novel, one that may say
more about the present moment than Roth’s alternative history. Like the novel,
the sixth episode, chronicles the fallout of the Winchell assassination. While
in the novel, the mayor of New York, Fiorello La Guardia, offers a broadcasted eloquent
eulogy to Winchell, Simon uses the occasion to show three members of the Levin
family attending the funeral as an expression of their own solidarity and for
their slain spokesman. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2GyGeDRraUg/XqNitpEOUGI/AAAAAAAADNY/GgrVTpE-pi0youg7lfVqpnAyEcLnNn98wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/plot-final-morgan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="640" height="380" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2GyGeDRraUg/XqNitpEOUGI/AAAAAAAADNY/GgrVTpE-pi0youg7lfVqpnAyEcLnNn98wCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/plot-final-morgan.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Herman, Philip and Bess at Winchell funeral</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background: white; color: #1b1916; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As violence erupts in
their community, Bess and Philip cower in their apartment as gunshots are heard
while Herman and Sandy drive to Kentucky to pick up Seldon, the most tragic
figure in both the novel and the series. In the novel, Herman summarizes to
Bess what happened when they return while Simon adds frisson by dramatizing the
trip in a sequence brimming with tension that reveals an American expression of
the German Kristallnacht: the burning of cities and Jewish businesses and a
close-up of the demonic and frightening presence of the KKK and their handiwork.
But the trip also reveals the gradual awakening of Sandy to the malevolent
reality posed by Lindbergh and his sensitivity at a crucial moment to Seldon.
It finally ends with a moment of humour that enables a relaxation of the tension
arising from the trip as well as a mutual understanding between father and son.
The Kentucky trip is one of the most memorable tableaux in the series.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Herman and Sandy witness the destruction</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background: white; color: #1b1916; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By the end, Roth has
tweaked history back to Roosevelt being re-elected for a third term, Pearl
Harbor is postponed a year, and the Americans fight and help win the war.
Because the series was made in 2020, Simon offers his own more ambiguous and I
think more satisfying ending with unmistakable echoes of the present. He
accepts Roth’s deus ex machina in the form of the President’s wife, Anne Morrow
Lindbergh’s radio broadcast after her husband’s disappearance condemning the
anti-Semitic riots and calling for a special Presidential election. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gFVo9148K-c/XqNhmhafNoI/AAAAAAAADM0/CSZjBUXuNJ0dFyR_KEapRQLs5OpvbcTYwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/david%2Bsimon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: transparent; clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="800" height="277" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gFVo9148K-c/XqNhmhafNoI/AAAAAAAADM0/CSZjBUXuNJ0dFyR_KEapRQLs5OpvbcTYwCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/david%2Bsimon.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">David Simon</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background: white; color: #1b1916; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Simon’s inspired choice
to include on the soundtrack Frank Sinatra’s, “That’s America for Me,” while
the camera pans the citizens as they line up to vote, is a moving montage redolent
of a reassuring return to a democratic ritual. But this upbeat mood is
counterbalanced with Sinatra’s crooning turning ironical by a menacing tableau:
voter suppression, election rigging, the theft and burning of ballots, and an
ending that presents the election results as a cliffhanger. Simon is perhaps
hinting that the final results will not be known until November 2020. The
vignette consists of only a couple of minutes but it remains firmly etched in
my mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #1b1916; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 2004 Roth wrote<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/books/review/the-story-behind-the-plot-against-america.html?searchResultPosition=3%C2%A0"> </a></span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #1b1916; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">that
he did not intend his novel to be a "</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/books/review/the-story-behind-the-plot-against-america.html?searchResultPosition=3%C2%A0" style="font-size: x-large;">roman clef</a>" <span style="background: white; color: #1b1916; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">to the present moment in
America.” By contrast, Simon is under no such stricture. He has stated that he
would not have dramatized the novel had </span><a href="https://deadline.com/2020/04/plot-against-america-spoilers-david-simon-series-finale-donald-trump-hbo-the-wire-1202912551/" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 21.3333px;">Clinton</a><span style="background: white; color: #1b1916; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"> been elected in 2016 </span><span style="background: white; color: #1b1916; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">and that the fascist interlude in the 1940s
could serve as a precursor to Trump’s America. The fascists have been displaced
by the alt right who are rabid supporters of an increasingly authoritarian
President who has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to fan the flames of
hatred. As Herman says in the final episode, “There’s a lot of hate out there
and he knows how to tap into it.” He is of course referring to Lindbergh but we
know that Simon has someone else in mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br />Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-91097113664650445692020-04-20T12:02:00.001-04:002020-04-20T12:02:28.980-04:00Portrait of a Survivor as a Young Man<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16pt;">“The past is intrinsic to the present, despite any
attempts to dismiss it.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">—</span><span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ariana Neumann</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LX-aLDXsB-o/Xp3BVCCEYVI/AAAAAAAADLk/2GiWLdNRIjwKUBlr-IF0UYj6HYmWBuyIACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/when%2Btime%2Bstopped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1061" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LX-aLDXsB-o/Xp3BVCCEYVI/AAAAAAAADLk/2GiWLdNRIjwKUBlr-IF0UYj6HYmWBuyIACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/when%2Btime%2Bstopped.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ariana Neumann’s moving, beautifully-written memoir,<i><span style="color: #292929;"> When Time Stopped</span></i>: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Memoir of my Father’s War and What Remains</i> by Ariana Neumann
(Scribner 2020) <span style="color: #292929; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">chronicles</span><span style="color: #292929;"> her search to shed light on the early secretive life of
her Czech-born father, Hans, whom she remembers as an art-collecting,
successful philanthropic business man. But her account is as much a mystery as
a memoir because she combines the tools of both a sleuth and historian to
unearth her father’s life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292929; font-size: 16pt;">Currently, a
London based journalist, Ariana spent her formative years in a well-heeled home
nestled in Caracas Venezuela. Although her father’s early life for her was
basically a tabula rasa, she remembers awaking to her father’s screams uttered
in a foreign language. He would say nothing about what provoked these
nightmares and he discouraged her from asking questions. At that time, raised
as a Catholic, she did not even know she was Jewish. Later as a college student
when they both travelled to his homeland in Czechoslovakia, Hans</span><span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-size: 16pt;"> revealed little, apart from a sob near
an old railroad station: “Sometimes you have to leave the past where it is—in
the past.” The underlying purpose of his daughter’s research and writing is to
challenge that assumption.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AIkzl9gLBsA/Xp3C498pEPI/AAAAAAAADLw/LBVlPJKzMswnhWp8erDVU7lGl_DzuYorACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/id%2Bcard%2Bof%2BAriana%2527s%2Bfather.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 21.3333px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="634" height="226" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AIkzl9gLBsA/Xp3C498pEPI/AAAAAAAADLw/LBVlPJKzMswnhWp8erDVU7lGl_DzuYorACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/id%2Bcard%2Bof%2BAriana%2527s%2Bfather.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #292929; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As a young girl, Ariana did discover a</span><span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> box of documents that included an ID card bearing the official
stamp of Adolf Hitler with her father’s youthful photo, but the name and
birthday printed on it weren’t his. It unsettled her, and she never saw the box
again until her father’s death in 2001, when he left it for her to
find. The process of meticulously investigating her father’s life and that
of his family </span><span style="color: #292929; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">–</span><span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> the emails
and phone calls to track down relatives of her extended family in Europe and
America, the excavation of letters, diaries and artifacts and the interactions
with a professional Czech translator </span><span style="color: #292929; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">–</span><span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> took almost two decades to research.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The dogged detective work to unspool
the lives of her paternal grandparents, their two sons and the people in their
lives is almost as fascinating as her enthralling narrative of her extended
family during the 1930s that continues until the aftermath of the war. When she
interrupts her historical passages with a few pages to recount a recent
experience, it never feels disruptive; it only adds meaning and a rich layer to
the memoir. For instance, when she learns that her paternal grandparents were
sent to the Terezin concentration camp, Ariana, along with her immediate
family, her mother and a historical expert, travelled to the camp about an
hour’s drive from Prague. Her powerful description of their time spent at
Terezin only deepens her understanding (and ours) of the harrowing experience
of her grandparents relayed through her research, including their letters to
their sons, a dangerous undertaking given that they could have been hanged.
Ariana also discovers that the remarkable wife of her uncle, a Gentile, sneaked
into the camp with a yellow star snitched to her coat to check on the health of
her mother-in-law, Ella, an act of courage and compassion, given that Ella was
the first member of the family shipped there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1c1c; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Most people, who have taken a tour of
Terezin that primarily concentrates on the 18<sup>th</sup> century fortress and
offers a superficial overview of the town, will notice the stark contrast with
the intensity of Ariana’s account. Although she rightly comments that the
current town “feels mostly soulless, depleted,” she, with the assistance of a
Czech scholar and her children taking turns holding her hands, is able to
capture the overcrowding, hunger and desperation. For the vast majority who survived
the misery of the camp, the Terezin ghetto was the last way station before
being shipped East to their final destination. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O1UhUkWBsa0/Xp3Deoiwa8I/AAAAAAAADL4/_AtcfpjwyvsQvGQFMif2UYQ-4DsGPp57ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/ariana%2Bneumann.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="700" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O1UhUkWBsa0/Xp3Deoiwa8I/AAAAAAAADL4/_AtcfpjwyvsQvGQFMif2UYQ-4DsGPp57ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/ariana%2Bneumann.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ariana Neumann </span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #292929; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Perhaps most memorable is what she
learns about her father. As a youth, Hans was a dreamy, unfocused poet and
prankster, late for any occasion. But his experience during the war years utterly
transformed him. He received three times the dreaded “transport notice” that
required him to report to the deportation office in Prague, but he contrived to
escape, at first by squirreling away in a cupboard of the family paint factory,
an ordeal “when time stopped.” He then borrowed a friend’s passport, posing as
a Gentile and hid in plain sight by working as an industrial paint specialist
in Berlin and a fire fighter who also found time to pass on information to the
resistance. This material is vividly rendered in Hans’ own words from the
documents he left behind in the box for his daughter to retrieve. The details
about living and working behind enemy lines is astonishing revealing how
resourceful, courageous and lucky he was to have survived not only the Nazi
horrors but the Allied firebombing.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V0TNR4_Mc80/Xp3D9QhNbII/AAAAAAAADMA/GEayttKYyR4oU0ChCbJVTz7Q1w8PeHX1QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/ariana%2Bneumann%2Band%2Bfather.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V0TNR4_Mc80/Xp3D9QhNbII/AAAAAAAADMA/GEayttKYyR4oU0ChCbJVTz7Q1w8PeHX1QCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/ariana%2Bneumann%2Band%2Bfather.jpg" width="281" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Author with her father Hans</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #292929; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For the rest of his life Hans was
“obsessed with time and punctuality;” he owned 297 pocket watches, which he
repaired himself. Whenever he attended a social function in Caracas, he defied
convention by showing up promptly on time rather than being an hour late. As a
little girl, Ariana formed a detective club with her friends. That experience
served her well in writing this extraordinary book, part family memoir and part
mystery detective tale.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-38719720771185731342019-11-27T13:35:00.000-05:002020-05-13T12:25:14.235-04:00Expressions of and Responses to Authoritarian Populism<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvXJWacBkPE/XURs13Yx2EI/AAAAAAAAC70/sHRORQP0Y6EHV4-8N7epTegHWO8Nn73_gCLcBGAs/s1600/populist%2Bleaders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SvXJWacBkPE/XURs13Yx2EI/AAAAAAAAC70/sHRORQP0Y6EHV4-8N7epTegHWO8Nn73_gCLcBGAs/s320/populist%2Bleaders.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;">"The greatest threat to liberal democracies does not come from immigrants and refugees but from the backlash against them by those on the inside who exploit fears of outsiders to chip away at the values and institutions that make our societies liberal."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;">— </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;">Sasha Polakov-Suransky, </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;">Go Back to Where You Came From: The Backlash Against Immigration and the Fate of Western Democracy</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;">, 2017</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">“The point of modern propaganda isn’t to misinform
or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate
truth.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">— Garry Kasparov </span><span style="font-size: 24pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;">"Populists in power tend to undermine countervailing powers which are the courts, which are the media, which are other parties."</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;">— </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;">Cas Mudde, </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;">Populism: A Very Short Introduction</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;">, 2017</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Every age has its own fascism.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">— Primo Levi</span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IlUajS8VpZ4/Wgi7UVu0srI/AAAAAAAACr4/-832LkWUWSk2irASEP3UieH43F6fAAsugCLcBGAs/s1600/trumplindperfectpopulist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #d00111; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="868" data-original-width="1600" height="216" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IlUajS8VpZ4/Wgi7UVu0srI/AAAAAAAACr4/-832LkWUWSk2irASEP3UieH43F6fAAsugCLcBGAs/s400/trumplindperfectpopulist.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-size: large;">"In the CBC program <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3B4lgV1IxQ" style="color: #d00111; text-decoration-line: none;">The Fifth Estate</a>, Trump is shown as a bellowing demagogue, a purveyor of personal insults and a panderer to his supporters by reviling Mexicans and Muslims as the racial other. The former are equated with rapists and drug dealers, and the latter are associated with terrorists. Trump's bumptious vitriol even suggests that the vast majority of American Muslims are complicit to the acts perpetrated by a tiny number when he says, 'they know where the bad ones are.' His simplistic solutions to these hot-button issues are bombastic promises to build a wall to keep out the Mexicans, calling for a ban on Muslims entering America and rounding up and deporting eleven million undocumented immigrants. That he has retained a raucous and unthinking cohort of loyal supporters is evidence that he has tapped into an existing cache of psychosis and he’s exploiting it for political gain. Todd Gitlin has perceptively written: “the dog whistles have been superseded. What we hear now is the raw thing itself, the old-time irreligion, the rock-bottom roar of a sewage stream that always lay beneath the surface but now has erupted.” More recently, Trump has tried to equate immigration in general and free trade with fear of both homegrown terror and the new global economy. What this rank demagogue has made unambiguously clear is that he will transgress any boundary of decency or truth to win power."</span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">— Robert Douglas,</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;"> "Through the Mirror Darkly<span id="goog_1575725021"></span><span id="goog_1575725022"></span>" <a href="https://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2016/06/through-mirror-darkly-gothic-dimension.html">Critics at Large</a> </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-39TSAmMO8Eg/XURuCfb9okI/AAAAAAAAC8A/Dc2CBCGjDMQOpwuAVen38iJG_Kz92WCAwCLcBGAs/s1600/refugees%2Bat%2Bamerican%2Bborder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1101" data-original-width="1600" height="220" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-39TSAmMO8Eg/XURuCfb9okI/AAAAAAAAC8A/Dc2CBCGjDMQOpwuAVen38iJG_Kz92WCAwCLcBGAs/s320/refugees%2Bat%2Bamerican%2Bborder.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The Trump show is all about toughness and cruelty.
The administration adopted a zero-tolerance policy that was supposed to deter
potential immigrants. It failed miserably. Roughly 103,000 unauthorized
immigrants reached the U.S.-Mexico border in March, twice as many as in March
2018.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Aside from baring his fangs, Trump is uninterested
in processing the extra refugees. The facilities are overwhelmed. Over 800,000
people already have their cases pending. New asylum seekers are held for a
couple of weeks, dumped out on the streets, and most will wait until 2021 to
get their formal hearings.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">— David Brooks, <i>New York Times </i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">"Populist authoritarianism can best be explained as a cultural backlash in Western societies against long-term, ongoing social change.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Over recent decades, the <a href="http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/" style="color: #d00111; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1955a5;">World Values Survey</span></a> shows that Western societies have been getting gradually more liberal on many social issues, especially among the younger generation and well-educated middle class. That includes egalitarian attitudes toward <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/au/search?iFeelLucky=false&currentTheme=Academic_v1&query=rising+tide" style="color: #d00111; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1955a5;">sex roles</span></a>, tolerance of fluid gender identities and LGBT rights, support for same-sex marriage, tolerance of diversity, and more <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/sacred-and-secular-religion-and-politics-worldwide-2nd-edition" style="color: #d00111; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1955a5;">secular values</span></a>, as well as what political scientists call <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/freedom-rising-human-empowerment-and-quest-emancipation?format=PB" style="color: #d00111; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1955a5;">emancipative values</span></a>, engagement in directly assertive forms of <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/civic-culture-transformed-allegiant-assertive-citizens?format=PB" style="color: #d00111; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1955a5;">democratic participation</span></a>, and cosmopolitan support for agencies of <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/cosmopolitan-communications-cultural-diversity-globalized-world?format=PB" style="color: #d00111; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1955a5;">global governance</span></a>.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">This long-term generational shift threatens many traditionalists’ cultural values. Less educated and older citizens fear becoming marginalized and left behind within their own countries.</span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/02/27/donald-trump-may-be-showing-us-the-future-of-u-s-right-wing-politics/" style="color: #d00111; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1955a5;">Donald Trump may be showing us the future of U.S. right-wing politics</span></a>]</span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">In the United States, evidence from the World Values Survey perfectly illustrates the education gap in these types of cultural values. Well before Trump, a substantial and striking education gap can be observed in American approval of authoritarian leaders. The WVS asked whether Americans approved of “having a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with congress or elections.” The figure below shows a consistent education gap and growing support for this statement since 2005.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Most remarkably, by the most recent wave in 2011, almost half — 44 percent — of U.S. non-college graduates approved of having a strong leader unchecked by elections and Congress.<br />This deeply disturbing finding reflects attitudes usually observed in states such as Russia."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">— </span></span></span></span><b style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span itemprop="name" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal;">Pippa Norris,</span></span></span></span></b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "postoniwide" , "georgia" , serif; word-spacing: -0.96px;">"It’s not just Trump. Authoritarian populism is rising across the West. Here’s why"</span></span></span><b style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span itemprop="name" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal;"><i>Washington Post,</i></span></span></span></span></b><b style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif;"><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span itemprop="name" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal;"> March 11, 2016 </span></span></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;"> </span>A powerful November 2017 ) op-ed in <i>The New York Times </i>about public <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/opinion/were-with-stupid.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20171117&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=5&nlid=18600036&ref=headline&te=1" style="color: #d00111; text-decoration-line: none;">ignorance </a></span><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">that explains why a large percentage of people do not have the tools to distinguish truth from falsehood. </span><br />
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">— </span>Paul Krugman in <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/opinion/trump-democracy.html">The New York Times</a> </i>writes about how democracy can slowly die in America</span><br />
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">One of the most insightful comments made during the summer 2019 Democratic debates from a candidate that had no chance of winning the Presidential nomination:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FaYosqpD9Sk/XUR89H3DsdI/AAAAAAAAC8w/SLnU3-SYQE0ec-JPYFvN41d16OTevy42QCLcBGAs/s1600/Marianne%2BWilliamson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FaYosqpD9Sk/XUR89H3DsdI/AAAAAAAAC8w/SLnU3-SYQE0ec-JPYFvN41d16OTevy42QCLcBGAs/s320/Marianne%2BWilliamson.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Marianne Williamson</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;">“This is part of the dark
underbelly of American society: the racism, the bigotry and the entire
conversation that we’re having here tonight. If you think any of this wonkiness
is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that
this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the
Democrats are going to see some very dark days.”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jwrN7qA-gYc/XUWUr1rriDI/AAAAAAAAC9Y/AmMRrdMwnakCivK0JAdoU0FO8ydcDa7cwCLcBGAs/s1600/boris%2Bjohnson%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1082" data-original-width="1600" height="216" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jwrN7qA-gYc/XUWUr1rriDI/AAAAAAAAC9Y/AmMRrdMwnakCivK0JAdoU0FO8ydcDa7cwCLcBGAs/s320/boris%2Bjohnson%2B2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Boris Johnson</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 13pt;">"Evasiveness” can be a polite term for lying, and it is
impossible to understand Johnson without recalling that he has quite literally
made a career of mendacity. At the end of that fateful weekend in February
2016, the </span><i style="color: #333333; font-size: 13pt;">Telegraph</i><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 13pt;">, which pays him £275,000 a year for a weekly
column, dutifully spiked his sincere plea to Remain and published his anti-EU
column. It cited as the main reason for Brexit that “the more the EU does, the
less room there is for national decision-making. Sometimes these EU rules sound
simply ludicrous, like the rule that you can’t recycle a teabag, or that
children under eight cannot blow up balloons.” The truth is that some local
councils in Britain itself had introduced rules against recycling teabags,
which have nothing to do with the EU. As for children under eight not being allowed
to blow up balloons, EU safety rules simply say that packets of balloons should
carry the words 'Warning: children under eight can choke or suffocate.'</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 13.0pt;">But Johnson has always understood that a vivid lie is much more
memorable than a dull truth."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">— </span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 17.3333px;">Fintan O' Toole,</span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 13pt;"> <i><a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/08/15/boris-johnson-ham-of-fate/">New York Review of Books</a> </i>August 15, 2019</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5UdKwTGxQwk/XURw2JoBcMI/AAAAAAAAC8M/ee9HNgdmWzAzrJxqenuehwoZmBiT696-gCLcBGAs/s1600/on%2Btyranny.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="319" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5UdKwTGxQwk/XURw2JoBcMI/AAAAAAAAC8M/ee9HNgdmWzAzrJxqenuehwoZmBiT696-gCLcBGAs/s200/on%2Btyranny.jpg" width="141" /></a><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To abandon facts is to
abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because
there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, all is spectacle.
The biggest wallet pays for the most
blinding lights.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The symbols of today enable the reality of
tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away,
and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others
to do so.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">— Timothy Snyder, <i>On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from
The Twentieth Century</i></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wY_StLpXIwg/XUR4HllN_AI/AAAAAAAAC8Y/oaOB3wHux8UAzlM-Gz7jJS3zfXATIECgwCLcBGAs/s1600/justice%2BRosalie%2BAbella.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="349" data-original-width="620" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wY_StLpXIwg/XUR4HllN_AI/AAAAAAAAC8Y/oaOB3wHux8UAzlM-Gz7jJS3zfXATIECgwCLcBGAs/s320/justice%2BRosalie%2BAbella.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Justice Rosalie Abella</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Abella said that commitment has been "shattered
by narcissistic populism, an unhealthy tolerance for intolerance, a cavalier
indifference to equality, a deliberate amnesia about the instruments and values
of democracy that are no less crucial than elections and a shocking disrespect
for the borders between power and its independent adjudicators like the press
and the courts.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">—</span>Supreme Court Justice, Rosalie Abella May
22, 2017</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pLaeRPv3beI/XUR5Ylm0KYI/AAAAAAAAC8k/syqQ-8p20q04g-9N70niM_or0WE-qp3DQCLcBGAs/s1600/a%2Bthousand%2Bsmall%2Bsanities.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="496" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pLaeRPv3beI/XUR5Ylm0KYI/AAAAAAAAC8k/syqQ-8p20q04g-9N70niM_or0WE-qp3DQCLcBGAs/s320/a%2Bthousand%2Bsmall%2Bsanities.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The goal of liberal education should always be to
make us acutely aware of illiberal acts….One need only to compare this process
with that of all authoritarian states [where] all criticism, including minimal
empirical feedback, is forbidden or minimalized to see why the liberal state
can confront and, sometimes correct its own injustices more rapidly than any
other society on the fully historical record.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">— Adam Gopnik,<i> A Thousand Small Insanities: The
Moral Adventure of Liberalism</i>, 2019<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q_lrxHIIzhE/WgJe87tcy2I/AAAAAAAACrc/ejQf6yE1C6gYebBCLbglpWubrets2nMtgCLcBGAs/s1600/shafique%2Bvirani.jpg" style="clear: right; color: #d00111; display: inline; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q_lrxHIIzhE/WgJe87tcy2I/AAAAAAAACrc/ejQf6yE1C6gYebBCLbglpWubrets2nMtgCLcBGAs/s1600/shafique%2Bvirani.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dr. Shafique Virani</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="background: none 0% 0% repeat scroll rgb(246 , 246 , 246); color: #818181; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;"><span style="font-size: large;">With shocking evidence, hilarious anecdotes, heart-wrenching personal stories, and brilliant insights into world events, Dr. Shafique Virani urges us to confront the Clash of Ignorance between the West and the Muslim World, replacing walls of misinformation with bridges of understanding. Appealing to the best in human nature, Dr. Virani presents a visionary path forward, and inspires hope for a better future</span><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OnhEN1tPt5Q/XdhYABrSrdI/AAAAAAAADKE/odoLMzfAS8QVNUwtVZJo0BiusbrJTfuJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/demonstrators%2Bin%2BSantiago%2BChile%2Bjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1193" data-original-width="1600" height="297" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OnhEN1tPt5Q/XdhYABrSrdI/AAAAAAAADKE/odoLMzfAS8QVNUwtVZJo0BiusbrJTfuJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/demonstrators%2Bin%2BSantiago%2BChile%2Bjpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Demonstrators in Santiago Chile</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">"The populist backlash came
in different forms in different parts of the world. In Central and Eastern
Europe it came in the form of nationalist strongmen — Victor Orban, Vladimir
Putin, the Law and Justice party in Poland. In Latin America it came in the
form of the Pink Tide — a group of left-wing economic populists like Hugo
Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. In the Anglosphere it was white ethnic nationalism
of Donald Trump and Brexit. In the Middle East it was Muslim fundamentalism. In
China it was the increasing authoritarianism of Xi Jinping. In India it was the
Hindu nationalism of Narendra Modi.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">In places, the populist wave is still rising. The Yellow Vests
in France and the protests in Chile are led by those who feel economically left
behind. But it’s also clear that when in power the populists can’t deliver
goods. So now in many places we’re seeing a revolt against the revolt, urban
middle-class uprisings against the populists themselves....</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "serif";">The populist/authoritarian
regimes are losing legitimacy. The members of the urban</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> middle class in places
like Hong Kong and Indonesia are rising up to protect the political</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">social
freedoms.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">These days, it doesn’t take much to set off a giant wave of
anger. In Lebanon it was a proposed tax on WhatsApp. In Saudi Arabia the
government raised taxes on hookah restaurants. In France, Zimbabwe, Ecuador and
Iran it was rising fuel prices. In Chile it was a proposed 4 percent rise in
subway fares.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">The world is unsteady and ready to blow. The overall message is
that the flaws of liberal globalization are real, but the populist alternative
is not working.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">The protests in all these places are leaderless, so it’s
unrealistic to expect them to have policy agendas. But the big question is,
what’s next? What comes after the failure of populism?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">— </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">David Brooks,<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/opinion/populism-protests.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage">"The Revolt Against Populism</a> <i>New York Times, </i>November 21, 2019.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">"For a naturalized American, raised in Britain, I found <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/21/us/politics/fiona-hill-opening-statement-ukraine.html" style="text-size-adjust: 100%;" title=""><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: #326891; padding: 0in;">Fiona Hill’s testimony at
impeachment hearings</span></a> this week to be a powerful reminder of
what makes America great and of how President Trump has taken a sledgehammer to
“its role as a beacon of hope in the world.”....</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EGq2m9qPZGo/XeQdziDzIiI/AAAAAAAADKo/Yn_TpmeM-nIcXEOwNq_IVHyl_APCKRaDQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Fiona%2BHill%2Bjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="865" data-original-width="1300" height="212" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EGq2m9qPZGo/XeQdziDzIiI/AAAAAAAADKo/Yn_TpmeM-nIcXEOwNq_IVHyl_APCKRaDQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Fiona%2BHill%2Bjpg.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Fiona Hill</span></td></tr>
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<span style="border: 1pt none; color: #326891; font-size: 16pt; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; padding: 0in;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/us/politics/who-is-fiona-hill.html" style="font-size: 16pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;" title="">Hill rose in her adopted country</a></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> to serve
three presidents as an expert on Russia and the former Soviet republics,
including Ukraine. She was the top Russia and Europe expert on Trump’s
National Security Council until she quit in July. It was devastating to hear
her lambaste, without naming them, the shameless Republicans who have embraced
a “fictional narrative” propagated “by the Russian security services
themselves” under which Ukraine, not Russia, attacked American democratic
institutions in 2016. 'It is beyond dispute,' she declared, that Russia was the
foreign power that 'systematically' did this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Moscow succeeded, Hill suggested. 'Our nation is being
torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional and expert career
foreign service is being undermined.' Russia aims at nothing less than
destroying Americans’ faith in their democracy."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">— Roger Cohen, "Fiona Hill and the American Idea", </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/opinion/impeachment-inquiry-fiona-hill.html" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">New York Times</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;"> November 22, 2019</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: large;">Recommended novels, films and television programs:</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a0vBVJp2nec/XUrV6MZ419I/AAAAAAAAC-Y/OpdQ3sZxQqABhV02ymvyBxMaMKnqjMg3gCLcBGAs/s1600/The%2Bother%2Bamericans%2Bcollage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1206" data-original-width="1600" height="241" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a0vBVJp2nec/XUrV6MZ419I/AAAAAAAAC-Y/OpdQ3sZxQqABhV02ymvyBxMaMKnqjMg3gCLcBGAs/s320/The%2Bother%2Bamericans%2Bcollage.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">"The
title of Laila Lalami’s fourth novel, <i>The Other Americans</i>, perfectly sums up
a unified disunity: an America suspicious of its own body politic. Set in the
towns of the Mojave Desert, the novel is narrated by nine different characters.
Perhaps surprisingly, all of the novel’s speakers — regardless of race, class,
gender, political affiliation, legal status or place of birth — see themselves
as outsiders to mainstream American identity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">This
is a powerful setup, raising the question of whether anyone feels that today’s
America is one to which he or she belongs. In fact, Lalami’s nine speakers have
much in common. They all face obstacles to stable employment, are alienated
from their neighbors and have a strong sense of being misunderstood not only by
society but by their families. They share, too, a deep attachment to the
specific landscape of the Mojave Desert."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">—</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"> </span>Madeleine Thien, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/books/review/laila-lalami-the-other-americans.html?module=inline"><i>The New York Times</i></a></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14pt; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">,</span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">April 19, 2019</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gAYKvVk-nqI/XW2ERYNSwRI/AAAAAAAADCI/7EDehbjNUq0bi7jPYHMlNdw0CfWXhCceQCLcBGAs/s1600/go%2Bwent%2Bgone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="807" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gAYKvVk-nqI/XW2ERYNSwRI/AAAAAAAADCI/7EDehbjNUq0bi7jPYHMlNdw0CfWXhCceQCLcBGAs/s320/go%2Bwent%2Bgone.jpg" width="212" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">"The plight of African refugees entering Germany is subtly but powerful drawn in <i>Go Went Gone </i>by Jenny Erpenbeck."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="text-align: justify;">— </span>Robert Douglas, <i><a href="https://www.criticsatlarge.ca/search?q=go+went+gone">Critics at Large</a> </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A strong recommendation for the dystopian television series, </span><i><span style="font-size: large;">Years and Years</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: large;">that can be seen on Crave:</span><br />
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Give HBO’s
latest drama six hours of your time, and it’ll tell you the story of the 21st
century.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">That’s the promise made by <i>Years
and Years...</i> whereby the first episode begins in May 2019, and subsequent
installments push deep into the 2020s, far enough to reveal that our future
history looks less like an arc towards progress than a whirlpool of entropy.
And though Emma
Thompson steals scenes as an ambitious nationalist politician whose
brashness and ease with the mechanisms of celebrity could generate comparisons
to both Brit Boris Johnson or to at least one familiar American figure, it’s
not her story. To its credit, <i>Years
and Years</i> — among the most emotionally involving, and best, series to air
so far this year — keeps its aperture narrow even as the world keeps forcing
its way in. This is, above all, the story of a family, one whose ordinariness
makes them a powerful vehicle for telling the future."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">—</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"> </span>Daniel D'Addariol <a href="https://variety.com/2019/tv/reviews/years-and-years-review-emma-thompson-hbo-1203243714/"><i>Variety</i></a>, June 22, 2019</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CWL4vzyfCmU/XUrc7ARSn_I/AAAAAAAAC-o/pvpgoSPlftgndQ9djNXfXiXYDHdowKfBwCLcBGAs/s1600/years%2Band%2Byears%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CWL4vzyfCmU/XUrc7ARSn_I/AAAAAAAAC-o/pvpgoSPlftgndQ9djNXfXiXYDHdowKfBwCLcBGAs/s320/years%2Band%2Byears%2B2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mfLUgrPfaeM/XW04W3TOJlI/AAAAAAAADB8/f-JUg-1g-6YOY-2Rm6EpDbQonlcpgZE6wCLcBGAs/s1600/fire-at-sea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="650" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mfLUgrPfaeM/XW04W3TOJlI/AAAAAAAADB8/f-JUg-1g-6YOY-2Rm6EpDbQonlcpgZE6wCLcBGAs/s320/fire-at-sea.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">“<i>Fire
at Sea</i> is the fruit of an extended sojourn on Lampedusa, an island that,
while part of Italy, is closer to Tunisia than to Sicily. Recently, it has
become the landing spot for boatloads of </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 14pt; padding: 0in;">refugees</span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;"> and other migrants from Africa, Asia and
the Middle East....</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RoQr7KYgbAk/XW2IYv6gs3I/AAAAAAAADCU/1HaI_UcVVNEbCjxLlvuqeTi5h2e3FasxgCLcBGAs/s1600/fire%2Bat%2Bsea%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="164" data-original-width="307" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RoQr7KYgbAk/XW2IYv6gs3I/AAAAAAAADCU/1HaI_UcVVNEbCjxLlvuqeTi5h2e3FasxgCLcBGAs/s1600/fire%2Bat%2Bsea%2B2.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Pietro Bartolo and Samuele Pucillo</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;">Mr. Rosi does not spare his viewers
glimpses of horror and pain. His camera travels with members of the Italian
coast guard as they perform acts of rescue and triage, as well as grimmer
tasks. Many of the men, women and children packed into the battered vessels
that ply the waters near Lampedusa suffer from hunger, exposure and illness.
Some of them, who have endured their journeys below decks, have been poisoned
by fuel that soaks into their clothing and burns their skin....</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">When
not out on the boats or exploring the shelters and processing centers where
refugees are housed, <i>Fire at Sea</i> spends time with some of Lampedusa’s
permanent residents, in particular a doctor, Pietro Bartolo, and a boy, Samuele
Pucillo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Samuele is hardly a child of
privilege. Life on a small, rocky island is not easy. But he has everything the
refugees have lost: a stable daily routine, freedom of movement and a sense of
belonging to the place where his family has lived for generations. A home, in
short."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">—</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">A.O. Scott, </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/movies/fire-at-sea-review.html?referrer=google_kp" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"><i>The New York Times</i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">, October 20, 2016</span></span>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Benedict Cumberbatch in <i>Brexit</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">"That (</span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;">playwright</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> James) Graham has managed to make
a functioning drama out of Brexit, let alone such a riveting one, feels a
little bit miraculous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Possibly it’s because he
foregrounds a side of the story—and a crucial player—about which remarkably
little has been said. Cumberbatch plays Dominic Cummings, the campaign director
of Vote Leave (the government-designated official campaign in favor of leaving
the EU). A balding, sandy-haired eccentric in a high-visibility cycling vest,
Cummings—<em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Brexit</em> argues—is actually a
sophisticated architect of chaos, the shadowy Blofeldian author of so much
political pain. 'In a different branch of history, I was never here,' Cummings
tells the camera early in the film. 'Some of you voted differently and this
never happened.' But since it did, he’s here to explain. 'Everyone knows who
won, but not everyone knows how.'”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px; text-align: justify;">—</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px; text-align: justify;"> </span>Sophie Gilbert, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/01/how-james-graham-made-sense-of-brexit/580567/">The Atlantic</a> January 17, 2019</span></div>
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Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-84021804531806799252019-11-21T12:18:00.001-05:002019-11-21T12:18:09.062-05:00The Challenge of Racism in America<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-1625296421901800155" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 620px;">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z7NGkkyHkFs/XUHg22Mvw_I/AAAAAAAAC4U/7nzTdaOajDkgh7aFuauEGT9_haGu98yegCLcBGAs/s1600/50th%2Banniversary%2Bof%2Bselma%2Bmarch%2B2a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1050" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z7NGkkyHkFs/XUHg22Mvw_I/AAAAAAAAC4U/7nzTdaOajDkgh7aFuauEGT9_haGu98yegCLcBGAs/s400/50th%2Banniversary%2Bof%2Bselma%2Bmarch%2B2a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;"><span style="font-size: large;">“We just need to open our eyes, and our ears, and our hearts to know that this nation’s racial history still casts its long shadow upon us.”<br />— Barack Obama speaking in Selma on March 7 2015 at the fifth anniversary of the famous march</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;"><span style="font-size: large;">"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their pain."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;"><span style="font-size: large;">— James Baldwin</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;"><span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;">“We were eight years in power. We had built
schoolhouses, established charitable institutions, built and maintained the
penitentiary system, provided for the education of the deaf and dumb, rebuilt
the ferries. In short, we had reconstructed the State and placed it upon the
road to prosperity.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a91Tr97XDiI/XUHdvjV9PLI/AAAAAAAAC30/L_ik-J1gh38Y7bpy5efSXJhAH7P0G4jKQCLcBGAs/s1600/web%2Bdu%2Bbois.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="197" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a91Tr97XDiI/XUHdvjV9PLI/AAAAAAAAC30/L_ik-J1gh38Y7bpy5efSXJhAH7P0G4jKQCLcBGAs/s1600/web%2Bdu%2Bbois.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">W.E.B. Du Bois</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;"><span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;">— Thomas Miller, South Carolina Congressman,
1895<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;"><span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;">“If
there was one thing that South
Carolina feared more than bad Negro government, it was good Negro government."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;"><span style="color: #121212; font-size: 18.6667px;">—W.E.B. Du Bois</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;"><span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;">“Yet, the harsh fact is that in many places in
this country, men and women are kept from voting simply because they are
Negroes. Every device of which human ingenuity is capable has been used to deny
this right.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;"><span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;">— Lyndon
Johnson,Voting Rights Act Address, 1965</span><span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C5z0tBIur8E/Xcnhg8kaUsI/AAAAAAAADJI/S-ABQlR2NZcidCZP3Hj43OMUrMkPFj9DACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/miscengation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="175" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C5z0tBIur8E/Xcnhg8kaUsI/AAAAAAAADJI/S-ABQlR2NZcidCZP3Hj43OMUrMkPFj9DACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/miscengation.jpg" /></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">J</span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">oe Biden launched his
presidential bid in April with a bold defense of the principle that “all men
are created equal,” a principle he rightly argued that, from Thomas Jefferson
on, “we haven’t always lived up to.” But, Mr. Biden added, this is something “we
have never before walked away from,” and that’s where he went wrong. Like most
Americans, the former vice president forgets the period ironically known as
Redemption, the movement that followed the abolition of slavery and ended 12
years of America’s first experiment in interracial democracy — Reconstruction —
with a systematic, multitiered, terrorist-backed rollback, when the defeated
Confederate South, as the saying went, “rose again.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Redeemer
base consisted primarily of white Southern Democrats whose most urgent
intention was to neutralize the black vote, which under the protection of
United States troops during Reconstruction had shown astonishing power in
sending Republican majorities to Southern statehouses. (It is worth
remembering that Democrats and Republicans occupied positions opposite to those
of today’s parties with regard to “states’ rights” until around 1964.)</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 20.7px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">— </span>Henry Louis Gates, "The 'Lost Cause' that Jim Crow Built" from the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/opinion/sunday/jim-crow-laws.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage">New York Times</a></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5IfL0FOFgSg/XWa5iOITfPI/AAAAAAAADAM/-OmqNjr4xPIorcBv3m6IB9HQlURa8SCYgCLcBGAs/s1600/Miss%2Bevers%2Bboys_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="321" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5IfL0FOFgSg/XWa5iOITfPI/AAAAAAAADAM/-OmqNjr4xPIorcBv3m6IB9HQlURa8SCYgCLcBGAs/s320/Miss%2Bevers%2Bboys_.jpg" width="230" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;">"HISTORY as docudrama revisits
television on Saturday in the HBO presentation <i>Miss Evers' Boys</i>. The film,
based on a Pulitzer Prize-nominated play of the same name, is an examination of
one of modern America's darkest chapters of medical research and racial exploitation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;">The movie, its producers say, is a fictionalized interpretation
of the true story of the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro
Male, a 40-year project in which the United States Government tracked the
deadly course of the venereal disease in hundreds of infected poor black men
living in or around Tuskegee, Ala. Essential to the study, which was started by
the United States Public Health Service, was to withhold treatment -- even
penicillin when it proved a cure in the 1940's -- to the diseased men, all in
the late and most devastating stages of syphilis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;">Brushing aside ethical questions, researchers hoped, according
to letters and articles detailing the study, that science would learn the
precise nature of how the disease ravishes the body by examining the men over
time. Death, autopsies and funerals were routine features of the program, which
ran from 1932 to 1972."</span><br />
<span style="color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">— </span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">Michael Marriot, </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/16/tv/first-do-no-harm-a-nurse-and-the-deceived-subjects-of-the-tuskegee-study.html" style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>The New York Times</i></a><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;"> February 16, 1997</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JLz9wY6biEs/WfJTuh2cFDI/AAAAAAAACo8/_Krsh4wfQPAr_SlckLZTWwDadpHxifwwwCLcBGAs/s1600/get-out.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #d00111; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="615" data-original-width="613" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JLz9wY6biEs/WfJTuh2cFDI/AAAAAAAACo8/_Krsh4wfQPAr_SlckLZTWwDadpHxifwwwCLcBGAs/s320/get-out.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(230, 230, 230); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="318" /></span></a></div>
<span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-image: none; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now that Chris and his girlfriend, Rose, have reached the meet-the-parents milestone of dating, she invites him for a weekend getaway upstate with Missy and Dean. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he could have never imagined.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #121212; font-size: 18.6667px;">— </span>See my review of <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1067146614825058182#editor/target=post;postID=271937150585977561;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=14;src=link" style="color: #d00111; text-decoration-line: none;"><i>Get Out</i></a> </span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-B6z0yIzg_zk/WeODyiLKtJI/AAAAAAAACno/QkG18fY7vPMsQvR4GLCFWw4h7HD7Z5A_gCLcBGAs/s1600/james%2Bbaldwin.jpg" style="clear: right; color: #d00111; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="650" height="189" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-B6z0yIzg_zk/WeODyiLKtJI/AAAAAAAACno/QkG18fY7vPMsQvR4GLCFWw4h7HD7Z5A_gCLcBGAs/s320/james%2Bbaldwin.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">James Baldwin</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">"Whatever you think
about the past and future of what used to be called “race relations” — white
supremacy and the resistance to it, in plainer English — this movie, </span><i style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">I Am Not Your Negro</i><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">, will make you think
again, and may even change your mind. Though its principal figure, the
novelist, playwright and essayist James Baldwin, is a man who has been dead for
nearly 30 years, you would be hard-pressed to find a movie that speaks to the
present moment with greater clarity and force, insisting on uncomfortable
truths and drawing stark lessons from the shadows of history....</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">Baldwin could not have
known about Ferguson and Black Lives Matter, about the presidency of Barack
Obama and the recrudescence of white nationalism in its wake, but in a sense he
explained it all in advance. He understood the deep, contradictory patterns of
our history, and articulated, with a passion and clarity that few others have
matched, the psychological dimensions of racial conflict: the suppression of
black humanity under slavery and Jim Crow and the insistence on it in
African-American politics and art; the dialectic of guilt and rage, forgiveness
and denial that distorts relations between black and white citizens in the
North as well as the South; the lengths that white people will go to wash
themselves clean of their complicity in oppression."</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">— </span>A.O. Scott, <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/movies/review-i-am-not-your-negro-review-james-baldwin.html?referrer=google_kp">The New York Times</a>,</i> February,
2, 2017</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vrvg10m3Bvc/XUHfyqxRMHI/AAAAAAAAC4I/JRQXz9G4rAwVozdWKemrNmxFTu6sjXq7QCLcBGAs/s1600/blackkklansman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1075" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vrvg10m3Bvc/XUHfyqxRMHI/AAAAAAAAC4I/JRQXz9G4rAwVozdWKemrNmxFTu6sjXq7QCLcBGAs/s200/blackkklansman.jpg" width="143" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yg5_5rpMGUk/XUHfSBzYyWI/AAAAAAAAC4A/BDeatuBG9IgujTe7_78OB0zP53KbL5nEQCLcBGAs/s1600/black%2Bklansman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yg5_5rpMGUk/XUHfSBzYyWI/AAAAAAAAC4A/BDeatuBG9IgujTe7_78OB0zP53KbL5nEQCLcBGAs/s200/black%2Bklansman.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt;">"Heads up: </span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-features/spike-lee-interview-blackkklansman-trump-705589/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s;"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #d32531; text-decoration-line: none;">Spike
Lee</span></b></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> is coming at
you with his greatest and most galvanizing movie in years. <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">BlacKkKlansman</em> is right up there with </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-news/do-the-right-thing-insight-to-riot-52827/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s;"><em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #d32531; text-decoration-line: none;">Do
the Right Thing</span></b></em></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> and </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-lists/the-100-greatest-movies-of-the-nineties-195513/malcolm-x-1992-2-197941/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s;"><em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #d32531; text-decoration-line: none;">Malcolm
X</span></b></em></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> in the
Spike’s Joint pantheon of game-changers. For starters, it gets your blood up
about the toxic and enduring power of racism. Based on the true story of Ron
Stallworth (John David Washington), the first African-American cop on the
Colorado Springs police force, the film shows how Ron managed to infiltrate the
Ku Klux Klan and righteously screw with it from the inside. The time is the
1970s, but the filmmaker is not content with dusting off the past. His
incendiary movie uses the alt-right cry of 'America first!' to rocket his film
into the festering, rancid race hatred of the Trump era."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">—</span>Peter Travers, <i><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/blackkklansman-movie-review-spike-lee-706035/">RollingStone</a> </i> August 6, 2018</span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7LMDai_yGM/XUH7qsWpIZI/AAAAAAAAC4k/60jwoQrpSRMXd3FMBtpNl1o0oA6kqElIgCLcBGAs/s1600/birth%2Bof%2Bnation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1075" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7LMDai_yGM/XUH7qsWpIZI/AAAAAAAAC4k/60jwoQrpSRMXd3FMBtpNl1o0oA6kqElIgCLcBGAs/s200/birth%2Bof%2Bnation.jpg" width="134" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">1915</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"></span></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4DsxwvaI490/XUH8X8t1UUI/AAAAAAAAC4w/aw1CKNSj2p8Z0NkRRt8LjVp9U-41uzeIgCLcBGAs/s1600/Sarah-and-Michelle_1829935c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="460" height="123" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4DsxwvaI490/XUH8X8t1UUI/AAAAAAAAC4w/aw1CKNSj2p8Z0NkRRt8LjVp9U-41uzeIgCLcBGAs/s200/Sarah-and-Michelle_1829935c.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> 2008 campaign "Why Do They Hate Us"</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aHUlRUHj3Yk/WeUVq55QgjI/AAAAAAAACoc/nespMSALG7k6CI7r58R6QJ3weiBirKqQwCLcBGAs/s1600/ta-nehisi-coates.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #d00111; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="133" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aHUlRUHj3Yk/WeUVq55QgjI/AAAAAAAACoc/nespMSALG7k6CI7r58R6QJ3weiBirKqQwCLcBGAs/s200/ta-nehisi-coates.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="200" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.32px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ta-Nehisi Coates</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">“Trump truly is something new – the first president whose entire political existence hinges on the fact of a black president. And so it will not suffice to say that Trump is a white man like all the others who rose to become President. He must be called by his correct name and rightly honorific – America’s first white president</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">....</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Every Trump voter is most certainly not a white supremacist, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">But </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">every Trump voter felt it acceptable to hand the fate of the country over to one</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">— </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Ta–Nehisi Coates, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic;">We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, 2017 </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">reviewed </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; text-align: start;">in </span><i style="color: #d00111; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/01/books/review-ta-nehisi-coates-we-were-eight-years-in-power.html?_r=0" style="color: #d00111; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">The New York Times</a></i><br />
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt;">See my review of two monographs by Carol Anderson</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; text-align: start;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1067146614825058182#editor/target=post;postID=4076724473790224955;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=58;src=link" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: red;">White Rage Part One</span></a><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; text-align: start;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; text-align: start;">and</span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; text-align: start;"> </span><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1067146614825058182#editor/target=post;postID=4747210961451090512;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=57;src=link" style="color: #d00111; font-family: "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: blue;">White Rage Part Two</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; text-align: start;"> </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; text-align: start;"> </span></i></span></div>
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<tr><td><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ydFhAxd-wr4/WeOQEZEEViI/AAAAAAAACoM/xdPJSdwgjVwT457IoBAIWGjsSYzyTwfNACLcBGAs/s1600/loving.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #d00111; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1500" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ydFhAxd-wr4/WeOQEZEEViI/AAAAAAAACoM/xdPJSdwgjVwT457IoBAIWGjsSYzyTwfNACLcBGAs/s320/loving.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: large;">Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton from <i>Loving</i></span></td></tr>
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<span class="drop-capinner"><b><span style="color: #6b5840; font-size: 14pt; text-transform: uppercase;">"I</span></b></span><span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">n a film as subtle and low-key as Jeff Nichols’s </span><em style="font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Loving</em><span style="font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">, it’s not surprising that the first thing you notice are the
performances. Ruth Negga and </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #6b5840;">Joel Edgerton</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #121212;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"> play Mildred and Richard Loving, the real-life
interracial couple whose marriage in 1958 placed them in the crosshairs of the
vindictive Virginia anti-miscegenation laws. Negga is up for an Oscar and
both received Golden Globe nominations. And rightly so – it’s wonderful, delicate
work, which fills out not just each character but the space between them. Their
bond is palpable. It’s in the way her eyes flit back to catch his one last time
before she leaves a room; the way his slab of a hand, battered from building
work and tinkering with cars, encloses hers as they drive, silently but
companionably. The uncomplicated easy naturalness of their relationship stands
in stark contrast to the impossible situation in which the couple find
themselves."</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="_dgc" style="color: #222222; display: inline;">
</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">— </span>Wendy Ide, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/feb/05/loving-review-marriage-changed-history-ruth-negga-joel-edgerton-jeff-nichols"><i>The Guardian</i></a> </span><span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;">February 5,
2017</span><br />
<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ozwkYxR4ZzA/XZpUHWZPHbI/AAAAAAAADHA/kQ2Thd4NkL4i7xK-VsjJxVP3xTO7N6odgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/nickel%2Bboys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="271" data-original-width="186" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ozwkYxR4ZzA/XZpUHWZPHbI/AAAAAAAADHA/kQ2Thd4NkL4i7xK-VsjJxVP3xTO7N6odgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/nickel%2Bboys.jpg" /></a><span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;">Two important novels by Colson Whitehead:</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mfNtXZ3fJj0/XZpTKerrKzI/AAAAAAAADG4/35_LwagOz7sJNHzLA4ZKoJyyv_yu-pwowCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/underground%2Brailroad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="424" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mfNtXZ3fJj0/XZpTKerrKzI/AAAAAAAADG4/35_LwagOz7sJNHzLA4ZKoJyyv_yu-pwowCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/underground%2Brailroad.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"While </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Underground Railroad</i></span><b style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> </b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">shatters any lingering illusions about the benevolence of slavery and allows the reader to bear witness to some of the lesser known episodes throughout American history, his readers will likely know something about that subject matter. The same cannot be said for Whitehead's latest novel, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Nickel Boys</i></span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Double Day 2019) that is based on a so-called reform school that few would have known about. As Whitehead writes in his acknowledgements, he never heard about the reign of terror at the Dozier School for Boys in Florida that operated for over one hundred years and only closed in 2011 until he read about in </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">The Tampa Times</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> in</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> 2014</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. According to the article, archeology students at a Florida university were digging up and trying to identify the remains of students at Dozier who had been mutilated, murdered and buried in a secret graveyard "erased from history."</span><br />
<span style="color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">— </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Robert Douglas, <a href="http://www.thatlineofdarkness.com/2019/11/colin-whitehead-shredder-of-illusions.html">review</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MAmQT7XZvjg/XdbGgNV_vXI/AAAAAAAADJ4/vLhlirk9Zvo_-bbrgqgaRDoiLMU30fytwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/the-book-of-negroes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1062" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MAmQT7XZvjg/XdbGgNV_vXI/AAAAAAAADJ4/vLhlirk9Zvo_-bbrgqgaRDoiLMU30fytwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/the-book-of-negroes.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 16.5pt;">"The book takes its title
from an actual historical document: the British Navy’s list of 3,000 blacks who
served on the British side during the American Revolutionary War and who, at
its end in 1783, fled Manhattan for Nova Scotia. As Hill notes, unless you were
in the Book of Negroes, you could not escape to Canada.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 16.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="s1"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 16.5pt;">Through an intimate
portrait of the life of one remarkable woman, Aminata Diallo, Hill shines a
light on this forgotten chapter of Canadian history in the context of a
sweeping story that encompasses three continents. It is a telling story that
helps to illuminate how Canada was implicated in the history of slavery and its
aftermath in North America.</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 16.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 16.5pt;">The story begins in the second half of the 18th century, during
what, in an entirely different context, is called “The Age of Enlightenment.”
Eleven-year-old Aminata Diallo is separated from her mother, a midwife, and
abducted from her West African village. After having been marched to the coast,
she is stowed on a ship like cargo and taken on the notorious Middle Passage.
On arrival in America, Aminata is sold into slavery on a plantation in South
Carolina. She is abused, then sold away from husband and child, and taken to
Manhattan by a new master. There, during the confusing early days of the
American Revolution, she escapes to freedom, supporting herself with her skills
as a midwife and by her closely guarded ability to read and write. Taking ship
for Canada with the British at the end of the war, she discovers life for freed
Loyalist slaves in Nova Scotia to be harsh and oppressive. She returns to
Africa with a group of other freed slaves, in what turns out to be a harrowing
failure to build a new life of liberty in the new town—Freetown, Sierra
Leone—that the free blacks from Nova Scotia establish.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 16.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="s1"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 16.5pt;">Abandoning Africa, she
accepts passage for London, where she is taken up by the British abolitionist
movement, for whom she becomes a powerful spokesperson."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">— </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 16.5pt;">Grace Westcott, <i>Literary Review of Canada, </i>the full<i> </i><a href="http://reviewcanada.ca/the-lrc-25/the-book-of-negroes/">review</a></span></span><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 16.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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"When Neiman moved to Berlin in 1982 to study the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, she was “often the first Jew many Germans had met.”</div>
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At the time, Germans had just begun the painful process of <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: , "georgia" , "palatino" , "book antiqua" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: inherit;">Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung,</span> or “working off the past.” Since then, more than a billion dollars has been spent on monuments to victims of the Holocaust; Berlin alone is home to 423 such memorials. When Neiman walks the streets of Berlin, she is as likely as a tourist to trip over stolpersteine, the stumbling stones that mark the places where Jews were snatched from their homes during the Nazi reign. Displaying Nazi symbols and denying the Holocaust are outlawed in Germany, and hate speech is strictly proscribed. The lessons of the 1930s are larded through school curricula, plays, books and films. Incidents of anti-Semitism are condemned from the top, and the popularity of the far-right Alternative For Germany party is a subject of national hand-wringing.</div>
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For three years, Neiman travelled through Germany and the U.S. South, primarily Mississippi, to study the ways the two countries had grappled with historical atrocities that resonate to this day. The very short answer is that one country has done a lot and the other has barely begun. The very centre of Berlin has a Holocaust memorial, she notes, but the United States has no national slavery museum, no prominent memorial to the Middle Passage.</div>
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As Neiman points out in her book, African-Americans have made pointed connections between the Holocaust and slavery, from James Baldwin to Medgar Evers to Bryan Stevenson, the author of the memoir <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: , "georgia" , "palatino" , "book antiqua" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: inherit;">Just Mercy </span>and founder of the National Lynching Memorial. Stevenson tells her that Americans need to feel the same sense of national shame about the post-Reconstruction “age of racial terror” that Germans do about the Nazi era: “Without shame, you don’t actually correct. You don’t do things differently. You don’t acknowledge.”</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">—</span><span style="font-size: large;">Elisabeth Renzetti <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-susan-neimans-learning-from-the-germans-focuses-on-comparative/">The Globe and Mail</a></span><br />
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Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-84459158025413296622019-11-20T17:35:00.000-05:002019-11-27T13:15:34.502-05:00The Unsilencing of Women<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8pUtTDaQfu4/XULwHq4SYrI/AAAAAAAAC5U/0pU1B2FC47Udxbn-gbm6pxmAX8HKXFGywCLcBGAs/s1600/silencingwomen.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1208" data-original-width="930" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8pUtTDaQfu4/XULwHq4SYrI/AAAAAAAAC5U/0pU1B2FC47Udxbn-gbm6pxmAX8HKXFGywCLcBGAs/s200/silencingwomen.png" width="153" /></a></div>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8_f3sboW6Zg/XULwhMbwKqI/AAAAAAAAC5c/CvsbJ6IEdEs_54p2_H_5crERU02T9zkaQCLcBGAs/s1600/metoo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="800" height="192" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8_f3sboW6Zg/XULwhMbwKqI/AAAAAAAAC5c/CvsbJ6IEdEs_54p2_H_5crERU02T9zkaQCLcBGAs/s320/metoo.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14.0pt;">"Beard’s
primary subject is female silence; she hopes to take a “long view on the
culturally awkward relationship between the voice of women and the public
sphere of speech-making, debate and comment”, the better to get beyond “the
simple diagnosis of misogyny that we tend a bit lazily to fall back on”.
Calling out misogyny isn’t, she understands, the same thing as explaining it,
and it’s only by doing the latter that we’re likely ever to find an effective
means of combating it. The question is: where should we look for answers? Beard
acknowledges that misogyny has multiple sources; its roots are deep and wide.
But in this book, she looks mostly (she is a classicist, after all) at Greek
and Roman antiquity, a realm that even now, she believes, casts a shadow over
our traditions of public speaking, whether we are considering the timbre of a
person’s voice, or their authority to pronounce on any given subject.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14.0pt;">Personally,
I might have found this argument a bit strained a month ago; 3,000 years lie
between us and Homer’s <em>Odyssey</em>, which is where she begins, with
Telemachus effectively telling his mother Penelope to “shut up”. But reading it
in the wake of the <span style="color: #6b5840;">Harvey Weinstein scandal</span>, it seems utterly,
dreadfully convincing. Mute women; brutal men; shame as a mechanism for
control; androgyny and avoidance as a strategy for survival. On every page,
bells ring too loudly for comfort."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14.0pt;">— Rachel Cooke, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/05/mary-beard-women-and-power-review-modern-feminist-classic"><i>The Guardian</i></a> November 5, 2017.</span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q6c-qlG7UbU/VXWQLx_TuPI/AAAAAAAACDI/4ru0y1yZCcg/s1600/anita.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q6c-qlG7UbU/VXWQLx_TuPI/AAAAAAAACDI/4ru0y1yZCcg/s1600/anita.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: large; line-height: 20px;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: large; line-height: 20px;">Against a backdrop of sex, politics and race, Academy Award winning filmmaker Freida </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">Mock's </span><i><span style="font-size: large;">Anita</span></i><i style="font-size: x-large;"> </i><span style="font-size: large;">reveals the intimate story of Anita Hill, a woman who dared to speak the truth. This powerful documentary traces Ms. Hill's life from her early years through her legacy today, offering fascinating insight into her experiences testifying before the Senate just over 22 years ago in the weekend of shocking television that made her a household name and smashed the door open on the issues of sexual</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span id="movieSynopsisRemaining" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>harassment and gender equality.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ItsatNkVKSY/WfzOESLa1HI/AAAAAAAACqM/d-fPeyfzlysiMGICKW3Q_6v3OD3mbZl9ACLcBGAs/s1600/anita%2Bhill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="1050" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ItsatNkVKSY/WfzOESLa1HI/AAAAAAAACqM/d-fPeyfzlysiMGICKW3Q_6v3OD3mbZl9ACLcBGAs/s320/anita%2Bhill.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Anita Hill</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/anita-hill-on-weinstein-trump-and-a-watershed-moment-for-sexual-harassment-accusations"><i>The New Yorker</i></a> asked Anita Hill what has changed since she contended in 1991 that Clarence Thomas was not fit be a Supreme Court judge because he sexually harassed her.</span><br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Read a shocking article in <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/harvey-weinsteins-army-of-spies"><i>The New Yorker</i> </a>about how Harvey Weinstein used private security agencies to discredit the women who accused him of sexual improprieties and to ensure their stories never became public. Individuals posing as journalists or human rights activists for women sought to gather information on these women.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I recommend two pieces, a strong<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/opinion/sexual-harassment-weinstein-horace-mann.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion-columnists&action=click&contentCollection=columnists&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=18&pgtype=sectionfront"> op-ed</a> in <i>The New York Times </i>on the culture of complicity and a historical profile of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/us/sexual-harrasment-weinstein-trump.html">sexual harassment </a>from <i>The Times</i></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "perpetua"; font-size: 18pt;">“In </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "perpetua"; font-size: 18pt;">1991, </span><u style="text-underline: single;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "perpetua"; font-size: 18pt;"><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/anita-hill-matters-hbo-confirmation_us_570fb8f9e4b0ffa5937e5e72">I testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Clarence Thomas</a></span></u><span style="color: black; font-family: "perpetua"; font-size: 18pt;">, who had repeatedly harassed me when he was my boss, was unsuitable to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Hill. “The outcome of my testimony was not what I’d hoped, but in no way was it the final word. In the five years after I testified, sexual harassment complaints filed with the EEOC more than doubled. Legislation against harassment slowly but surely began to pass. And I saw that we had a chance to shift this narrative</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "perpetua"; font-size: 18pt;">.”</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lYzQug4YnRI/XUNDIKM2NhI/AAAAAAAAC50/MH_aDvnZ4o8WsqnWnmFGWm0v1E7Wx9q1ACLcBGAs/s1600/elizabeth%2Bwarren.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="260" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lYzQug4YnRI/XUNDIKM2NhI/AAAAAAAAC50/MH_aDvnZ4o8WsqnWnmFGWm0v1E7Wx9q1ACLcBGAs/s1600/elizabeth%2Bwarren.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elizabeth Warren</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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"The Republican silencing of Senator Elizabeth Warren on the Senate floor was shameful. That Senator Warren was silenced for reading a <a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/08/read-letter-coretta-scott-king-wrote-opposing-sessions/97634920/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #326891; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="">letter</a> from the civil rights leader Coretta Scott King that spoke to the unfitness of Senator Jeff Sessions to be attorney general because of his use of “the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens” is outrageous.</div>
<div class="css-exrw3m evys1bk0" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: nyt-imperial, georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px;">
Is this how Republican leaders honor Black History Month? <span style="font-size: 1.25rem;">As a white American, I am disgusted and disappointed. Black lives matter, and black words matter, too. Republicans, you owe all Americans an apology for this un-American action taken on the Senate floor."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 18.6667px;">— </span>Letter to <i>The</i> <i>New York Times</i>, February 8, 2017<br />
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<div class="css-exrw3m evys1bk0" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: nyt-imperial, georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LEwROhxjdB4/XUNRDD1npCI/AAAAAAAAC6A/jg4nzAMlqrUXhRtDe8oMaZSIfoCC97qEwCLcBGAs/s1600/clinton%2Band%2Btrump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: transparent; clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="460" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LEwROhxjdB4/XUNRDD1npCI/AAAAAAAAC6A/jg4nzAMlqrUXhRtDe8oMaZSIfoCC97qEwCLcBGAs/s320/clinton%2Band%2Btrump.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RmH8-Frya_Y/XUNRTq0O7RI/AAAAAAAAC6I/BLcLSdNJkcsHdfvSb-GMb2lA1pBhf8eHgCLcBGAs/s1600/anti-hillary-signs-republican-national-convention.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RmH8-Frya_Y/XUNRTq0O7RI/AAAAAAAAC6I/BLcLSdNJkcsHdfvSb-GMb2lA1pBhf8eHgCLcBGAs/s320/anti-hillary-signs-republican-national-convention.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14.0pt;">“There
were many ways to frame and understand the election, but one was surely this: a
cartoonish misogynist had defeated an intelligent feminist. Hillary Clinton,
the first woman to have a genuine chance to be President, lost to someone who
had flaunted his contempt for women generally and for her personally, even
prowling behind her during a nationally televised debate.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14.0pt;">—David
Remnick, <i>The New Yorker</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14.0pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14.0pt;">“Too
many of Trump’s core supporters <i>do </i>hold views that I find — there’s
no other word for it — deplorable.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="css-exrw3m evys1bk0" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: nyt-imperial, georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; margin-bottom: 0.9375rem; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px;">
</div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14.0pt;">—Hillary
Clinton, <i>What Happened</i></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #121212;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><i><br /></i></span></span><span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14.0pt;"><i></i></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HC5UUIZIh4M/XUNRsw5AwoI/AAAAAAAAC6Q/omuAmJW0fX45EZj-Xp2pNO1jRjyK5SIZQCLcBGAs/s1600/trump%2Baccused%2Bof%2Bsexual%2Bassault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1067" height="179" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HC5UUIZIh4M/XUNRsw5AwoI/AAAAAAAAC6Q/omuAmJW0fX45EZj-Xp2pNO1jRjyK5SIZQCLcBGAs/s320/trump%2Baccused%2Bof%2Bsexual%2Bassault.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o_NTVnGS2Ls/XUNSGVvHmWI/AAAAAAAAC6Y/p5lKbQ67kBwVHTikJRd_kbVuYCGFmf1kwCLcBGAs/s1600/donald-trump-accusers-sexual-misconduct%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o_NTVnGS2Ls/XUNSGVvHmWI/AAAAAAAAC6Y/p5lKbQ67kBwVHTikJRd_kbVuYCGFmf1kwCLcBGAs/s320/donald-trump-accusers-sexual-misconduct%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Women who have alleged that Trump committed sexual misconduct</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ANcKeMNXlyY/XURVICG5jWI/AAAAAAAAC7M/G5JoL1OvbqkUSG6lKCNX40KRg09tDPLhACEwYBhgL/s1600/magnolia-RBGMAG-Full-Imrbg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="667" height="179" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ANcKeMNXlyY/XURVICG5jWI/AAAAAAAAC7M/G5JoL1OvbqkUSG6lKCNX40KRg09tDPLhACEwYBhgL/s320/magnolia-RBGMAG-Full-Imrbg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I ask no favours for my sex. I surrender not our
claim to equality. All I ask from our brethren is, that they take their feet
from our neck and permit us to stand upright on that ground which God designed
us to </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;">occupy”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;">— Sarah Grimké, 1837 quoted at the beginning of <i>RBG</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="background: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"This lively film
tracks Ginsburg’s brilliant legal career, fighting for women’s workplace rights
while shrewdly also taking on cases where men suffered discrimination. It pays
a moving tribute to the important role played in Ginsburg’s life by her devoted
husband Marty, to whom she was married for over 50 years until his death. It
also highlights her most compelling pronouncements, such as that in Shelby
County v Holder in 2013, in which she argued that the regional protections of
the Voting Rights Act in preventing race discrimination were still necessary
even when they appeared to have been rendered obsolete by precisely those
improved conditions they continue to maintain. Abolition was like 'throwing
away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.'”</span><br />
<span style="background: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="background: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">— </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">See Peter Bradshaw's, </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/03/rbg-review-us-supreme-court-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg">The Guardian</a> </i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">January 3, 2019</span></span><br />
<span style="background: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GosPx3_RESI/XdWrI698TSI/AAAAAAAADJU/GznD8f6DT-QvJilIAbPMabuy3H1VT0_VQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/ronan%2Bfarrow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="780" data-original-width="1300" height="192" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GosPx3_RESI/XdWrI698TSI/AAAAAAAADJU/GznD8f6DT-QvJilIAbPMabuy3H1VT0_VQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/ronan%2Bfarrow.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Ronan Farrow</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span class="drop-capinner"><b><span style="color: #6b5840; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; text-transform: uppercase;">"W</span></b></span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">atching Ursula Macfarlane’s <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/sep/01/untouchable-rise-fall-harvey-weinstein-review-films-like-this-change-the-world" style="border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(220, 220, 220); cursor: pointer; touch-action: manipulation; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s;" title=""><span style="color: #6b5840;">mesmerising documentary</span></a> about Harvey
Weinstein last month, I found myself wondering again how he got away with his
alleged crimes for so long. Yes, he was rich and powerful. Yes, he operated in
that phoney realm (Hollywood) in which beauties and beasts are apt to go along
with one another. And yes, as a producer of genius, he was protected as the
goose that laid the golden eggs. Nevertheless, there were people around
Weinstein, also rich and powerful, and liberal minded to boot, who knew what
was going on. Why did no one speak out? Why did nothing concrete ever stick?</span><br />
<span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">Ronan
Farrow’s extraordinary </span><em style="color: #121212; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Catch
and Kill</em><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">, in which he masterfully tells the story of his quest to
reveal Weinstein’s repugnant activities to the world, doesn’t merely answer
these questions. It makes them come to seem complacent, even profoundly stupid.
Several times while reading it, I had the sense that, having been blind, I
could now see – and for miles, too. But while this brought with it a certain
bracing clarity, it hardly came as a relief. As some American critics have
already observed, Farrow’s narrative has the pace of a thriller. Were it really
a thriller, however, the collusion at its heart would be too much: you would
dismiss it as airport pulp. Here is a conspiracy so deeply embedded and
far-reaching that even as I write, those alleged to be involved not only remain
in their jobs; in recent days, they have pugnaciously denied all wrongdoing in
the matter of the reporting of Weinstein’s behaviour."</span><br />
<span style="color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">— </span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">Rachel Cooke, full </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/20/catch-and-kill-ronan-farrow-review" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt;">review</a><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;"> of Ronan Farrow's </span><i style="color: #121212; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Catch and Kill</i></div>
<div style="background: white; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; margin: 1rem; text-align: start;">
<span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><i><br /></i></span>
<br />
<div class="font--body" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OJ3sRyVWC7E/XdhcyVabsTI/AAAAAAAADKQ/aY1gw-kSnNUOxnKeDzlXD_Nd-DCfU4wCACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/The%2Bproblem%2Bwith%2Beverything.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1057" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OJ3sRyVWC7E/XdhcyVabsTI/AAAAAAAADKQ/aY1gw-kSnNUOxnKeDzlXD_Nd-DCfU4wCACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/The%2Bproblem%2Bwith%2Beverything.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In <i>The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through the New
Culture Wars</i>, Daum offers a merciless take on modern feminism, woke-ness and
cancel culture. If these topics are not precisely “everything,” it’s probably
fair to say that they have been, in recent years, uniquely beguiling to media
elites — and, Daum argues, the recent ascendancy of Donald Trump has induced a
kind of reactionary psychosis within the political left. “By framing Trumpism
as a moral emergency that required an all-hands-on-deck,
no-deviation-from-the-narrative approach to political and cultural thought,”
she writes, “the left has cleared the way for a kind of purity policing.”</span></div>
<div class="font--body" style="font-size: 1.25rem; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16pt;"></span></div>
<span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">
</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<section><span style="font-size: large;">Part memoir and part jeremiad, “The
Problem with Everything” is replete with examples of what Daum views as
intolerant, self-righteous woke-ness: She highlights the young-adult fiction
authors forced to withdraw their books “when social media mobs attacked them”
for purported “racial insensitivity” or cultural appropriation, for instance,
and the “self-congratulatory reverence” displayed by white liberal admirers of
Ta-Nehisi Coates, the “unofficial paterfamilias of the wokescenti.” Commenting
on the controversies surrounding Brett M. Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme
Court, Daum writes that although she found Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations
of sexual assault “moving, compelling and entirely credible,” she was “less
moved by the sloganeering that rose up around them.” The “Believe Survivors”
trope, she argues, draws no distinction between violent rape and lesser forms
of male creepiness (groping, leering), and sacrifices due process for the
accused to outraged assertions of male sinfulness."</span><o:p></o:p></section><section><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">— </span>Rosa Brooks,<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/meghan-daums-merciless-take-on-modern-feminism-woke-ness-and-cancel-culture/2019/10/24/77f47d40-efaf-11e9-8693-f487e46784aa_story.html">Washington Post</a></span></section><section><br /></section><section><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cxdgmepNrI8/Xd670VLdarI/AAAAAAAADKc/Gsd9P-eV9Qo7nq_-IDlUfkwqblDYrCWjACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/had%2Bit%2Bcoming.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cxdgmepNrI8/Xd670VLdarI/AAAAAAAADKc/Gsd9P-eV9Qo7nq_-IDlUfkwqblDYrCWjACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/had%2Bit%2Bcoming.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<div class="c-article-bodytext" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">
<span style="color: #191919; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">"The book begins with an admission — one
familiar to anyone who was a teenager 15-20 years ago —recounting how after
hearing about the Kobe Bryant case, she did not believe the complainant. It’s
sometimes difficult to remember that when we were the age of the young women
spearheading consent culture in 2019, many of us, myself included, were making
Monica Lewinsky jokes.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="c-article-bodytext" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">
<span style="color: #191919; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="c-article-bodytext" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1.125rem; text-align: start;">
<span style="color: #191919; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">She realizes as
an adult how misguided she was and also why this was a common way for women to
react —what did Bryant’s complainant expect, going to his hotel room? This
section’s placement at the start of the book is a generational framing that
helps us understand where the author comes from, and how her views shifted
before and during the writing of the Unfounded report. The rest of the book
contains fewer personal anecdotes and relies more on factual accounts, which is
where Doolittle’s natural strengths are as a writer."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="c-article-bodytext" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1.125rem; text-align: start;">
<span style="color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">— </span><span style="color: #191919; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Zoe Whittall, October 8, 2019,<i> <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/reviews/article-robyn-doolittles-new-book-had-it-coming-is-an-unflinching-look-at-the/">Globe and Mail</a></i></span></div>
</section><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: justify;">Recommended novels for the #MeToo era:</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--mfBHpsJCPc/XURYx4Tu0fI/AAAAAAAAC7g/1PGBS5yRBhI4owyIhL8y7gO0hJ6TyvI-gCEwYBhgL/s1600/my%2Blife%2Bas%2Ba%2Brat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="430" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--mfBHpsJCPc/XURYx4Tu0fI/AAAAAAAAC7g/1PGBS5yRBhI4owyIhL8y7gO0hJ6TyvI-gCEwYBhgL/s320/my%2Blife%2Bas%2Ba%2Brat.jpg" width="209" /></a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14pt;">"Acclaimed and esteemed author Joyce Carol Oates tackles
toxic masculinity and its impact on one girl's life in her latest novel, </span><i style="background-color: white; font-size: 14pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">My Life as a Rat </span></i><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14pt;">lives in a
self-gratifying pattern of behavior they are forever blind to.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: start;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: start;">Fierce and unflinching, Oates dissects every aspect of paternalism
and male entitlement Including: a father's tight-fisted control over his wife
and seven children, two older brothers who learn to answer life's frustrations
with violence, the youngest daughter who loses her most-favored status and is
exiled from home and family when she accidentally betrays the men of her
family, the strangers and family alike who prey upon an innocent girl's
burgeoning sexuality, and the men who coerce and manipulate the women in their</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; text-align: start;"> </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt; text-align: start;">lives in a
self-gratifying pattern of behavior they are forever blind to."</span><br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt; text-align: start;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">— </span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">C. J. Lyons </span><a href="https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/my-life-rat-novel" style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>The New York Journal of Books</i></a><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OOGyIpEghmA/XURfCYThSRI/AAAAAAAAC7o/WyadgMoOGjkN_31AXTXnJx2GZiphpSUjACLcBGAs/s1600/afternoon%2Bof%2Ba%2Bfaun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18.6667px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OOGyIpEghmA/XURfCYThSRI/AAAAAAAAC7o/WyadgMoOGjkN_31AXTXnJx2GZiphpSUjACLcBGAs/s320/afternoon%2Bof%2Ba%2Bfaun.jpg" width="209" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">“I can’t help</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> noticing how frighteningly well he
illustrates a phenomenon many women who’ve been assaulted describe, which is
the double nature of the attack. First there is the physical assault, and there
is what I call the epistemological assault, by which I mean the brazen denial
that anything untoward took place. It isn’t enough to violate the woman’s
bodily autonomy. Her version of events must also be seized and subjugated. In
many cases it is this secondary attack, the seizing of the woman’s reality, so
to speak, that proves to the most traumatic in the long run…”</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">— </span>Cited by James Lasdun in <i>Afternoon of a Faun </i>based
on a talk given by Katha Pollitt</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tZBsTUjE6s8/XUbtB_Dw6EI/AAAAAAAAC9s/9CHY1LUiuScjwqB-ih2fPvXXmyKL6cnWwCLcBGAs/s1600/the%2Bstudent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="313" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tZBsTUjE6s8/XUbtB_Dw6EI/AAAAAAAAC9s/9CHY1LUiuScjwqB-ih2fPvXXmyKL6cnWwCLcBGAs/s320/the%2Bstudent.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;">Miriam Moscowitz, the main character of Cary Fagan’s new
book, <i>The Student</i>, is in her final year studying English at the
University of Toronto. It is the 1950s, and she has asked her professor for a
recommendation letter:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;">He avoided looking at her but took the
pipe from his mouth. “Whatever for?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;">The question took her aback. “Well, to
do my Masters and then my PhD.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;">“No, no, I mean whatever do you want to
do a PhD for? To spend several years of your life, not to mention the valuable
resources of this university, for nothing?”</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">It turns out that her academic pursuits were not "for nothing" but </span></span><i style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">The Student </i><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">brilliantly </span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">delineates the professional and personal challenges that Miriam confronted even in her later years as a grandmother.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o_z4DISJL9s/XUbshVJRgqI/AAAAAAAAC9k/7eIVBSZ9WiYA4uEycY_nIfUSs-nvUUZIwCLcBGAs/s1600/the%2Bsilence%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bgirls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="515" data-original-width="380" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o_z4DISJL9s/XUbshVJRgqI/AAAAAAAAC9k/7eIVBSZ9WiYA4uEycY_nIfUSs-nvUUZIwCLcBGAs/s320/the%2Bsilence%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bgirls.jpg" width="236" /></a></div>
<div class="css-exrw3m" style="background: white; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;">"In her new novel, <i>The Silence of the
Girls,</i> [Pat Barker] takes on the foundational war story of the Western canon,
giving voice to the muted women</span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;"> of Homer’s <i>Iliad</i>.</span></div>
<div class="css-exrw3m" style="background: white; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">It’s a rich premise, since in the “Iliad” (if not the <i>Odyssey</i>)
Homer’s women remain underrealized — static as statues, waiting patiently upon
their plinths to be awarded as prizes, enslaved or sacrificed....</span></div>
<div class="css-exrw3m" style="background: white; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="css-exrw3m" style="background: white; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;">Barker wants to end
that silence. She allows us to get to know Briseis before Achilles and
Agamemnon start fighting over her. It is Briseis’ voice, in a first-person
narration, that largely carries Barker’s interstitial chronicle."</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="css-exrw3m" style="background: white; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.8px;">— </span>Geraldine Brooks, </span><i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/books/review/silence-of-the-girls-pat-barker.html" style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;">The New York Times</a> </i><span style="font-size: small;">September 27, 2018<i> </i></span> .</div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Suggested films:</span><br />
<span style="background: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="background: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>The Woman Who Loves Giraffes</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #333333; font-family: "torstartexto3" , "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 20px;">Stunt coordinator turned director Alison Reid deserves high praise for fine storytelling, combining ecology and social-justice issues while focusing on a woman ahead of her times, whose ambitions were thwarted by institutional sexism. See the full review of this fascinating <a href="https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/review/2018/11/15/the-woman-who-loves-giraffes-is-an-all-too-human-story-too.html">documentary</a></span><br />
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<span style="background: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CP6VPqTBhn0/XUbt3IAND6I/AAAAAAAAC98/B6eLPrQy-zoZfd6SEktFC41Q1Z8N7DPtACLcBGAs/s1600/the%2Bwoman%2Bwho%2Bloves%2Bgiraffes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="138" data-original-width="364" height="121" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CP6VPqTBhn0/XUbt3IAND6I/AAAAAAAAC98/B6eLPrQy-zoZfd6SEktFC41Q1Z8N7DPtACLcBGAs/s320/the%2Bwoman%2Bwho%2Bloves%2Bgiraffes.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aDFr21HtFcY/XUbtoKnEq8I/AAAAAAAAC94/UHZyLXJ5L1Qs0rCEwbtsA87eseMTGmnzACLcBGAs/s1600/the%2Bwife.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="184" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aDFr21HtFcY/XUbtoKnEq8I/AAAAAAAAC94/UHZyLXJ5L1Qs0rCEwbtsA87eseMTGmnzACLcBGAs/s1600/the%2Bwife.jpg" /></a></span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;">"Close plays this
ignored, pushed-aside woman like a gathering storm, drawing us into the mind
and heart of a heroine who’s not going to take it any more. The actress has
received six acting nominations without ever winning an Oscar. </span><em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: start;">The Wife,</em><span style="text-align: start;"> a funny and fierce showcase for her prodigious talents,
might just end the drought. You can’t take your eyes off her."</span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">— </span><span style="font-size: large;">Peter Travers, </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-wife-movie-review-glenn-close-710680/" style="font-size: x-large;">RollingStone</a><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The film crafted for the #Me Too era is I believe actually better than the original source material, the novel by the same name by Meg Wolitzer. I have two reasons: first the secret about their relationship is only revealed near the end of the novel; whereas, in the film we learn about it earlier and it explains the smoldering resentment of the wife so vividly conveyed by Glenn Close, my second reason, who is as the reviewers have agreed is brilliant.</span></div>
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Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-32326107674129387832019-11-10T13:22:00.001-05:002019-11-10T13:22:12.508-05:00The Dream of Political Racial and Economic Equality in South Africa<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"There's no such thing here (in South Africa). The facts may be correct but the truth they embody is always a lie to someone else. Every inch of our soil is contested, every word in our histories." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">– Rian Malan, <i>The Lion Sleeps Tonight </i>2012</span><br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bzXFGv5ZxME/XT9o9xIc8cI/AAAAAAAAC0A/BjzhN4nIYHst6WnVb99nxtiMTLpsU8LjgCLcBGAs/s1600/mandela.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="262" data-original-width="193" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bzXFGv5ZxME/XT9o9xIc8cI/AAAAAAAAC0A/BjzhN4nIYHst6WnVb99nxtiMTLpsU8LjgCLcBGAs/s1600/mandela.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his
skin, or his background, or his religion. P</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">eople must learn to love, for love
comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">– Nelson Mandela</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SSPLe3NmEfQ/XT-fjdKXDAI/AAAAAAAAC04/yMP9zFlQ1r4SVn6ZjGphJgwGiWcuXxcaQCLcBGAs/s1600/truth%2Band%2Breconcilation%2Bcommission.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="437" data-original-width="700" height="198" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SSPLe3NmEfQ/XT-fjdKXDAI/AAAAAAAAC04/yMP9zFlQ1r4SVn6ZjGphJgwGiWcuXxcaQCLcBGAs/s320/truth%2Band%2Breconcilation%2Bcommission.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14pt;">“Having looked the beast in the eye having asked and received
forgiveness, let us shut the door on the past and not forget it but to allow it
not to imprison us.”</span><br />
<div style="direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18.6667px;">– </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14pt;">Archbishop Tutu</span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oOUYqwVudCs/XUAtO49KxhI/AAAAAAAAC1Q/ahw21jAUdXk5vy2xDXf1jpaQtuOX_0SJgCLcBGAs/s1600/white%2Bboy%2Brunning%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="345" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oOUYqwVudCs/XUAtO49KxhI/AAAAAAAAC1Q/ahw21jAUdXk5vy2xDXf1jpaQtuOX_0SJgCLcBGAs/s320/white%2Bboy%2Brunning%2B2.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">“It is precisely these contradictions, the ability to say
radically incompatible things in the same breath, that reveal the true nature
of politics here. A Government minister declares, in a week when a Government
order has forbidden any protests over
the detention of thousands of prisoners and has even forbidden prayers on their
behalf, that he is opposed to detention without trial. This from a member of a
government, which since it has introduced detention without trial in the
sixties, has wielded the weapon with pugnacious relish! I feel as I would were a practicing cannibal to tell me that he
disapproved of human flesh. My range of
responses is limited when faced with brazen hypocrisy or hypocrisy enthroned;
to laugh or to cry, or run. Or maybe to do all three.”</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">– </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Christopher Hope <i>White Boy Running</i>, 1988<i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jS_FkMNOxeM/XUArdv8rW3I/AAAAAAAAC1E/EHPJghu1Q60ZB_e5vYr9N7-KUVlCSiggQCLcBGAs/s1600/christopher%2Bhope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jS_FkMNOxeM/XUArdv8rW3I/AAAAAAAAC1E/EHPJghu1Q60ZB_e5vYr9N7-KUVlCSiggQCLcBGAs/s320/christopher%2Bhope.jpg" width="212" /></a><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“The country [under apartheid] was a giant menagerie where
zookeepers who claimed to divinely appointed presided over less-than-human
others, who were locked into the prisons of their skins.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> – Christopher Hope, <i>The
Café de Move-on Blues</i>, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s-6rmtut_kI/XT9p6BWwtJI/AAAAAAAAC0U/DxsLmiCrAFMXQ-c_g3Kkmug2AFVekITDwCLcBGAs/s1600/a%2Bworld%2Bapart%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="310" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s-6rmtut_kI/XT9p6BWwtJI/AAAAAAAAC0U/DxsLmiCrAFMXQ-c_g3Kkmug2AFVekITDwCLcBGAs/s320/a%2Bworld%2Bapart%2B2.jpg" width="222" /></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14pt;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14pt;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14pt;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14pt;"><i style="font-size: 14pt;">A World Apart </i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">was
written by Shawn Slovo who grew up in South Africa in the 1960s, while her
parents, Ruth First and Joe Slovo, were involved in the anti-apartheid
movement, and it is very much a daughter’s story. Even though her parents were
brave and dedicated, their child still nurses a sense of resentment because she
did not get all of the attention she felt she deserved. </span><i style="font-size: 14pt;">A World Apart</i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> is both
political and personal </span></span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">–</span><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14pt;"> a view of a revolutionary as the middle-class mother
of a normal 13-year-old girl.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5pSNOWzo6yc/XT9oee7lFCI/AAAAAAAACz4/fgpSshXro1ck9XzF8giQTt0PED83xNphwCLcBGAs/s1600/every%2Bsecret%2Bthing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="751" data-original-width="501" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5pSNOWzo6yc/XT9oee7lFCI/AAAAAAAACz4/fgpSshXro1ck9XzF8giQTt0PED83xNphwCLcBGAs/s320/every%2Bsecret%2Bthing.jpg" width="213" />'</a><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The memoir, <i>Every Secret Thing,</i> is "a passionate witness to the colossal </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">upheaval that has transformed her native South Africa, Gillian Slovo has written a memoir that is far more than a story of her own life. For she is the daughter of Joe Slovo and Ruth First, South Africa's pioneering anti-apartheid white activists, a daughter </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">who always had to come second to political commitment. Whilst recalling the extraordinary events which surrounded her family's persecution and exile, and reconstructing the truth of her parents' relationship and her own turbulent childhood, Gillian Slovo has also created an astonishing portrait of a courageous mother and a father of integrity and stoicism."</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">(author unknown)</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2GB-jKPsRAw/XUb-5oq2-YI/AAAAAAAAC-M/cvJ-nmYr834wQxRb5aT6Fru1-GD_2neQgCLcBGAs/s1600/steve-biko.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2GB-jKPsRAw/XUb-5oq2-YI/AAAAAAAAC-M/cvJ-nmYr834wQxRb5aT6Fru1-GD_2neQgCLcBGAs/s1600/steve-biko.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Steve Biko</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: left;">“His message to the youth and the students was
simple clear: Black is Beautiful! Be proud of your Blackness! And with that he
inspired our youth to shed themselves of the sense of inferiority they were
born into as a result of more than three centuries of white rule.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">– Nelson Mandela from
the Preface of <i>Biko A Biography</i> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">"Steve " more than any other
person I have encountered had the most impressive array of
qualities and abilities in that sphere of life which determine the fates of
people-politics." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">– </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Donald Woods, <i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Biko</i>, 1978</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-so3mPKUy1aU/XT9rwUjBYRI/AAAAAAAAC0g/mPqwrQWDwS04eEzvlrXi5ykZGF1ErpW-ACLcBGAs/s1600/cry%2Bfreedom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="353" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-so3mPKUy1aU/XT9rwUjBYRI/AAAAAAAAC0g/mPqwrQWDwS04eEzvlrXi5ykZGF1ErpW-ACLcBGAs/s320/cry%2Bfreedom.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Cry Freedom</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> is based on <i>Biko</i> and <i>Asking for Trouble</i>,
books by Donald Woods. The movie shapes itself around the friendship between
Woods, a smug white liberal journalist, and (Steve) Biko, the gentle intellectual who
expands Woods' cozy horizons. At first, Woods attacks Biko as a black
supremacist, but he revises his opinion when he meets with the activist. The
first half of the movie traces the friendship, concentrating on Biko's career,
but the second concerns Woods' escape from South Africa with Biko's contraband
biography.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">(Richard) Attenborough has been
criticized for the second half, an action thriller that tags a white hero onto
what some felt was a black hero's story. But that's a little like whipping Paul
Simon for introducing Ladysmith BlackMambazo to American audiences. In both
cases, the ends justify the means. And here that end is to expose the spiritual
and physical genocide of apartheid. South Africa hides behind a press blackout;
<i>Cry Freedom</i> exposes it in the bright
and persuasive light of Biko's consciousness."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">– </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Rita
Kempley, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/cryfreedompgkempley_a0ca3d.htm"><i>Washington Post</i></a>, November 6,
1987</span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14.0pt;">From being a cheerful
child, Sandra now grows into a troubled adolescent (<span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Sophie Okonedo</span>) who
tries to bleach her skin. Her parents set up two disastrous dates with white
boys. She falls in love with Petrus (<span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Tony Kgoroge</span>), a young
market gardener who is black, and her father chases him away with a rifle.
Pregnant, she runs away from home, but now since she is officially considered
white, it is a crime under apartheid for her to live with a black man.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7pfKmNwonuo/XYFQ6T1NNAI/AAAAAAAADFM/emj_B96l4JMTA5fcHJgmGn0zKS2HhVJlQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Skin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="316" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7pfKmNwonuo/XYFQ6T1NNAI/AAAAAAAADFM/emj_B96l4JMTA5fcHJgmGn0zKS2HhVJlQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Skin.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14.0pt;">The story of Sandra Laing (her real name) played out into the
1970s, and fascinated South Africa like no other. It cut directly into the
official fiction that the races were separate and would never meet. She was
proof that they'd been meeting a lot in the 400 years since the Dutch landed at
Cape Town.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">– </span><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14.0pt;">Roger Ebert <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/skin-2009">full review</a></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-no9Ygc16zcA/XUBDmAFx7qI/AAAAAAAAC1k/mZJVIJWCsoQZLBjRzBbxU7YE9tMGCVeXgCLcBGAs/s1600/Soweto_Uprising.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="635" height="195" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-no9Ygc16zcA/XUBDmAFx7qI/AAAAAAAAC1k/mZJVIJWCsoQZLBjRzBbxU7YE9tMGCVeXgCLcBGAs/s320/Soweto_Uprising.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Soweto uprising June 1976</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0b02sp7dOjo/XUBYLcQvZeI/AAAAAAAAC18/Gk8lAxRkYiUYD8gHWHyBxuRffEO1J8tzgCLcBGAs/s1600/apartheid%2Bpass%2Blaws.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="640" height="132" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0b02sp7dOjo/XUBYLcQvZeI/AAAAAAAAC18/Gk8lAxRkYiUYD8gHWHyBxuRffEO1J8tzgCLcBGAs/s200/apartheid%2Bpass%2Blaws.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Pass laws under Apartheid</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SIk70_bCYM0/XUBaIIpi2fI/AAAAAAAAC2I/uZ9iUirbAyAXpF_Tkd69IEYH9FKr_0VJQCLcBGAs/s1600/Long%2Bwalk%2Bto%2Bfreedom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="328" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SIk70_bCYM0/XUBaIIpi2fI/AAAAAAAAC2I/uZ9iUirbAyAXpF_Tkd69IEYH9FKr_0VJQCLcBGAs/s320/Long%2Bwalk%2Bto%2Bfreedom.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OlTZ9CaqszE/XUBa1226IyI/AAAAAAAAC2Q/PwZ3JEVibvkxzb3rfh3oye4HoEHyxcjXACLcBGAs/s1600/rivonia-trial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="589" height="259" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OlTZ9CaqszE/XUBa1226IyI/AAAAAAAAC2Q/PwZ3JEVibvkxzb3rfh3oye4HoEHyxcjXACLcBGAs/s320/rivonia-trial.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Rivona Trial (1963-64)</span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xzBD-O55_dM/XUBbvqIEq0I/AAAAAAAAC2c/D3UqQUwBhoQ5FbHDWdCXhzzweCDMLgqaACLcBGAs/s1600/robben%2Bisland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xzBD-O55_dM/XUBbvqIEq0I/AAAAAAAAC2c/D3UqQUwBhoQ5FbHDWdCXhzzweCDMLgqaACLcBGAs/s320/robben%2Bisland.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Robben Island</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">“The policy of apartheid created a deep and lasting
wound in my country and my people. All of us will spend many years, if not
generations, recovering from that profound hurt but the dictates of oppression
and brutality had another unintended effects, and that was it produced … men of
such extraordinary courage, wisdom and generosity that their like may never be
known again. Perhaps it requires such depth of oppression to create such
heights of character.”</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mandela <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">– </span>From an excellent </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/22/men-rivonia-trial-nelson-mandela-1964" style="font-size: x-large; text-align: center;">article</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">“The Nelson Mandela who emerges from his memoir, </span><i style="font-size: 14pt;">Long Walk to
Freedom </i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">is considerably more human than the icon of legend. He is a naive
and headstrong youth, a neglectful husband, a distracted father. He misleads
his allies and manipulates his followers. He is uncritical of despots who
support his liberation struggle. Time after time, he chooses tactics over
principles. Mr. Mandela is, on the evidence of his amazing life, neither a messiah
nor a moralist nor really a revolutionary, but a pragmatist to the core, a
shrewd balancer of honor and interests.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">– </span>Bill Keller <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/18/books/the-practical-mr-mandela.html"><i>The New York Times</i></a> December 18, 1994 </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SP6nJi2y9as/XUBp_MbeuRI/AAAAAAAAC2o/njjDj-xVOtsiM7Q1YUxqHZ8r3wlzCUGGACLcBGAs/s1600/mandela%2Bfilm%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="321" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SP6nJi2y9as/XUBp_MbeuRI/AAAAAAAAC2o/njjDj-xVOtsiM7Q1YUxqHZ8r3wlzCUGGACLcBGAs/s320/mandela%2Bfilm%2B2.jpg" width="230" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">"In fact, and to
give [the film] its due, Nicholson's screenplay... shows the burly young trial
lawyer and amateur boxer joining the ANC to fight apartheid and police
brutality, getting radicalised by the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, passionately
leading an armed struggle and then once in prison transforming his anguish and
rage into a Zen mastery of exile. He disarms his guards with a politician's
knack of remembering their children's names and birthdays.... His very retreat
from the world gradually feeds his prestige and once free he is able to bring
off a remarkable new metamorphosis into South African president and
inspirational world leader."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">– </span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">Peter Bradshaw </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/02/mandela-long-walk-freedom-review" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><i>The Guardian</i></a><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">January 2, 2014</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Red Dust </span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">is
an exciting and, at times gripping film which manages to bring the complex
mechanism of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission to a wider
public…. The film is a truth reflection of the TRC process – especially with
regard to the amnesty hearings.”</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">–</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> Annelies Verdoolaege, from an essay in <i>Framing Africa: Portrayals of a Continent in Contemporary Modern Cinema </i>edited by Nigel Eltringhan, 2013 </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VyN761Zgj_0/XUBsEE4x5SI/AAAAAAAAC28/k5nTwSIqiv0SL9IzQbDXyA3GkGhUVAUzQCLcBGAs/s1600/mandela%2Band%2Bfrancois%2Bpienaar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="354" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VyN761Zgj_0/XUBsEE4x5SI/AAAAAAAAC28/k5nTwSIqiv0SL9IzQbDXyA3GkGhUVAUzQCLcBGAs/s320/mandela%2Band%2Bfrancois%2Bpienaar.jpg" width="249" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mandela and Francois Pienaar</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2A14uLaFLcg/XUBrrOH4MKI/AAAAAAAAC20/iudP6Nv3JZ0G8rhI0eeBqgfJbgP4PiVPACLcBGAs/s1600/invictus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="326" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2A14uLaFLcg/XUBrrOH4MKI/AAAAAAAAC20/iudP6Nv3JZ0G8rhI0eeBqgfJbgP4PiVPACLcBGAs/s320/invictus.jpg" width="234" /></a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14pt;">The film tells the inspiring true story of how
Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa's rugby team to
help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation
remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing
he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport,
Mandela rallies South Africa's underdog rugby team as they make an unlikely run
to the 1995 World Cup Championship match.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #343434; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Mandela is a unique human being; indeed, he is the George
Washington of South Africa who inspired millions of blacks to end their
feelings of revenge in order to create a great, new country. Morgan
Freeman's portrayal of Nelson Mandela creates a superb moment in time on the
movie screen."</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 18.6667px;">– </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Ed Koch,<i> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/01/morgan-freeman-delivers-in-invictus/33277/">The Atlantic</a> </i>January
11 2010</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QwhMrAkiNQ0/XUCz0kOKQ3I/AAAAAAAAC3I/FDqIIrN8p3477TSNUhUhJmZ6R14aawsggCLcBGAs/s1600/mandela%2Band%2Bclinton%2Bvisiting%2Brobben%2Bisland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="174" data-original-width="290" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QwhMrAkiNQ0/XUCz0kOKQ3I/AAAAAAAAC3I/FDqIIrN8p3477TSNUhUhJmZ6R14aawsggCLcBGAs/s1600/mandela%2Band%2Bclinton%2Bvisiting%2Brobben%2Bisland.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;">“He’s got so much to teach us about
forgiveness. It isn’t about soft-headed and kind-hearted and essentially weak.
Mandela found that forgiveness was a tragedy for survival. Because he found a
forgiving heart under the most adverse
circumstances, because he learnt to hate the apartheid cause without hating
white South Africans, he had space left inside to grow and become great. In the
process he freed not only Black South Africans but he freed White South
Africans too.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;">– Bill Clinton cited by Peter Hain in <i>Mandela: His Essential Life </i>2018</span><br />
<span style="color: #121212; font-size: 14pt;"><i><br /></i></span>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mtRZQuXXpLU/XU3g0oL-iMI/AAAAAAAAC_E/_uhE-fzB6zolN43LtBSfuPGQGh1ftPhswCLcBGAs/s1600/obama%2Bat%2B2018%2Bannual%2BMandela%2Bannual%2Blecture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="800" height="179" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mtRZQuXXpLU/XU3g0oL-iMI/AAAAAAAAC_E/_uhE-fzB6zolN43LtBSfuPGQGh1ftPhswCLcBGAs/s320/obama%2Bat%2B2018%2Bannual%2BMandela%2Bannual%2Blecture.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Madiba's light shone so brightly, even from that
narrow Robben Island cell, that in the late '70s he could inspire a young
college student on the other side of the world to reexamine his own priorities,
could make me consider the small role I might play in bending the arc of the
world towards justice.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">– Barack Obama speaking at the 2018 Nelson Mandela
Annual Lecture <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To read the complete <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/07/17/629862434/transcript-obamas-speech-at-the-2018-nelson-mandela-annual-lecture">speech</a></span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1EB1C__yuPA/XT-dwg_NOiI/AAAAAAAAC0s/WsqwifvDHsUYgGOeTz7nKh_COQsnMAN4gCLcBGAs/s1600/wrong%2Bside%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bbus%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="437" data-original-width="342" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1EB1C__yuPA/XT-dwg_NOiI/AAAAAAAAC0s/WsqwifvDHsUYgGOeTz7nKh_COQsnMAN4gCLcBGAs/s320/wrong%2Bside%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bbus%2B2.jpg" width="250" /></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"What's the price of being a bystander? Sidney Bloch is an internationally recognized professor of psychiatry, ethicist, loving father, singer and author of books on mental health. He is also a man with a troubled conscience. In this film, Sid returns to South Africa for his medical school reunion, determined to resolve the guilt that has troubled him for forty years. He's accompanied by his teenage son, Aaron who turns out to be his harshest critic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the Apartheid era, Sid had benefited as a 'White', contributed negligibly to the struggle against racism and then left for Israel the day after his medical graduation in 1964.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> A sense of guilt and shame accompanied him throughout his later move to Australia. Growing up in Apartheid South Africa, Sid abhorred the system but did almost nothing to oppose it. So how does a man who lost fourteen relatives in the Holocaust become complicit with a racist system? In 1964, twelve of the one hundred medical graduates in his class were classified 'Non-White' and were subject to a myriad restrictions–blacks couldn't examine white patients, they couldn't attend post-mortems on white bodies, they couldn't socialize equally and their prospects were limited. Sid and his white colleagues barely registered this reality. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Returning to Cape Town to share his past with Aaron, Sid wants to confront his lack of courage during the Apartheid years."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">– </span>Author unknown</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">What the documentary fails to explore is the position of Jews during the Apartheid or Post-Apartheid eras.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6eIjcdoZK0U/XWw5jPCSUaI/AAAAAAAADBQ/iC78VDe6i687kd-wpgCfl4j8ByXXhHTmgCLcBGAs/s1600/Mandela%2BPlot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="840" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6eIjcdoZK0U/XWw5jPCSUaI/AAAAAAAADBQ/iC78VDe6i687kd-wpgCfl4j8ByXXhHTmgCLcBGAs/s320/Mandela%2BPlot.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">That is not the case with Kenneth Bonert's captivating thriller, <i>The</i> <i>Mandela Plot </i>(2018)<i> </i>set primarily during the late 1980s when Apartheid was it its death</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">—</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">albeit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">—</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">violent death throes. Martin Helger, the only student with a blue-collar parent at an expensive private Jewish high school, is the narrator for most of the novel</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "dsr" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;">The hazing, dispensing of corporal punishment and general bullying at the school mirrors the violence that occurs in the Black townships that is meted out by the police, especially by a Captain Oberholzer. His hatred for Jews rooted in his and the Helger family history</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">—</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">recounted in Bonert's debut novel, </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large;">The Lion Seeker</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">—</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">is driven by a need to inflict a terrible revenge. When a young attractive American Jewish woman named Annie Goldberg moves into the Helger home as a guest, Martin is smitten and becomes a willing accomplice in her efforts to assist the African National Congress setting in motion a series of events that culminate in his family's tragic encounter with Oberholzer. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;">The final ninety pages switches to the third person and may be the novel's most poignant and powerful with revelations about the disenchantment with the new South Africa, corruption and greed from former resistance fighters, as well as a new anti-Semitism veiled under a hostility towards Zionism. The novel also features a riveting climax.</span> </span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YHvWyIcmuWs/XUDiIpaTBCI/AAAAAAAAC3U/Tr9f3h_rORQ_k2lq0z59S9MacCC-jpHAACLcBGAs/s1600/always%2Banother%2Bcountry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="283" data-original-width="178" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YHvWyIcmuWs/XUDiIpaTBCI/AAAAAAAAC3U/Tr9f3h_rORQ_k2lq0z59S9MacCC-jpHAACLcBGAs/s1600/always%2Banother%2Bcountry.jpg" /></a><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">All this makes </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Always Another Country</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">, a graceful
memoir by Sisonke Msimang, a welcome novelty. Msimang, a South African writer
and political analyst, charts an alternate course to the now familiar
conclusion that home is not always a place on a map. Her story begins in exile.
Her parents, members of the African National Congress, then fighting to
overthrow South Africa’s apartheid regime, have fled to Zambia, where they have
three daughters. 'We are raised on a diet of communist propaganda and schooled
in radical Africanist discourse, in the shadows of our father’s hope and our
mother’s practicality,' Msimang writes. Her father is a soldier in the A.N.C.’s
armed wing — its 'illegal army' — a job that has taken him across the world,
from Russia, for training, to Tanzania, where he helped establish a military
base, and, finally, to Zambia, where he met and married Msimang’s mother. As a
result of their work, Msimang spent her childhood calling a different country —
Zambia, Kenya, Canada, Ethiopia — home every few years. 'My parents were
freedom fighters,” she writes. 'So they cast our journeys around the world as
part of a necessary sacrifice. Our suffering was noble.'</span><br />
<br />
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Msimang’s parents
believed in an exceptional South Africa, one whose future would be free of
injustice. Their daughter learns not to see the world this way. In Canada, a
boy in her grade-school class calls her an African monkey, and a group of white
girls with whom she became close abruptly exclude her. These moments reveal
racism’s 'sharp little teeth'; before long, she realizes she has been spoiled
as a child, bred to believe that she and her sisters weren’t just children — we
were representatives of ideals.' Living abroad, far away for the sake of
freedom,' her family was 'no more special than anyone else.'"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">–<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Lovia Gyarakye,
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/books/review/always-another-country-sisonke-msimang.html">The New York Times</a> November 9, 2018</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Post-Apartheid novels: literary, mystery and thrillers</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hcKP88HZOGc/XUGxBd2bTKI/AAAAAAAAC3g/e5g_T1ZISkEWuEkftFPiHFv6MMnNonF1ACLcBGAs/s1600/disgrace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1069" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hcKP88HZOGc/XUGxBd2bTKI/AAAAAAAAC3g/e5g_T1ZISkEWuEkftFPiHFv6MMnNonF1ACLcBGAs/s200/disgrace.jpg" width="133" /></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F3FISCwH68c/XUGxNuhZFkI/AAAAAAAAC3k/Ecz7IroG2Xsyy0VU9s7Wi0Znv6cmfxEpwCLcBGAs/s1600/house%2Bgun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="315" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F3FISCwH68c/XUGxNuhZFkI/AAAAAAAAC3k/Ecz7IroG2Xsyy0VU9s7Wi0Znv6cmfxEpwCLcBGAs/s200/house%2Bgun.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt;">Both of these novels are worth reading, especially <i>Disgrace </i>in part because of Coetzee's powerful rendering in the second half of a violent assault upon the protagonist and his daughter, and the slaughter of her dogs on an isolated farm on the East Cape.</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt;">"It is therefore
curious that their most recent books seem so oddly similar, as if the end of
apartheid has brought them closer together.</span><br />
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt;"> Both Gordimer's 1998 novel <i>The House Gun</i> and Coetzee's (1999) <i>Disgrace</i> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">–</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> winner of this year's Booker Prize </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">–</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> develop out of
judicial procedures: a murder trial in Gordimer's work, and in Coetzee's the
charge of sexual harassment that separates his protagonist, David Lurie, from
his profession. Neither of these books sits easily as anything like an allegory
of the fact-finding commission headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; still, the
judicial connection can be no accident. Yet neither book stops with such
procedures. Though most of Gordimer's novel does in fact deal with the trial,
she ends by exploring the mystery of the transition from life to death. </span><i style="font-size: 14pt;">Disgrace </i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">finishes quickly with the
question of judgment; its real interest lies in what comes after, when all
one's days are stamped with the word of its title. And the way the novel
develops suggests that it is perhaps Coetzee, despite his resistance to a
historically conditioned realism, who has the more deeply political mind."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">– </span>Michael Gorra, <a href="http://rchive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/11/28/reviews/991128.28gorrat.html">The New York Times</a> N</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">ovember 28,1999</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gAxC8qkHuFU/Xb8tLRw2XvI/AAAAAAAADIc/Q1sQUEZWXio_Kew2bSpU84DqZ9Ot2I33ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Bitter%2Bfruit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="328" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gAxC8qkHuFU/Xb8tLRw2XvI/AAAAAAAADIc/Q1sQUEZWXio_Kew2bSpU84DqZ9Ot2I33ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Bitter%2Bfruit.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">"The sense of an on-going betrayal of people's lives </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">—</span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;"> in the
past and into the future</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">—</span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">is the wounded territory of Achmat Dangor's novel.
Set in Johannesburg in the closing months of Nelson Mandela's presidency, it
charts the open wounds and disintegrating relationships in a
"coloured" family caught up in the </span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13pt;">"grey, shadowy morality" of an ANC government
"bargaining, until there was nothing left to barter with, neither
principle nor compromise".</span></div>
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<span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Silas Ali, the father, is an old ANC activist whose government
job in the justice ministry is to liaise with the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission. A South African spin doctor, his fate is to watch the passing of
his own life marginalised on TV, "as if it was foreign, fictional".
His wife, Lydia, goes to work as a nurse researching HIV transmission while
entrenching her distance from an emotionally shell-shocked husband. Their son,
Mikey, gets caught up with Muslim activists associated with the vigilantes of
Pagad, known for their involvement in the bombings of Cape Town. All the bases
are touched in a reckoning with South Africa's past and present turmoil, and no
box left unopened in the search for some kind of limbo or twilight zone where
all unresolved conflicts might find resolution."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">– </span><span style="color: #121212; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">Gabriel Gbadomsi, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/dec/13/featuresreviews.guardianreview12">The Guardian</a></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pR8bMtEc5f8/XWgcKZ0GSXI/AAAAAAAADAY/m41mFs_qU-Au6eLWgcSCduSIukORxXZZgCLcBGAs/s1600/water%2Bmusic_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="316" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pR8bMtEc5f8/XWgcKZ0GSXI/AAAAAAAADAY/m41mFs_qU-Au6eLWgcSCduSIukORxXZZgCLcBGAs/s200/water%2Bmusic_.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rvukmNw9_Hc/XUJYnEBqIRI/AAAAAAAAC48/OTY6t4wCxdoQYfhKvmXQPSDXlWBefyI8QCLcBGAs/s1600/cobra_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="331" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rvukmNw9_Hc/XUJYnEBqIRI/AAAAAAAAC48/OTY6t4wCxdoQYfhKvmXQPSDXlWBefyI8QCLcBGAs/s200/cobra_.jpg" width="132" /></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">An</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> excellent review of both </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Water Music </i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">and </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Cobra</i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> can be found in the </span><a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/devils-merry-go-round-cape-town-noir/" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Los Angeles Review of Books</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> in a piece by Glenn Harper. I highly recommend both these compelling mysteries set in Cape Town. Orford's novel may be one of the most disturbing of the South African crime fiction that I have read as she portrays the stark vulnerability of women and children in a macho culture.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ngPorTVgxQc/Xb81rllTRII/AAAAAAAADIo/qxyExm2dGtMuOgFMgOj_Xi6Y5u0s1dySQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/you%2Bwill%2Bbe%2Bsafe%2Bherejpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="222" data-original-width="227" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ngPorTVgxQc/Xb81rllTRII/AAAAAAAADIo/qxyExm2dGtMuOgFMgOj_Xi6Y5u0s1dySQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/you%2Bwill%2Bbe%2Bsafe%2Bherejpg.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rarely does a novel so forcibly demonstrate how history can
seep into and poison peoples' lives in the present in the manner of Damian Barr's ironically-titled novel, </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">You
Will be Safe Here</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">. Although the plotting is dissimilar, the novel does share with Orford's </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Water Music</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> a concern for the vulnerability of women and children as well as the toxicity of male masculinity. Not surprisingly in Barr's acknowledgments there is an appreciation of Orford's conversation with him. </span><br />
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<div class="noname" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #515151; font-size: 14.0pt;">"Damian Barr’s debut novel, set across
more than a century of South African history, has an unusual structure in that
the first third initially seems unrelated to what follows but it soon becomes
clear that the experiences of the earlier characters resonate through the lives
of those who subsequently pick up the story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="noname" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #515151; font-size: 14.0pt;">It begins in 1901, during the
second Boer war, with a diary kept by a young Afrikaans woman, Sarah, who along
with her six-year-old son, Fred, is interred at a British concentration camp in
Johannesburg. Sharing an account of the many hardships and indignities that are
visited upon the women, the medicines they are denied, the food they’re
deprived of and the lengths they will go to in order to keep their children
alive, it’s an authoritative recreation of a time that is rarely talked about
in history classes....</span><span style="color: #515151; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="noname" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #515151; font-size: 14pt;">A hundred pages in, the
story skips forward to the 21st century, where another mother, Irma, is
complicit in allowing her 16-year-old son to be sent to another camp, New Dawn,
where sadists in uniforms, masquerading as soldiers and awarding themselves army
titles, welcome troubled teenage boys for three-month stays where, they
promise, they will be turned into men, or at least what their unenlightened
understanding of that word means.</span>"<span style="color: #515151; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="noname" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">– </span><span style="font-size: large;">John Boyne, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/you-will-be-safe-here-review-stunning-dissection-of-human-barbarism-1.3839215">The Irish Times</a> August 31, 2019</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sGl5BC3wY2c/XU3h6ytFD2I/AAAAAAAAC_Q/cqwdbSJvFYU0VtrH0GJr2GG-j7Q-dW5UgCLcBGAs/s1600/sleeper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="180" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sGl5BC3wY2c/XU3h6ytFD2I/AAAAAAAAC_Q/cqwdbSJvFYU0VtrH0GJr2GG-j7Q-dW5UgCLcBGAs/s200/sleeper.jpg" width="127" /></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VICtIELGNLQ/XUJaBhj3q8I/AAAAAAAAC5I/-NTGyeTiEWorJpddDg10nDgLOyu8teS5wCLcBGAs/s1600/agents%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bstate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1041" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VICtIELGNLQ/XUJaBhj3q8I/AAAAAAAAC5I/-NTGyeTiEWorJpddDg10nDgLOyu8teS5wCLcBGAs/s200/agents%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bstate.jpg" width="130" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #545353; font-size: 14pt;">"Mike Nicol
is the best stylist writer in the thriller genre in South Africa today—his
staccato language, tense plotting, and nice and nasty backdrop of Cape Town
makes each of his books impossible to put down. Nicol’s novels just keep
getting better. And if you’ve never read a South African thriller before, try
SLEEPER—you’ll be hooked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0in 0in 18.75pt; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #545353; font-size: 14pt;">Cool-cat surfer Fish Pescado and his ex (maybe) spy girlfriend,
Vicki Kahn, are back. The minister of energy is murdered and his lover hires
Fish to find the killer—but then disappears herself. A much deeper game is
going on, and one that sucks Vicki back into her old profession. Spies,
terrorists, a briefcase of enriched uranium, and a sleeper all come to a head
at a farm in the Agter-Paarl."</span><br />
<span style="color: #545353; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">– </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Michael Sears, <a href="http://www.thebigthrill.org/2018/11/africa-scene-mike-nicol-by-michael-sears/"><i>Africa Scene</i></a>, November 30, 2018</span></span><span style="color: #545353; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">.</span></div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0in 0in 18.75pt; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">
<span style="color: #545353; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I agree with these sentiments with the caveat that the earlier novel,<i> Agents of State,</i> may even better. Set also in Berlin, the novel explores the trafficking of children, the widespread corruption and violence of the Zuma years, and how the South African spy agency operated during the apartheid years. Read it first.</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p_OLU4aFRbo/XWgf12H4B-I/AAAAAAAADAo/EtrBamlj3rAjFjVRaj8DqjEll3QIjQxygCLcBGAs/s1600/the%2Brobben%2Bisland%2Blist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p_OLU4aFRbo/XWgf12H4B-I/AAAAAAAADAo/EtrBamlj3rAjFjVRaj8DqjEll3QIjQxygCLcBGAs/s200/the%2Brobben%2Bisland%2Blist.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F6oZTOrZ2yw/XWqeEyOS0WI/AAAAAAAADBE/MaTGd31hrOYsFYEpQ1mTghVHwUz9b-29gCLcBGAs/s1600/divide%2Bthe%2Bnight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="305" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F6oZTOrZ2yw/XWqeEyOS0WI/AAAAAAAADBE/MaTGd31hrOYsFYEpQ1mTghVHwUz9b-29gCLcBGAs/s200/divide%2Bthe%2Bnight.jpg" width="121" /></a><br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qvj4UTSumvg/XWgfokm55PI/AAAAAAAADAk/xmNwLWI7yYg7uUHwwMgNRYszvs_9s0lrQCLcBGAs/s1600/-the-october-killings-books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="814" data-original-width="624" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qvj4UTSumvg/XWgfokm55PI/AAAAAAAADAk/xmNwLWI7yYg7uUHwwMgNRYszvs_9s0lrQCLcBGAs/s200/-the-october-killings-books.jpg" width="153" /></a><br />
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<div class="noname" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #515151; font-size: 14pt;">Most of Wessel Ebersohn's
novels, that extend back to the apartheid years, feature the prison
psychologist, Yudel Gordon, a privileged white, albeit Jewish who is regarded with suspicion by Afrikaners. Ebersohn's early
novels such as the 1981 <i>Divide the Night</i>
were so attacked by the regime that he was banned and his family was so
threatened that he went into exile. This novel features a psychopath who kills
young vulnerable black children and yet he is regarded as a hero by both his
family and the security police. What
makes the novel most interesting is that Yudel witnesses an event that deeply
troubled him, an experience that has haunted him and is referenced in his most recent
post-apartheid novel, 2018 <i>The Robben Island List</i></span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;">. </span></div>
<div class="noname" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;">In O<i>ctober Killings </i>as well as in <i>The
List</i>, Yudel works with Abigail Bukula, a talented African lawyer who works in the
Justice Department with a fascinating back history that is relayed in <i>October Killings. </i>In <i>The List</i> a sniper is killing former
liberation activists, old men who spent times on Robben Island yet no longer
play any role in politics. An early suspect is a white farmer who feels that
the ANC government ignores the concerns ofwhite farmers who he feels are oppressed. Ebersohn is very perceptive at providing a
critical yet sympathetic portrayal of the man and his family. Ebersohn's novels
are not easy to find but they are well worth reading.</span><span style="color: #515151; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-90217443329139045152019-11-04T08:24:00.000-05:002019-11-07T07:39:58.982-05:00Colson Whitehead: The Shredder of Illusions<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qjsjdBAzaxs/XZAbh0Xw7uI/AAAAAAAADGA/4ik_a-HaLPEiVfzFIXYpfxTXg6wO6lSgwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/colin%2Bwhitehead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="300" height="384" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qjsjdBAzaxs/XZAbh0Xw7uI/AAAAAAAADGA/4ik_a-HaLPEiVfzFIXYpfxTXg6wO6lSgwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/colin%2Bwhitehead.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Colson Whitehead photographed by Chris Close</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most of us do not harbour a benign view of
slavery, namely the belief that the owners of slaves were reluctant masters who
generally cared for the well being of their human property. There are, however egregious
exceptions. In 2016 a curious children's book appeared, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/18/463488364/amid-controversy-scholastic-pulls-picture-book-about-washingtons-slave" style="font-weight: bold;">A Birthday Cake for George Washington</a>,<i> </i>that portrayed happy slave
children baking a cake for the first President, a whitewash of slavery that
produced a swift and sharp backlash prompting the publisher to withdraw the
book. More disturbing is that </span></span><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/7/16748038/roy-moore-slavery-america-great" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">Roy Moore</a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, the Republican Senate candidate for
Alabama in the 2018 election and
subsequently lost in one of the America's reddest states, publicly stated that
America was great when slavery prevailed because black families were kept
together, a grotesque misrepresentation of the historical reality when families
were frequently and viciously torn apart.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Instead, we are likely to view
slavery as harsh, ruthless, even tragic. </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But these adjectives do not fully capture the systemic cruelty visited upon slaves by sadistic overseers and psychopathic owners. That
gritty realism is viscerally</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">evoked in
Colson Whitehead's 2014 </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Underground
Railway</i></span><b style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> </b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">which earned both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, and Esi
Edugan's 2018 </span><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Washington Black</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">that
won the Scotiabank Giller award. The trajectory of both novels are vastly different but the opening
chapters bear a striking resemblance: a harrowing captivity narrative
illustrating the Hobbesian adage that life (on a slave plantation) was "solitary, poor nasty, brutish and short."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XaGsEfXm9go/Xbg6r5luGGI/AAAAAAAADH4/3lssukhmbmYPTPOchxNa5pW3pHsj8TBCgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/underground%2Brailroad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="424" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XaGsEfXm9go/Xbg6r5luGGI/AAAAAAAADH4/3lssukhmbmYPTPOchxNa5pW3pHsj8TBCgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/underground%2Brailroad.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">While </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Washington</i></span><b style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">
</b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">is set in the early 19th century on a Barbados sugar cane plantation, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Underground</i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> </i>takes place at the same time
on a cotton plantation in Georgia. In the former, a slave has his tongue cut
out for back talk; in the latter, a slave is blinded for attempting to read. The
thrashings and mutilations are so common in Washington </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">that the young eponymous protagonist is
encouraged to enter into a suicide pact. Cora, the protagonist in </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Underground</i></span><b style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> </b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">has seen a "woman
carved open to the bones with cat-o'-nine tails" and is so severely
whipped herself that she is willing to attempt an escape
fully realizing the horrible punishment awaiting her if she fails: a severe
lashing followed by a vicious rape, hanging or being doused with oil and roasted to the
amusement of visitors.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The opening chapters in both novels cataloging
the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>meticulous horror resemble Steve
McQueen's film adaptation of the same name,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Solomon Northup's <i>12 years a Slave</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, </i>including a slave's longing to die, the persistent wail of a mother separated from her children and the
depiction of increasingly unhinged slave owners. But Edugyan and Whitehead
decamp from the plantation relatively early on in their narratives possibly prolonging the lives of their protagonists. Possibly,
especially in Cora's situation, because she is tenaciously pursued<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>by an obsessive slave catcher still seething that he
never apprehended Cora's mother who fled years earlier. At any rate, these
novels are more imaginative and insightful than the film about race relations
in exploring in their different ways the legacy of the slave experience with both its
visible and invisible scars. One of those differences resides in the structure: Edugyan allows her narrative to develop chronologically, whereas Whitehead
frequently interrupts it and circles back to follow through with the aftermath
of what occurred on an earlier occasion.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">On a personal note, I find </span></span>mindless brutality, especially with prolonged close-ups of vicious beatings, portrayed by actors less palatable than to read about it. Although both authors never shy away from exposing the grisly violence,
they avoid sensationalizing or offering<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>horror porn. Instead, the violence is frequently expressed in deadpan
language or left to our imagination. One brief example: Whitehead in effects
pulls the camera away so that Cora, as well as the reader,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> is spared witnessing
the plight of two her apprehended white benefactors.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is not my intention to discuss more about <i>Washington Black</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>except to mention that her main character
escapes the plantation hell by a hot-air balloon under the protection of a
kinder, scientifically inclined owner. By contrast, Whitehead's protagonist flees with
a fellow slave on an underground railroad, not the metaphor for a network of secret societies, as exemplified in the
award-winning history of one couple's successful escape to Canada, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/books/review/Reynolds-t.html"><i>I've Got a Home in Glory Land</i></a>, or the recent film <i>Harriet, </i>but an
actual locomotive train. To reach a new destination Cora would descend through
trapdoors beneath homes and barns into caves before accessing a
locomotive. It<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>could widely vary from
the primitive as she thrashes about in the darkness to avoid critters to
one endowed with spacious comfort.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Whitehead's decision to incorporate subterranean trains
lends the novel a touch of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>magical
realism allowing him to explore the plight of runaways as an allegorical fable
akin to the specifically cited <i>Gulliver's
Travels</i>. Despite the mode of narrating an alternative reality, he remains
tethered to historical reality if not always the ante-bellum reality. As one example of the depth of his historical awareness, he rightly asserts that the
underground railroad never ventured as far south as Georgia.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Each state that Cora arrives at is vastly different. In South
Carolina, she is initially grateful that its denizens appear to possess a
more enlightened, albeit paternalistic, attitude toward blacks in which she is
able to sleep in a bed for the first time in her life and learn to read without
fear. Yet she is pressured<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to volunteer
for a kitschy "Museum of National Wonders" in which Cora would
re-enact before white viewers in glass-enclosed dioramas a sugar-coated version
of life on a slave ship and a "Typical Day" on a plantation, tableaux
that enable Whitehead to satirize museums that sanitize slave realities. Much more sinister is what
occurs in hospitals where doctors administer sugar water to participants who
were suffering from the tertiary stages of syphilis, a stark reference to the
notorious but unnamed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/05/16/youve-got-bad-blood-the-horror-of-the-tuskegee-syphilis-experiment/">Tuskegee study</a> that took place in Alabama for over forty years in the
twentieth century. There is also the unnerving attraction for eugenics when one
doctor muses, "What if we performed adjustments to the niggers' patterns
and removed those of melancholic tendency." Whitehead is clearly alluding
to the forced sterilization of both black men and women (as well as others)
that has frequently transpired over the years.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3lFjPQyg-j0/Xbg9YZE2DUI/AAAAAAAADIQ/VCJZiecbLFg4CF721hR9RZdIsNYln0l5ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Tuskegee-syphilis-study_doctor-injecting-subject.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1161" data-original-width="1600" height="232" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3lFjPQyg-j0/Xbg9YZE2DUI/AAAAAAAADIQ/VCJZiecbLFg4CF721hR9RZdIsNYln0l5ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Tuskegee-syphilis-study_doctor-injecting-subject.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tuskegee Study</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In North Carolina, the mask of white gentility has
been ripped off as a brazenly white supremacist government dispenses cruelty.
It is a capital offence for blacks to enter the state and for any whites who
shield them. And forget any illusion of due process. In one episode that carries an unsettling resonance for a Canadian
given the recent revelations about our Prime Minister, Cora hiding in an attic
of white sympathizers, watches the nightly entertainment in the town square.
There she observes coon shows as white men with painted black faces perform cockamamie caricatures followed by the hanging of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>captured runaways, a Friday ritual that is enacted in every town. And
what is the end goal behind the so-called "Freedom Trail" lined with
"corpses hung from trees as rotting ornaments?" One character puts
it succinctly </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">—</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> to "abolish niggers." In this section, Whitehead's
subtext are the draconian race laws, the derisive stereotypes of its cultural
life and the thousands of lynchings that
disfigured primarily the South </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">during the Jim Crow era, a reign of terror from the late nineteenth century well into the 1960s, in reality, slavery by other means.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Even in Indiana where Cora joins a prosperous all
black Utopian apparently safe community, the spectre of danger looms. What ensues is reminiscent of the 1921 massacre of blacks that occurred on an equally
prosperous Greenwood Ave. in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/09/28/feature/they-was-killing-black-people/">Tulsa Oklahoma</a> and perhaps the
worst massacre in American history a century ago in the plantation region of E<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/opinion/elaine-massacre-1919-arkansas.html">laine.</a> (The Tulsa massacre is the starting point of the intriguing HBO series, </span></span></span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Watchmen</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">,</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">that explores race relations</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> primarily set in an alternative reality.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Years earlier the founder<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and patriarch of the community observed that
"racial violence becomes more vicious in its expression;" he might
have added especially when black people advance. The sentiments expressed could also be
those of the author thinking about what later materialized at Ferguson and other
places where police killed unarmed blacks without any accountability. Or the acquittal of a white man who killed an
unarmed Trayvon Martin, all </span></span>as payback for a black man in the White House. Later when another member wonders whether all former
traumatized slaves can become productive members of society, he could be speaking
for those today who similarly question the future of the equally traumatized
urban underclass.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In sum, a fugitive slave narrative à la Frederick
Douglass transcends the genre as it morphs into an allegorical odyssey of the
troubled race relations that thread through American history down to the
present. Yet despite the savagery, the novel is animated by hope, especially in
the Indiana community where the spirited conversations about the future
foreshadow the political differences among African Americans that have
punctuated the twentieth century. And we must not forget Cora whose indomitable
spirit remains alive at the conclusion even though her future remains
uncertain. <i>The Underground Railroad</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>is
a layered, refreshingly original novel.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">While <i>The Underground
Railroad</i><b> </b>shatters any lingering
illusions about the benevolence of slavery and allows the reader to bear
witness to some of the lesser known episodes throughout American history, his
readers will likely know something about that subject matter. The same cannot
be said for Whitehead's latest novel, <i>Nickel
Boys<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </span></i>(Double Day, 2019), that is based on a so-called reform school which few
would have known about. As Whitehead writes in his acknowledgements, he never
heard </span></span>about the reign of terror at the Dozier School for Boys in Florida that
operated for over one hundred years and was only closed in 2011 until 2014 when he
read about it in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tampa Times</i>.
According to the article, archeology students at a Florida university were
digging up and trying to identify the remains of students at Dozier who had
been mutilated, murdered and buried in a secret graveyard "erased from
history."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CwS1kq5BKVw/Xbg6dBgk77I/AAAAAAAADH0/0BzIDf4ZwV0qlwoTKqL3QSVHorZdtRFGACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/nickel%2Bboys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="271" data-original-width="186" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CwS1kq5BKVw/Xbg6dBgk77I/AAAAAAAADH0/0BzIDf4ZwV0qlwoTKqL3QSVHorZdtRFGACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/nickel%2Bboys.jpg" /></a><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Whitehead resurrects this nearly-expunged chapter
of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>racial<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>terrorism by fictionalizing the boys who spent time at
this house of horror by creating the Nickel Academy of Eleanor Florida. At
night the superintendent administers "punishment" with a three-foot
long strap called Black Beauty at the so-called "White House."The beatings are so horrific that the ensuing screams are drowned out by a giant industrial
fan. Beyond that site, worse things are inflicted on boys who never return but are
buried in unmarked graves called "Boot Hill."Thankfully, Whitehead
never takes the reader there. Unlike his earlier novel, Whitehead has stripped <i>Nickel Boys<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></i>of any trace of magical
realism. Still retaining his penchant for chronological switches, deadpan
language and above all restraint, his latest novel feels like a mash up of documentary
realism and a terrifying Gothic novel. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Whitehead has referred to <i>Railroad</i> as an
"Obama" novel and <i>Boys</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>as "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/20/colson-whitehead-reality-is-kids-shot-by-racist-cops">Trumpian</a>," Although in the article Whitehead refers to specific illiberal changes from the last three years, I think that he is hinting at something deeper in the novel. Whereas<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> earlier novel</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>exudes traces of hope his most recent is much bleaker in tone. The current president tweets messages in language
that is consistently demeaning to African Americans, and has attempted to
reverse the progressive initiatives of his predecessor. The time period of most
of </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Boys</i></span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">from the early to mid
1960s is one of measured optimism that includes the gradual desegregation of
the public schools as a result of the 1954 Supreme Court decision, the civil
rights movement inspired by the lofty rhetoric and courageous actions of Martin
Luther King among others, and the decision by Congress with the support of President Johnson
to pass vital legislation to end discrimination in public facilities and
voting. These milestones of
hope, that could be associated with the Obama spirit, are </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">absent
in the captivity chapters of </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Boys</i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. Indeed, the novel might be
viewed as a microcosm for Jim Crow which is viciously alive and thriving.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The one hope that initially remains alive for the young protagonist, Elwood Curtis, are the speeches of King heard on a LP
recording that he received as a 1962
Christmas gift. He listens to them constantly and becomes emboldened<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>believing that someday he could be part of
the Civil Rights Movement. We first meet him as a conscientious student
attending a segregated school in Tallahassee, (in violation of the Brown
decision by the Supreme Court) working diligently and getting good grades. His
teacher recognizes his potential and arranges for him to attend advanced
classes at a college outside the city. Hitchhiking a ride in what turns out to
be a stolen car, the police arrest him even though he is the passenger and
because he is black. As a result of this miscarriage of justice, he is
incarcerated in The Nickel Academy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--0pBboPBAs0/XcAlJ0CmqqI/AAAAAAAADI8/4mF5VcyqpLUw9Y3Yx43pWEvpamrE3zyLgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/arthur%2Bdozier.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="243" data-original-width="514" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--0pBboPBAs0/XcAlJ0CmqqI/AAAAAAAADI8/4mF5VcyqpLUw9Y3Yx43pWEvpamrE3zyLgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/arthur%2Bdozier.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Arthur A. Dozier School for Boys</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Elwood's life takes a downward spiral but he is
determined to "make the best of it" sustained by the words of King
and his belief that the rule of law will be upheld. Early on however, his moral
compass backfires after he intervenes to protect a younger boy from bullies. He
is blamed and severely beaten leaving him with scars for life. Although the school, where in reality no learning transpires, is supposed
to be for non-violent offenders, he soon realizes that "all violent
offenders were on staff." His perceptive awareness reveals that he is not
a naive innocent as he struggles to maintain the hopeful optimism he imbibed
from his experience prior to Nickel.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Apart from the depravity that saturates the reform school, the
heartbeat of the novel is the ongoing exchange between Elwood and his friend
named Turner who has no illusions about the school or the system outside.
Turner was convinced that Elwood wore blinders: "You can change a law if
you convince many white people... but you can't change people and how they treat
each other."And he later comments that the only real difference between
the outside and the inside that "no one has to act fake here." Elwood
struggles to retain his faith that what was occurring was wrong and against the
law, and that justice will ultimately prevail. </span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But that faith is fragile. Over time the arbitrary<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>brutality and unrelenting abuse of power
grind him down. At one poignant and pivotal moment in his life, he quotes King:
"Throw us in jail and we will still love you....We will not only win
freedom for ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and your conscience that
we will win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory."
Elwood begins to question whether decency resides in every human heart and
whether King was asking<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>too much. Writing
in the third person, Whitehead speaks for Elwood, "No, he could not make
that leap to love." For this reader who has been buoyed<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>by the uplifting eloquence of King, Elwood's
responses are a sobering reminder that most of us never endured the hellscape depicted
in this novel, and as Elwood is acutely aware, neither did<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>King when he spent a brief time in Birmingham
jail.</span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Despite his cynicism, Turner turns out to be a kind
and courageous friend to Elwood that persists for years down to the final pages.
It would be a spoiler to reveal more details but Whitehead, pulling us both forth in time several years
and then wrenching us back again to the 1960s at Nickel, manages to deliver a
moving and unexpected conclusion. It is a
stunning, totally unsentimental ending and a testament to his artistry. By the
time we finish this masterful novel, we understand that the epithet racial
progress should<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>at best be used
cautiously. In a time of mass incarceration and simmering racism</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">—</span>often fanned
by the President<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">—</span>we should be grateful to Whitehead for challenging us to
shred<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>any illusions we might still
retain about a "post-racial presidency,"given the dog whistle racist
politics that have moved from the fringe to mainstream politics.</div>
</span>Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-48784659291289242052019-10-30T14:53:00.002-04:002019-11-03T15:52:44.936-05:00The Challenge to Maintain one's Humanity during and after the Vietnam War<div class="column-center-outer" style="float: left; position: relative; width: 680px;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: large;">“The Vietnam War was a tragedy, immeasurable and irredeemable. But meaning can be found in the individual stories of those who lived through it, stories of courage and comradeship and perseverance, of understanding and forgiveness and, ultimately, reconciliation.”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: "georgia" , "cambria" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: large;">—</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: large;">Peter Coyote, the narrator in </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">The Vietnam War</i><i style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: x-large;"> </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: large;">by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ken Burns and Lynn Novick</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 18.4px;">“In terms of content, <i>The Vietnam War</i>, written by the historian Geoffrey C. Ward and narrated by Peter Coyote, is rich, revelatory, and scrupulously evenhanded. It succeeds in large part by not being reductive or succinct—by being, in fact, rather overstuffed, a lot to take in…. By dint of its thoroughness, its fairness, and its pedigree, <i>The Vietnam War</i> is as good an occasion as we’ve ever had for a levelheaded national conversation about America’s most divisive foreign war. It deserves to be, and likely will be, the rare kind of television that becomes an event.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: "georgia" , "cambria" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">— </span>David Kamp, “Why <i>The Vietnam War</i> Is Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s Most Ambitious Project Yet”<b> </b><i>Vanity Fair<b> </b></i>September, 2017.</span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F0yTK1iI-9s/WfYRwrRFHoI/AAAAAAAACpY/FYCi_Hbd-9kEoaVEBrV2peqrLuSy2WwLgCLcBGAs/s1600/John-Musgrave-Vietnam-War.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #d00111; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="960" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F0yTK1iI-9s/WfYRwrRFHoI/AAAAAAAACpY/FYCi_Hbd-9kEoaVEBrV2peqrLuSy2WwLgCLcBGAs/s320/John-Musgrave-Vietnam-War.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">John Musgrave</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "palatino" , "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14.001px;">"</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "palatino" , "palatino linotype" , serif;">There is a family of these witnesses; we never hear the voice of an interviewer. One of the most beguiling is John Musgrave, a Marine so badly wounded in Vietnam that several doctors rated him ‘expected’. He became a drop-out and an alcoholic, a would-be suicide and a protester who is still battling the melodrama of the war and the effects of his wounds. He is now a poet and a spokesman for veterans. We feel his romantic recklessness, as he tries to reconcile what happened to him with what he wished had happened. Another witness, Tim O’Brien (author of </span><i style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, palatino, "palatino linotype", serif; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Going after Cacciato</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "palatino" , "palatino linotype" , serif;"> and </span><i style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, palatino, "palatino linotype", serif; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Things They Carried</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "palatino" , "palatino linotype" , serif;">), has been a success in life, but is so anguished still that he has difficulty looking at the camera. Musgrave, on the other hand, stares into the lens as if it were his mirror. He deserves a novel or a movie, and because so many of the witnesses are just as conflicted as he is </span><i style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, palatino, "palatino linotype", serif; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Vietnam War</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "palatino" , "palatino linotype" , serif;"> acquires the density of a sprawling work of fiction....</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "palatino" , "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: large;">This is the point: <i style="border: 0px; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", serif; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Vietnam War</i> isn’t just about the war but the consequences it had for Americans. There is a great deal from the home front here, and while the jukebox of great rock and roll on the soundtrack makes the ordeal seem exciting sometimes, it leaves little doubt that the cultural revolutions of the 1960s – Merrill McPeak’s ‘rivulets’ – were a liberation for a minority and one that left a schism in America still emphatically evident in the 2016 election."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "palatino" , "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span> David Thomson, "Merely an Empire," <i>London Review of Books</i>, September 21, 2017 </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "palatino" , "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: large;">Another insightful review can be found in <i><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/11/23/ken-burns-vietnam-pity/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%20Caryl%20Phillips%20Frances%20FitzGerald%20Zadie%20Smith&utm_content=NYR%20Caryl%20Phillips%20Frances%20FitzGerald%20Zadie%20Smith+CID_d777dc11215b899e485b216bec05e99d&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=The%20Pity%20of%20It%20All" style="color: #d00111;">The New York Review of Books</a> </i></span><span style="color: white; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 15.4px; font-weight: bold;"><i> </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps the best drama on Vietnam and the incident that it is based upon that is referenced in Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's <i>The Vietnam War </i>is the 1989 film, <i>Casualties of War.</i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14.0pt;">"<i>Casualties of War</i>
is a film based, we are told, on an actual event. A five-man patrol of American
soldiers in Vietnam kidnapped a young woman from her village, forced her to
march with them, and then raped her and killed her. One of the five refused to
participate in the rape and murder, and it was his testimony that eventually
brought the others to a military court martial and prison sentences. The movie
is not so much about the event as about the atmosphere leading up to it - the
dehumanizing reality of combat, the way it justifies brute force and penalizes
those who would try to live by a higher standard....<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14pt;">More than most films, it depends on the
strength of its performances for its effect - and especially on Penn's
performance. If he is not able to convince us of his power, his rage and his
contempt for the life of the girl, the movie would not work. He does, in a
performance of overwhelming, brutal power. Fox, as his target, plays a
character most of us could probably identify with, the person to whom rape or
murder is unthinkable, but who has never had to test his values in the crucible
of violence. The movie's message, I think, is that in combat human values are
lost and animal instincts are reinforced. We knew that already. But the movie
makes it inescapable, especially when we reflect that the story is true, and
the victim was real.</span>"<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">— <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/casualties-of-war-1989">Roger Ebert</a></span>, August 10, 1989</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 8px; text-align: center; text-transform: uppercase;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This memorial is now thought to be the most successful and beloved public work of our time. It is so simple, so elegant, that it makes its statement without even trying. The long arms of marble enclose us. We see the names of the dead. We are left with our thoughts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The most arresting scenes in the documentary <i>Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision</i> are about the miracle that this memorial was even erected at all—about its opponents, who would have replaced it with something ordinary and mundane.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Today, when the memorial is universally beloved, such men as Pat Buchanan and Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) are not quick to remind you that they fought against it, in ways that do not reflect well on their judgment or taste.... </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 21px;"><i>Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision,</i> written and directed by<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Freida Lee Mock</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 21px;">, tells the story of how Lin designed the memorial, and how it came to be built. It follows her over the next 14 years, as she matures from an insecure student to a confident professional, and designs other public works, including the Civil Rights Monument in Montgomery, Ala. " </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #4c4c4c; line-height: 21px;">—Selections from a review by Roger Ebert</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.5pt;">"Kathleen
Belew’s gripping study of white power, <i>Bring the War Home</i>, as written before
the city of Charlottesville became a hashtag, and is largely concerned with
activities from the 1970s and ’80s. But it is. Her activists — for indeed,
these were activists building a grass-roots movement — consolidated power in
the aftermath of the Vietnam War. It is that starting point that hints at the
book’s explosive thesis: that the white power movement that reached a
culmination with </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.5pt;">the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.5pt;">emerged as a
radical reaction to the war.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.5pt;">Sit with that for a
moment, because it is a breathtaking argument, one<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-haCEtxeyEJs/XT9WGcLCnlI/AAAAAAAACzs/4XSTe6DQS6IyDURy3i5VSeN08eKf8zB9QCLcBGAs/s1600/Turner%2BDiaries.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14.5pt; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-haCEtxeyEJs/XT9WGcLCnlI/AAAAAAAACzs/4XSTe6DQS6IyDURy3i5VSeN08eKf8zB9QCLcBGAs/s320/Turner%2BDiaries.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.5pt;"> that treats foreign policy as the impetus for
a movement that most people view through the lens of domestic racism. But
Belew, an assistant professor of history at the University of Chicago,
perceives something <i>more in the white
power movement than metastasized racism. She sees the malignant consequence of
the war, which, she argues, “comes home</i> in ways bloody and unexpected.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">— From a review by </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nicole Hemmer</span><b style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"Too many people still think of these attacks as
single events, rather than interconnected actions carried out by domestic
terrorists. We spend too much ink dividing them into anti-immigrant, racist,
anti-Muslim or anti-Semitic attacks. True, they are these things. But they are
also connected with one another through a broader white power ideology.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Likewise, too many people think that such shootings
are the goal of fringe activism. They aren’t. They are planned to incite a much
larger slaughter by 'awakening' other people to join the movement. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The El Paso manifesto, if it is verified, ties the
attacker into the mainstream of the white power movement, which came together
after the Vietnam War and united Klan, neo-Nazi, skinhead and other activists."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">—</span>Kathleen Belew, “The Right Way to Understand White
Nationalist Terrorism," </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/opinion/el-paso-terrorism.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage&te=1&nl=opinion-today&emc=edit_ty_20190805?campaign_id=39&instance_id=11421&segment_id=15884&user_id=6451097157d217f660be405f33ed4e7c&regi_id=18600036emc=edit_ty_20190805" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">The New York Times</a></i><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">August 4, 2019. </span></div>
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Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-10468196994827801772019-10-22T09:25:00.001-04:002021-01-06T11:42:51.045-05:00An Appreciation of Philip Kerr's final novel Metropolis<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YPcC6Brd4U0/XYE5c6PV6SI/AAAAAAAADEU/96SxtDFG5hQk4ueA7MTdeygXJv4BGq1VQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/dix-metropolis-1927-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="545" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YPcC6Brd4U0/XYE5c6PV6SI/AAAAAAAADEU/96SxtDFG5hQk4ueA7MTdeygXJv4BGq1VQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/dix-metropolis-1927-8.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Metropolis" by Otto Dix</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">When the Scottish-born author, Philip Kerr, died of
cancer last year at the age of 62, he left behind the manuscript of</span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Metropolis</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> which turned out to be the
14th novel in the Bernie Gunther series. Although he wrote several standalone
novels and a children's fantasy series, he will probably best be remembered for
the</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">hard-boiled, iconoclastic Berlin detective
turned private investigator.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Philip Kerr</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Weimar Republic,
specifically 1928 Berlin, is the locale of<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Metropolis</i>.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>The novel is
a prequel to the series that began thirty years ago with the publication of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">March Violets</i> set in 1936 Nazi Germany at
the time of the Olympics. Interestingly, that time-span roughly matches the aging
of the novels' cynical protagonist since Kerr's penultimate novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Greeks Bearing Gifts </i>takes place in 1957. </span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Metropolis </span></i><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">has all the earmarks of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>the Bernie Gunther novels: thorough historical research that illuminates
rather than overwhelms the plot and characters, a sharp eye for detail,
razor-sharp dialogue that will remind readers of Raymond Chandler's, Philip
Marlowe, and interior acerbic monologue that is often at odds with his reassuring words that are </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">largely driven by self-interest, at times sheer survival</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the pleasures
of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Metropolis</i>
is discovering the young Bernie Gunther who despite four years in the trenches
could still say </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "serif";">“</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve been lucky I’ve come through the worst of it with my soul still
intact.” That sense of hopeful optimism would be severely eroded years later when he is forced to serve the SS in the killing fields of the Ukraine. But now
in 1928 he still believes he can maintain his humanity and his belief in due
process - although one method of interrogation he employs near the conclusion would never be permitted today</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> in a democratic state - as he investigates his first criminal cases involving the grotesque
murder of prostitutes and the execution-style murder of severely disabled
veterans.</span><br />
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depiction of the seedy, decadent and fanatical elements that flourished in Berlin: its virulent anti-Semitism, ideological street battles between
ultra-nationalists and Communists, the uninhibited nightlife and the acceptance of eugenics expressed through the widespread belief that disabled veterans were
worthless to Germany and that the murderous perpetrator should be celebrated
rather than apprehended.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Perhaps most</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">memorial is the</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">recreation of seminal real-life individuals that
include German Expressionist artists whom Kerr pays special homage. Bernard
Weiss, the legendary Chief of Berlin's Criminal Police invites Gunther to join
his unit where he also works with Berlin's top detective, Ernst Gennat,
purportedly the inspiration for the detective in Fritz Lang's </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">M.</i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Though Lang does not make an
appearance, Kerr celebrates his masterpiece, </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Metropolis, </i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">which reveals a starkly divided city in which the
prosperous thrive in the light while the down-trodden reside in the shadows, tableaux that mirror the real Berlin brilliantly brought to life in the Netflix
series </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Babylon Berlin</i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Kerr does integrate Lang's wife, the screen
writer, Thea von Harbou into the novel through exchanges with Bernie that provide
insight into her husband and the thriller they are writing about the hunt for a
murderer that will eventually become </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">M</i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">.
Kerr cleverly incorporates into the plot a confession from a suspect about a
kangaroo court that closely mirrors the conclusion of</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">M</i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Peter Lorre in <i>M</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">My personal favourite recreation is
the faithfully-rendered cameo appearance of George Grosz, an artist from the
Dadaist movement. He is more pessimistic of the human condition than Gunther is
at this time. He informs the detective that "my themes as an artist are
despair, disillusionment, hate, fear corruption, hypocrisy and death."
For anyone familiar with Grosz's oeuvre, those qualities encapsulate his
drawings and paintings. Otto Dix, who, like Bernie spent four years in the
trenches visually documenting the war, is also referenced. He too painted the
lurid 1920s, one of which, the triptych, </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Metropolis</i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">,
graces the novel.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Grey Day" by George Grosz</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Kerr's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Metropolis </i>is insightful and harrowing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>both in terms of the young Bernie and the
city of Berlin. We know that both will change, in many ways for the worse, but
Kerr has performed an extraordinary feat in his final novel. He has penned a</span><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">riveting historical thriller populated with<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>fascinating<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>real-life personalities who will be negatively impacted by the malignant
Nazis edging into focus. He also has delineated the character of
the young Bernie Gunther as learns his craft revealing his investigative
prowess, pragmatism and courage, qualities that will test his humanity in the
later novels. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-89991795149448221992019-10-16T14:05:00.000-04:002019-10-16T14:05:20.074-04:00The Seduction and Horror of War<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4YaAuA-S5is/WcKvQnVvEYI/AAAAAAAACig/IhEU4XvJx5EsT6PZfG_6vH7BZiCPccx1gCLcBGAs/s1600/woodrow-wilson-1200-ts600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4YaAuA-S5is/WcKvQnVvEYI/AAAAAAAACig/IhEU4XvJx5EsT6PZfG_6vH7BZiCPccx1gCLcBGAs/s320/woodrow-wilson-1200-ts600.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">President Woodrow Wilson</span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Siegfried Sassoon</span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 18.4px;">“You will see the effect upon people. They will acclaim it with enthusiasm; everybody is already looking forward to the first onslaught</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 18.4px;">—so dull have their lives become.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 18.4px;">—Herman Hesse, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Damian</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 18.4px;">"One of the most troubling reasons men love war is the love of destruction, the thrill of killing...all you do is move the finger so imperceptibly, just a wish flashing across your mind like a shadow, not even a full brain synapse, and <i>poof</i>, in a blast of sound and energy and light a truck or a house or even people disappear, everything flying and settling back into dust."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 18.4px;">—</span>William Broyles, "Why Men Love War," <i>Esquire, </i>November<i> </i>1984, veteran of the Vietnam War</span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MkhOgAJ82rQ/Wb_q_Gum33I/AAAAAAAAChQ/gehtwWXhnvQiB9URG13-XG0T-0tqd14YwCLcBGAs/s1600/Oh_what_a_lovely_war.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="246" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MkhOgAJ82rQ/Wb_q_Gum33I/AAAAAAAAChQ/gehtwWXhnvQiB9URG13-XG0T-0tqd14YwCLcBGAs/s320/Oh_what_a_lovely_war.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14.0pt;">"<i>Oh! What a Lovely War</i> does recreate this time, in a bitter
mixture of history, satire, detail, panorama and music.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14.0pt;">Especially music. There is something paradoxical in the thought
of singing about a war, and yet cheap popular songs often capture the spirit of
a time better than any collection of speeches and histories. Miss (Joan) Littlewood (in the 1963 stage production),
and (Richard) Attenborough after her, present the war as a British music hall review;
there's a lot of smiling up front, but backstage you can see the greasepaint
and smell the sweat, and the smiles become desperate, and there begins to be
blood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14.0pt;">This sense is captured most tellingly in Maggie Smith's scene.
She plays a robust, patriotic broad who lures the young men from the audience
to the stage with promises of love and implications of heroic death. But death
is reserved for the young, not for the old, and John Mills (as Sir Douglas
Haig) stays far behind the lines, studying the front from an observation tower.
Meanwhile, politicians, kings and rulers play stupid games of diplomacy and
etiquette, and 'acceptable losses' are counted in the hundreds of
thousands. But always everyone whistles a happy tune...."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">— <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/oh-what-a-lovely-war-1969"><span style="font-size: large;">Roger Ebert</span></a></span><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: large;">,</span><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: 14.0pt;"> October 30, 1969</span></div>
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"The picture of the country 100 years ago is often unwholesome in ways that, again, resonate with current turmoil. Prejudice against immigrants ran high. Anti-German feelings were virulent, and Wilson issued orders requiring the registration of all German-born residents (a program administered by the 22-year-old J. Edgar Hoover).</div>
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Americans were encouraged to spy on and report one another for violations of voluntary rationing programs or failure to buy war bonds. The government engaged in a sophisticated large-scale propaganda campaign enforcing loyalty. A poster shown in the film asks, in menacing capital letters, “Are You 100% American?”</div>
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Watching “The Great War” can give you a sense of a full circle of events. If this was how America became the world’s pre-eminent power, is this also how it surrenders the role?"</div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt;">— Mike Hale,</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">"‘The Great War,’When America Took the World Stage,"</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> <i style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/09/arts/television/review-the-great-war-when-america-took-the-world-stage.html?_r=0">The
New York Times</a></i> <b style="font-size: large;"> </b>April <time class="dateline" content="2017-04-10T10:15:23-04:00" datetime="2017-04-10T10:15:23-04:00" itemprop="dateModified" style="color: black; font-size: large; line-height: 0.75rem; margin-left: 0px; white-space: nowrap;">2017<o:p></o:p></time></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><time class="dateline" content="2017-04-10T10:15:23-04:00" datetime="2017-04-10T10:15:23-04:00" itemprop="dateModified" style="color: black; line-height: 0.75rem; margin-left: 0px; white-space: nowrap;">I
also recommend a powerful review on <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/09/28/world-war-i-when-dissent-became-treason/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%20Dissent%20and%20treason%20moral%20corrosion&utm_content=NYR%20Dissent%20and%20treason%20moral%20corrosion+CID_d8b5bdea2d8b2b6296ef2f601602fcad&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=When%20Dissent%20Became%20Treason">dissent </a>in
America</time><time class="dateline" content="2017-04-10T10:15:23-04:00" datetime="2017-04-10T10:15:23-04:00" itemprop="dateModified" style="line-height: 0.75rem; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="color: #333333;"> </span></time></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"><time class="dateline" content="2017-04-10T10:15:23-04:00" datetime="2017-04-10T10:15:23-04:00" itemprop="dateModified" style="line-height: 0.75rem; margin-left: 0px; white-space: nowrap;">during</time></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"><time class="dateline" content="2017-04-10T10:15:23-04:00" datetime="2017-04-10T10:15:23-04:00" itemprop="dateModified" style="line-height: 0.75rem; margin-left: 0px; white-space: nowrap;">the </time></span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;"><time class="dateline" content="2017-04-10T10:15:23-04:00" datetime="2017-04-10T10:15:23-04:00" itemprop="dateModified" style="color: black; line-height: 0.75rem; margin-left: 0px; white-space: nowrap;">Great
War explored</time></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"> by
Adam Hochschild </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bBhrnDoEyBQ/XTyWj4__V-I/AAAAAAAACww/8_3Np_uiev0SAMqftksnAMwFtIJ3Xyn3QCLcBGAs/s1600/they%2Bshall%2Bnot%2Bgrow%2Bold.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: 1.0625rem; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bBhrnDoEyBQ/XTyWj4__V-I/AAAAAAAACww/8_3Np_uiev0SAMqftksnAMwFtIJ3Xyn3QCLcBGAs/s320/they%2Bshall%2Bnot%2Bgrow%2Bold.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">A World War I documentary</span><span style="background: white; font-size: 1.0625rem;"><span style="text-align: start;"> in 3D with
colorized archival footage that looks as new as the day it was shot. What
sounds like an impossible feat becomes a riveting reality in the hands of
director Peter Jackson </span></span><span style="background: white; font-size: 1.0625rem;"><span style="text-align: start;">and his New
Zealand Weta crew of restoration miracle workers, led by digital VFX supervisor
Wayne Stables. In </span><em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">They
Shall Not Grow Old</span></em><span style="text-align: start;">, the lord of </span><em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The Lord of the Rings</span></em><span style="text-align: start;"> uses a treasure
trove of material — more than 600 hours worth — from England’s Imperial War
Museum to bring the Great War to vivid life.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 1.0625rem;"><span style="text-align: start;"><br /></span></span></span>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FBnVvBrGkL8/XZirImmIlaI/AAAAAAAADGs/XpksO382aJAtiB2u-dBj-W_Qk2Dc2sWPwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/world%2Bwar%2Bone_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="317" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FBnVvBrGkL8/XZirImmIlaI/AAAAAAAADGs/XpksO382aJAtiB2u-dBj-W_Qk2Dc2sWPwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/world%2Bwar%2Bone_.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
<span style="background: white; font-size: 1.0625rem;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Through original
diaries, letters, and memoirs, this unforgettable documentary tells how the
lives of regular British men and women were transformed by the Great War. A
reservist leaves for the front determined to write to his mother every few
days. A newlywed says goodbye to his pregnant wife. A young woman fears that
when her fiancé sails for France, her hopes of marriage will disappear. For
parents and children, soldiers and factory workers alike, life and love go on
but never again as they did before. Few could imagine the horrors ahead:
hundreds of thousands would never return, and those who did would carry
wounds-physical, emotional, psychological- that would change their lives
forever.</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: start;" />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: start;" />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="text-align: start;">Along with historical footage, an outstanding cast of actors
reenact first-hand accounts uncovered from attics, archives, and libraries
across Britain. Performers include Daniel Mays (Ashes to Ashes), Matthew
McNulty (The Paradise), Claire Foy (Little Dorrit), Romola Garai (Emma), Alison
Steadman (Pride and Prejudice), and Brian Cox (The Bourne Supremacy). Narrated
by Olivia Colman (Broadchurch), this four-part series re-creates the
extraordinary stories of ordinary people, told in their own words."</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background: white; font-size: 1.0625rem;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="text-align: start;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AGBjQg-le4w/XTyrpAT5jMI/AAAAAAAACxU/TMRdXYobzaMl7K1-8vrkWh_uRof0BTLjQCLcBGAs/s1600/journey%2527s%2BEnd_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="314" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AGBjQg-le4w/XTyrpAT5jMI/AAAAAAAACxU/TMRdXYobzaMl7K1-8vrkWh_uRof0BTLjQCLcBGAs/s320/journey%2527s%2BEnd_.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Over three days of fighting in March of
1918, British soldiers stuck in the WWI trenches of northern France and their
commanding officers quartered below await a German attack. Raleigh (<i style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Hugo</i>‘s
Asa Butterfield), an inexperienced 19-year-old officer, had actually requested
to join C Company, led his much-beloved former school housemaster and
prospective brother-in-law Captain Stanhope (Sam Claflin). The latter tries to
hide his rattling insecurities and mask his depression in booze and the counsel
of his second in command, Osborne (Paul Bettany). Before the war, the
lieutenant was teacher and family man with a knack for holding things together,
or trying to, at least. But the brass know this will result in near-total
casualties. It’s just a matter of when the bombs are going to start falling....</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt;">The vise-like tension
grows out of the waiting, punctuated by bursts of action that achieve an
explosive impact enhanced by their brevity. The play stayed mostly with the
officers. But the film, drawing more on the later novel by Sherriff and Vernon
Bartlett, opens up the action and expands to let us see every man facing his
own individual fears....</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt;">Journey’s End</span></i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="text-align: start;"> is a bleak, sobering experience that puts audiences</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: start;" />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="text-align: start;">through a wringer. It’s also an emotional powerhouse you will
not forget." </span></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">— </span>Peter Travers, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/journeys-end-review-old-fashioned-wwi-tale-will-leave-you-shattered-203481/"><i>RollingStone</i></a><i> </i>March 16, 2017</span><br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<a class="visually-hidden skip-to-text-link" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/09/arts/television/review-the-great-war-when-america-took-the-world-stage.html?_r=0#story-continues-1" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; clip: rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px); color: #326891; display: inline !important; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; height: 1px; margin: -1px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; width: 1px;">tinue reading the main story</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">Based on Pat Barker's novel of the same name, </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;">Regeneration</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"> (later renamed </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;">Behind the Lines</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"> when released in DVD) tells the story of World War One British officers suffering from shell shock who are sent to </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">Craiglockhart Hospital, including poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">. The centerpiece of this novel/drama is the perceptive and wise physician William Rivers.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZQbD_wVfXeQ/WcKs7rXIkSI/AAAAAAAACiQ/Yz3-mp48JyQhxwsFbFTjdbMvIixmJ7mHACLcBGAs/s1600/TestamentofYouth-2015-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1200" height="166" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZQbD_wVfXeQ/WcKs7rXIkSI/AAAAAAAACiQ/Yz3-mp48JyQhxwsFbFTjdbMvIixmJ7mHACLcBGAs/s400/TestamentofYouth-2015-1.jpg" width="400" /> </a></td><td style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Testament of Youth</i></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 14pt; padding: 0in;">"Testament of
Youth</span></i><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">, </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 14pt; padding: 0in;">James Kent</span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">’s stately screen adaptation of the British
author Vera Brittain’s 1933 World War I memoir, evokes the march of history
with a balance and restraint exhibited by few movies with such grand ambitions.
Most similar films strain at the seams with bombast and sentimentality....</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">The movie is also the
stronger for having no battle sequences or scenes depicting acts of courage,
though you hear about such heroics after the fact. There are just enough shots
of life in the trenches to give a glimpse of a hell, peopled by exhausted,
mud-covered soldiers who are almost unrecognizable from the vital young men who
left Britain thinking they were bound for glory. Other scenes in army hospitals
in England and behind the lines in France are unrelievedly grim tableaus.</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">Testament of Youth</span></i><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;"> might be described as a feminist war film,
because it is saturated with Vera’s frustration at her parents’ limited
ambitions for her and later with her contempt for war. It isn’t until the end
that she delivers a scathing antiwar diatribe."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">— </span>Stephen Holden,<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/movies/review-testament-of-youth-recalls-the-great-war-with-little-nostalgia.html?referrer=google_kp">The New York Times</a> June 4,
2015</span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: x-large;">More recommendations:</span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></span>
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<div>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xIz3VcIjzVM/XTy8RpLdorI/AAAAAAAACxg/isMIVdkT5P0rSRpl0eOOu_OYoPgg3CctACLcBGAs/s1600/Deafening_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="323" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xIz3VcIjzVM/XTy8RpLdorI/AAAAAAAACxg/isMIVdkT5P0rSRpl0eOOu_OYoPgg3CctACLcBGAs/s320/Deafening_.jpg" width="207" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="color: #222222; font-family: "droid serif", georgia, serif;">"Deafening</i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "droid serif" , "georgia" , serif;"> is the story of Grania, a little girl growing up on the shores of the Bay of Quinte in southern Ontario in the early years of the 20th century, who is struck deaf by scarlet fever at the age of five. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "droid serif" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">It’s also the story of Jim, her hearing husband who, shortly after their honeymoon, leaves to play his part in the Great War in Europe. Itani’s theme throughout this quietly lovely novel is the complexity of sound and silence and how they can be both blessing and curse to the humans who experience them. "</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-size: x-large;"></span></span><br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "droid serif" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">— </span>An unnamed reviewer in <a href="https://quillandquire.com/review/deafening/">Quill and Quire</a><i>. </i>This novel is I believe one of the best novels on the war.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Franz</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">"There are a few
fits and starts, and a palette switch from black-and-white to color. But (
Francois) Ozon is onto something about nationalism, borders and a hatred of the
other that’s as timely as Trump.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Ozon’s script, adapted from a play by Maurice
Rostand written before the (Ernst) Lubitsch 1932 film (<i>Broken Lullaby)</i>, is anchored by an image of a
Frenchman putting flowers on the grave of a German soldier. The time is 1919,
just after the World War I – and the point of view has now been switched from
the French victors to the German losers. Anna, powerfully played by German star
Paula Beer, is mourning her fiancée Frantz (Anton von Lucke, in flashbacks) ,
who was killed in the trenches. She lives with her late beau’s parents, Dr.
Hans Hoffmeister (Ernst Stötzner) and his wife Magda (Marie Gruber). Anna is a
keeper of the flame, so the sight of a Gallic gent named Adrien (Pierre Niney),
the one leaving roses by Frantz’s tombstone, startles her. Dr. Hofffmeister
instinctively sees the stranger as the enemy (“all Frenchmen killed my only
son”), but slowly warms – as does Anna – to his tales of her soldier boyfriend
in Paris before the war, where the two men visited the Louvre and spent hours
discussing Manet’s painting “Le Suicidé.” Ozon keeps the homoerotic
possibilities between Adrien and Frantz as subtext. And Anna’s attraction to
this mysterious stranger leads her to follow him to Paris after they part on a
note of brutal truth.</span>"</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">— </span>Peter Travers, </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/frantz-review-french-wwi-era-mystery-takes-on-modern-nationalism-hate-116739/"><span style="font-size: large;">RollingStone</span></a>, <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">March 16, 2017</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Screen shot of one of the most electric scenes in <i>Berlin Metroplis</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="background: white; font-size: 14pt;"><i>"Babylon Berlin</i></span><span style="background: white; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="text-align: start;"> (on Netflix) is an exhilarating, gritty sixteen-part
series that is a mash-up of genres. On the most basic level, it is a propulsive
police procedural and political thriller that has been adapted from the crime
novel of the same name by Volker Kutscher (Picador, translated in 2016), the
first in a series planned by the author culminating with the 1938
<i>Kristallnacht</i>. More importantly, the drama – reportedly the most expensive
German television production involving three directors in every episode – is a
vivid evocation of 1929 Berlin accented with film noir a few months before the
crash of the American stock market. Ten years after the end of the Great War
veterans still carry its scars; the war's consequences accelerate extremist
politics from the left and the right threatening the rule of law and
destabilizing the fragility of the Weimar Republic; pockets of poverty in the
city remain with its attendant political and social ramifications, particularly
for vulnerable women; and the attempt to blot out a humiliating defeat and for
most Germans a shameful peace treaty explain in part its frenetic cultural,
social and sexual life. Very little of the political, social and cultural
tapestry of Berlin portrayed in the series is based on the novel. The series
other strength is its focus on character development that enables the actors to
grow into their roles and deliver strong performances."</span></span><span style="color: #706f6f; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">— </span><span style="text-align: start;">Robert Douglas, <i><a href="http://www.thatlineofdarkness.com/2018/03/crime-politics-and-spectacle-netflixs.html">Critics at Large</a></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="text-align: start;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 14pt; padding: 0in;">"Metropolis</span></em><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> is the 14th book in the critically acclaimed and
award-winning Bernie Gunther series from the late Philip Kerr. However, this
tale is more a prequel as it outlines the early years of a young Bernie as a
detective in Berlin, unaware of the horrors that will await him in the coming
days.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vP4yIowjSnY/XW0kl6Xrj6I/AAAAAAAADBw/yw8JG2q16no0sbfKBXCxQswbUgYiU9GZgCLcBGAs/s1600/metropolis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vP4yIowjSnY/XW0kl6Xrj6I/AAAAAAAADBw/yw8JG2q16no0sbfKBXCxQswbUgYiU9GZgCLcBGAs/s1600/metropolis.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: start;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: start;">It is 1928 and Berlin is a modern Babylon, bursting with artistic
creativity as well as unprecedented sexual freedom, yet also witnessing of
virulent anti-Semitism, anti-immigration, and anti-gay fervor, and street
battles between political extremists on the right and the left</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-align: start;"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">. </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: start;">The Weimar Republic is
nearing its end, and a monster called Hitler is about to make his appearance....</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Like Bernie, Berlin’s people are still suffering from the
devastating psychic and physical wounds of World War I, with which he is only
too well acquainted from his hell on the Western Front. Even mundane things
like cigar smoke still brings flashbacks of the bloody nightmare of four years
of trench warfare....<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<span style="background: white; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="text-align: start;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<em><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 14pt; padding: 0in;">Metropolis</span></em><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> is
Kerr’s and Bernie’s swan song—a brilliant Berlin opera...with an intricate and
riveting plot. And just like Fritz Lang’s <em><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Metropolis</span></em>, Philip
Kerr’s <em><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Metropolis</span></em> is a masterpiece."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">— </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Sam Millar, <a href="https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/metropolis-bernie-gunther-novel">New York Journal of Books</a></span></div>
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Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-78313767639396377692019-09-16T09:25:00.001-04:002019-09-25T23:00:50.978-04:00Redeeming the Past in Alexi Zentner's Copperhead and Eli Saslow's Rising Out of Hatred<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="426" shrinktofit="true" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HkIr2RSZrtk/XYqBBpEV6HI/AAAAAAAAqzA/vxs-ECAUFbsl0cQVES2LJHRdtXD9rwUwgCK4BGAYYCw/s640/Laurie%2BWillick%252C%2BViking.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Author Alexi Zenter. (Photo: Laurie Willick, Viking)Add caption</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">Alexi Zentner's, </span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;"><i>Copperhead</i></span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">,<i> </i>spins several threads that eventually knit together. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">Although
the President's name is</span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">mentioned only
twice, in reference to the Woman's March that occurred shortly after his
inauguration, the novel is firmly ensconced in the Trump era where racial and
class tensions have been exacerbated. The novel's incendiary language exploits
these divisions mirroring the raw rhetoric the President deploys in his rallies
and almost daily tweets.</span><b style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;"> </b><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">There is </span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">an incisive exploration of toxic race relations and the
stigma associated with being labeled as so-called "white trash." It
is also an investigation about the relationship between the alt-right and the
religious right in America. Throughout, a teenager navigates through these
treacherous landmines, makes a serious mistake and as an adult attempts to
address it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;">In a gripping third-person narrative relayed in bite-size
chapters that<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;">unfolds over a few days, Zentner introduces us to Jessup, a
high-school senior living in a small community in upstate New York "where
history is everything." Despite being raised by a single mom on a limited
income and living in a trailer-park home, Jessup maintains good grades and
works at the local movie theatre when he is not hunting to supply food for his
family. Perhaps most importantly, he excels at athletics. Even though some of his
classmates dismiss him as "born into the wrong family," even a Nazi,
he is a standout football player and has the possibility of acquiring an Ivy
League football scholarship.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zrPzrAoXjMk/XX-Fo9TGNWI/AAAAAAAADDE/QAQ4sby-ffwOP8QVaSA31JtpQ1UKb10-ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/copperhead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="931" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zrPzrAoXjMk/XX-Fo9TGNWI/AAAAAAAADDE/QAQ4sby-ffwOP8QVaSA31JtpQ1UKb10-ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/copperhead.jpg" width="248" /></a><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt;">The novel opens on an important playoff game with a college
scout sitting in the stands. More anxiety-provoking for Jessup is that
his white-supremacist stepfather, David John, is also in attendance.
He has just been released from prison where he was serving time along with
Jessup’s older brother for the manslaughter deaths of two Black
college students who had objected to their racist tattoos that included
"pure blood" and "Rahowa," an acronym for "racial holy
war."</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;">When David John returns, he expects Jessup to attend
services at the Blessed Church of White America, which he considers a
community, a place "to lift you up." It is also a private compound in
which a militia is preparing for the coming race war. Jessup has not attended <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>since his brother and stepfather went to
prison, in part because he is dating the coach's daughter who is biracial and
also because he feels quietly uneasy about the racist message preached by his
uncle Earl. To voice his displeasure would likely offend his family and his
best friend and he does not want any friction with them because they have been
a source of stability. Yet he has imbibed their racist attitudes so it is
unsurprising that Jessup indulges in offensive language such as uttering
"boy" when addressing an African-American football player named
Corson from the opposing team.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;">Zentner offers on balance a generous portrayal of Jessup given
his youth, support for his immediate family and his capacity for hard work and
discipline. At the same time, the author is fair minded about David John because,
despite the racist edge in much of what he says, he is presented as a genuinely
good father deeply concerned about the welfare of his family, encouraging
Jessup to take responsibility for his actions and seemingly determined to seek
redemption for his own personal demons. The reader warms to him particularly
late in the novel when he distances himself from the white supremacist ideology
embodied by his brother, Earl, and is willing to accept diversity in ways that would have
been foreign to him earlier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;">The narrative kicks into high gear when Jessup has a post-game
altercation with Corson whom he had earlier mocked. It escalates into something
worse, and this tragedy sets in motion a sequence of events that spirals out of
his control. When he talks to police officers, even a sympathetic one who
refers to protestors as "Black Lives terrorists," Jessup continually
denies that he has done anything wrong. But what is happening within himself
suggests otherwise. His frequent nightmares and his growing awareness that he should
have an honest conversation with himself<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>but is afraid to are planting the seeds for his later need to atone. Conflicted,
Jessup has a hard time listening to his African-American coach </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt;"> the voice of
wisdom and compassion in the novel </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt;"> who reminds him that Jessup "can't
hide from (his) history (and his) heritage."</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;">When the pastor, his uncle Earl, who is appallingly racist in
his private conversations, contacts a media-savvy, well-groomed local
university student named Brandon Rogers </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">— </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt;">the inspiration for the novel's title </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt;">a shift in the tone of </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><i style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt;">Copperhead</i><b style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt;">
</b><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt;">occurs. It veers at times from a complex three-dimensional character-driven
narrative into an action-driven melodrama that focuses on Brandon </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt;">and his craving for inflammatory publicity.
Even for those who may share his politics, I think Brandon would be hard to
like. An opportunist, he has the facility for exploiting a tragedy by enlisting
the media whom he actually despises: "I call and they come running....They
know I am ratings gold." He spins a narrative before the cameras that gins
up support for Jessup by dishonestly casting Corson as "a trouble maker, a
common thug menacing a boy who did nothing wrong" and labeling the
investigation of Jessup as "nothing more than a witch hunt" and the
local police and legal authorities as "cowering behind political
correctness." An embarrassed and angry Jessup is likely right when he
comes to wonder whether Brandon's only motive is to enhance his own personal
profile. Jessup's African-American coach accurately and succinctly captures the
essence of the insidious spokesman for the alt- right when he informs Jessup:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="426" shrinktofit="true" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M1DQn44woUg/XYqCq7MFeZI/AAAAAAAAqzk/A2qVgQBMbqAY4oEFB90HfZsroVAhakibACK4BGAYYCw/s640/WHITEN%257E1.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">A scene for the the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on Aug. 12, 2017. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;">Brandon looks at
black people and doesn't even think of them as people...I have
seen him on the news, and he does not use the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">N</i>-word. Doesn't <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>blames
Jews or Mexicans. He does it nice and subtle. A dog whistle. Says 'urban violence' or 'thug culture' but
we all know what it means. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;">Even though it may be problematic to compare a fictional
character with a real-life individual, Brandon evokes the university-educated
white supremacist, Richard Spencer, who purportedly coined the term alt-right
and whose goal is to offer an intellectual veneer to a racist movement. He
attended the 2016 Republican Convention and a week after Trump's inauguration delivered
in Washington a rabble-rousing keynote address to supporters who offered the
Nazi salute at its conclusion. He was also an organizer for the 2017 Unite the
Right rally in Charlottesville that ended with the murder of Heather Heyer, a
tragedy that is fictionalized in <i>Copperhead</i>.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;">Some reviewers have been skeptical of the novel's final
thrust. If they are referring to an episode that has the whiff of a
conspiratorial thriller, I can accept the criticism. Writing in a realist mode
and then to suddenly switch into something that could have come out of the thrill-a-minute television series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Homeland </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is implausible. But
the epilogue set over twelve years later in which Jessup is attempting to atone
for his crime by speaking out, I do find plausible and not a liberal fantasy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 4.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v0WvQ11n4Vg/XX-HDACc-BI/AAAAAAAADDQ/jBreWNxA47ESlIo9qoxf4WaKcpBLGJ1GACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/derek%2Bblack%2Band%2Bfather%2BDon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v0WvQ11n4Vg/XX-HDACc-BI/AAAAAAAADDQ/jBreWNxA47ESlIo9qoxf4WaKcpBLGJ1GACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/derek%2Bblack%2Band%2Bfather%2BDon.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Derek and Don Black</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span>Jessup's
story reminded me of Derek Black, the real-life white supremacist, who was willing
publicly acknowledge his participation in the promulgation of a poisonous
ideology, one that is carefully documented in <i>Rising Out Of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist</i>
by Eli Saslow, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Washington Post</i>. Derek's godfather is the former Grand Wizard
of the Ku Klux Klan, and his father, Don, founded the infamous Stormfront, a
White Supremacist, anti-Semitic, Holocaust denial internet forum. Among the most notorious that were radicalized were Anders Behring Brevik who killed seventy-seven people, mostly teenagers and Dylann Roof who murdered nine African
Americans in 2015 at a Charleston Church. Before he was even a teenager, Derek created a video game for kids in which they could shoot watermelons at black people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 4.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 4.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Derek joined his father in a talk radio show
but slowly began to wean himself from this noxious ideology </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0px;">—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -0.5in;"> much of it voiced in <i>Copperhead </i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0px;">—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -0.5in;">in large
part when he attended a liberal arts college. His notorious reputation was well
known there and he was ostracized by many of the students, but several
individuals, including Jews, reached out to him. He also fell in love with a
woman who became his moral compass. He gradually repudiated the ideology,
changed his name and attempted to live a quiet life without publicity but reversed
his position after the election of Trump. He wrote a compelling piece in </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/opinion/sunday/why-i-left-white-nationalism.html?module=inline" style="text-indent: -0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The New York Times</span></i></a><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>and agreed to cooperate with Saslow in order to tell his story in large
part because he believed that he had contributed to the racist divide that was
roiling America. He paid the price by forfeiting the support of most of his
family with the notable exception of his father, Don, who participated in the
book project even though he remains a committed white nationalist.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-02xKc6BiT68/XX-ITUmFEdI/AAAAAAAADDk/7rU5WiXO9j0gXA-l_EBgrQ6XVBb527n7wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/rising%2Bout%2Bof%2Bhatred.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1061" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-02xKc6BiT68/XX-ITUmFEdI/AAAAAAAADDk/7rU5WiXO9j0gXA-l_EBgrQ6XVBb527n7wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/rising%2Bout%2Bof%2Bhatred.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 4.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 4.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Granted the specifics of the two individuals
differ </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0px;">—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -0.5in;"> one was seeking redemption for a serious mistake that turned into a crime
while the other was attempting to atone for a virulent ideology that he helped
to disseminate </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0px;">—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -0.5in;"> but the basic lineaments remain similar. Both men had been
cocooned in a family and community bubble, and as teenagers never challenged
that worldview. Circumstances changed in Derek's case with the unexpected
seismic shift in the national political landscape. Personal rather than wider
political issues prompted Jessup's family to move out of state. Both retained
close ties with at least one family member and Jessup only lost the friendship
of his closest friend and retained the scorn of his older brother in prison who
remained an unrepentant racist. Finally it took greater maturity, support from
others, and geographical distance for them to either repudiate or apologize for
past actions. Jessup acknowledged his role in the death of a young man, navigated
his way through the justice system and spent much time talking about the
incident and its aftermath, as well as the white-supremacist church, which he
now disavows, and still is overwhelmed by guilt that he obtained a second chance while
Corson did not.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 4.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 4.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both books
deserve a large readership and public and private discussion. If anything they
demonstrate that a community is not generic or homogeneous, and that it cannot
be stereotyped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1067146614825058182.post-45217365940023659422019-08-08T09:19:00.000-04:002019-10-14T13:40:53.721-04:00Humanity Challenged: A Thematic Overview<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline; float: none;"><span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">For the next eight weeks I will be highlighting on this site an overview of talks on the topic "Humanity Challenged" that I will be presenting for Learning Unlimited. Quotations have been sometimes lightly edited and are sourced whenever possible. </span></i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline; float: none;"><i>Most of the longer quotations a</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline; float: none;"><i>re linked to the complete article. </i></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline; float: none;"><i> </i></span></span><span style="color: white;">d</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: white; font-size: 24pt;"></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">"People who lack empathy see others as mere objects."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">― </span><span style="font-size: large;">Baron Simon-Cohen, <i>Zero Degrees of Empathy</i>, 2011</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Hatred is the vice of narrow souls. They feed with
all their smallness.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> They use it as an excuse for their vile tyrannies.”</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">― Balzac</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">“Genocide is a process. The Holocaust did not start with the
gas chambers. It started with hate speech.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">― Adama Dieng, the UN’s
Special Advisor on the prevention
of Genocide</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“We are, I know not how, double in
ourselves, so that what we believe, we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of
what we condemn.”<br />
― Michel de Montaigne</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">"<span style="color: #181818;">Forgiveness allows us to actually let us go of the pain in the
memory. And if we let go of the pain in the memory we can have the memory
but it doesn't control us. I think it's the fact that when memory controls us,
we are then puppets of the past."</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #181818; font-size: large;">― Alexandra
Asseily, psychotherapist in Lebanon</span><br />
<span style="background: white; color: #181818; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -24px;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Conditions that challenge one’s humanity:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">•<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>A
lack of integrity or moral compass, and the inability to respect and
demonstrate empathy for others</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">•<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>A
desire for revenge or to get even</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">•<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>The
inability to forgive</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">•<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>The
willingness to inflict harm on others physically or emotionally through
exploitation, humiliation or ridicule</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">•<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>The
unwillingness to accept personal responsibility</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">•<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>A
disregard for the rule of law, a free press and an independent judiciary</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CxZle__yPjw/XTtKoF0M6uI/AAAAAAAACvg/8vOvjrRcFykAkRHRZZ1sKdl-4gHtWGRZQCLcBGAs/s1600/the%2BLucifer%2Beffect.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="display: inline; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-indent: -0.25in;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1001" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CxZle__yPjw/XTtKoF0M6uI/AAAAAAAACvg/8vOvjrRcFykAkRHRZZ1sKdl-4gHtWGRZQCLcBGAs/s320/the%2BLucifer%2Beffect.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; text-indent: 0px;"> “</span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; text-indent: 0px;">The most dramatic instances of directed behavior change and "mind control" are not the consequence of exotic forms of influence, such as hypnosis, psychotropic drugs, or "brainwashing," but rather the systematic manipulation of the most mundane aspects of human nature over time in confining settings.” </span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="color: #181818; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;">“Fear is the State's psychological weapon of choice to frighten citizens into sacrificing their basic freedoms and rule-of-law protections in exchange for the security promised by their all-powerful government.” </span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background: white; color: #181818; line-height: 115%;">― </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 115%;">Philip G. Zimbardo</span><span style="background: white; color: #181818; line-height: 115%;">, <i>The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People
Turn Evil</i></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kAE-VBKLIyw/XTtK_h5kqZI/AAAAAAAACvo/oxCNQuJfbG4mqW2ivAUDcwHTRwkk9Y8bwCLcBGAs/s1600/stanford-prison-experiment-600x200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="600" height="132" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kAE-VBKLIyw/XTtK_h5kqZI/AAAAAAAACvo/oxCNQuJfbG4mqW2ivAUDcwHTRwkk9Y8bwCLcBGAs/s400/stanford-prison-experiment-600x200.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">The Stanford Experiment</span></i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; line-height: 18.4px; text-indent: 0px;"><i style="font-size: 12pt;"> </i><span style="font-size: large;">“This film is a fascinating, revealing, upsetting experience. A movie about the real-life 1971 Stanford prison experiment could have been sadistic and unwatchable, but director Kyle Patrick Alvarez's clinical approach focuses on realism and psychological drama rather than on thrills. Alvarez doesn't try to professionally polish the prison setting; instead, it has a functional, homemade look that makes it feel more immediate. The way the characters wear their hair and clothes - and the way they carry themselves - contributes to what feels like an authentic period piece.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-indent: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">”</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-indent: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mPJOUg1le9g/XWU25ieG2DI/AAAAAAAAC_0/K9cPdm4uSKYEogS1OooXkvSMXH5JTidIACLcBGAs/s1600/experimenter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mPJOUg1le9g/XWU25ieG2DI/AAAAAAAAC_0/K9cPdm4uSKYEogS1OooXkvSMXH5JTidIACLcBGAs/s320/experimenter.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: , "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: 20px; text-indent: 0px;"> "In <i>Experimenter</i>, an aesthetically and intellectually playful portrait of the social psychologist Stanley Milgram, the director, Michael Almereyda, turns a biopic into a mind game. It’s an appropriate take on a figure who’s best remembered for his experiments in which subjects delivered punishing electric shocks on command. Working in the shadow of the Holocaust, and shortly after the capture of the SS official Adolf Eichmann, Milgram (1933-1984) was interested in questions of authority, conformity and conscience. 'Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders,' Milgram asked. 'Could we call them all accomplices?'"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">―</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: , "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 20px;"> Manohia Dargis, October 15, 2015, <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/movies/review-in-experimenter-are-they-following-orders-or-instincts.html?referrer=google_kp">The New York Times</a>.</i></span></span> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oegm1H6-j9g/XTtql3Q3L3I/AAAAAAAACwY/UpIaj_jtU48IMilkAdyGKp7pvd2v1HN7QCLcBGAs/s1600/george%2Borwell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="710" data-original-width="480" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oegm1H6-j9g/XTtql3Q3L3I/AAAAAAAACwY/UpIaj_jtU48IMilkAdyGKp7pvd2v1HN7QCLcBGAs/s200/george%2Borwell.jpg" width="135" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">See the article in the <i>Washington Post </i>for the relevance of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/why-orwells-1984-matters-so-much-now/2017/01/25/3cf81964-e313-11e6-a453-19ec4b3d09ba_story.html?utm_term=.5f88f374f652">George Orwell</a> in our age of fake news and alternative facts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -24px;">"It’s not too far off of a comparison to say Trump’s rallies mirror in many ways George Orwell’s depiction of the “two-minutes hate” from his novel <i>1984</i>, in which adherents to the party in that book shout and act violently toward images of Big Brother’s enemies.”</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.4667px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Toni Morrison</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;"> “Oppressive
language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than
represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring
state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud
but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of
science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language
designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its
literary cheek – it must be rejected, altered and exposed....</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10pt; text-align: right; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: right; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;"> It is the language that drinks blood, laps
vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and
patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out
mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language – all are typical of
the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or
encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">— Toni Morrison delivering her 1993
acceptance speech after winning the Nobel prize for literature</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> In the US, studies
show that in 2015 and 2016, hate crimes</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> and attacks against Muslims
skyrocketed. According to a 2017 Pew
Research center analysis, which relied on FBI statistics, assaults on Muslims have “easily
surpassed” post-9/11 levels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">— Alexia Underwood, <i>Vox, </i>April 6, 2018</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><br />
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"America
was, until the last century, a white country designed for us and for our
posterity. It is our creation , it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us. To
be white is to be a striver, a crusader, an explorer, and a conqueror. We build. We go upward. We do, and other groups don’t. We don’t gain anything from
their presence.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">— Richard
Spencer speaking in Washington a week after Donald Trump's Inauguration ending with his supporters giving the Nazi salute<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;">"Jews will not replace us; blacks will not replace us;
immigrants will not replace us!” </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Charlottesville 2017 in which Heather Hyer is killed</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W9I8ssElf8g/XUwfW_KumLI/AAAAAAAAC-4/eQtYbQ6uS8kpINtBR1YvT48mz9dGY0dpACLcBGAs/s1600/trump%2Bwords.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W9I8ssElf8g/XUwfW_KumLI/AAAAAAAAC-4/eQtYbQ6uS8kpINtBR1YvT48mz9dGY0dpACLcBGAs/s320/trump%2Bwords.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> In June 2018, Trump tweeted the following:“Democrats
are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no
matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13.
They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential
voters!”</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">— Cited in a </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/opinion/trump-el-paso-shooting-nationalism.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage" style="font-size: 18.6667px; text-indent: -0.25in;">column</a><span style="font-size: 18.6667px; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">written by Bret
Stephens in </span><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;"><i>The</i> <i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">New
York Times</i></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">after the mass killing in El Paso, Texas. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"I’m always thinking about how we move from a moment of propaganda and hateful rhetoric to how that translates into reactions and then
ultimately into hate crimes or genocide.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">— Ausma Zehanat Khan</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uopRo2MAQUA/XTsVb8yu8JI/AAAAAAAACvA/dsXigfbFIUE8cgAHehHoxZVLu6DHrqsHACLcBGAs/s1600/deadly%2Bdivide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="497" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uopRo2MAQUA/XTsVb8yu8JI/AAAAAAAACvA/dsXigfbFIUE8cgAHehHoxZVLu6DHrqsHACLcBGAs/s200/deadly%2Bdivide.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #191919; text-indent: -0.25in;">In </span><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #191919; line-height: inherit; text-indent: -0.25in;">A Deadly Divide</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #191919; text-indent: -0.25in;">, as in her previous four novels that investigate global issues, Khan deploys the police procedural to explore far-right nationalism, including the toxic online radicalization. Inspired by the 2017 Quebec City shooting at a mosque, her novel opens with a mass shooting in a Quebec community. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #191919; text-indent: -0.25in;">With a PhD in international human rights law, she has the confidence to tackle these difficult issues and render them accessible for readers of the genre.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9imQrjeVncI/XTsVtYETnaI/AAAAAAAACvI/fZ7HYTi-RcQ62l_u6f0VKjM-eXPOrH4-wCLcBGAs/s1600/derek%2Bblack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="480" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9imQrjeVncI/XTsVtYETnaI/AAAAAAAACvI/fZ7HYTi-RcQ62l_u6f0VKjM-eXPOrH4-wCLcBGAs/s320/derek%2Bblack.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Derek Black</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> “I was born into a prominent white </span><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;">nationalist family —
David Duke is my godfather, and my dad started Stormfront, the first major
white nationalist website — and I was once considered the bright future of the
movement…Several years ago, I began attending a liberal college where my
presence prompted huge controversy. Through many talks with devoted and diverse
people there — people who chose to invite me into their dorms and conversations
rather than ostracize me — I began to realize the damage I had done. Ever
since, I have been trying to make up for it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">— Derek Black, “Why I Left White Nationalism,”<i> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/opinion/sunday/why-i-left-white-nationalism.html?module=inline">The New York Times</a>,</i></span><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -0.25in;"> November 26,
2016</span></div>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EZzc69C0fT8/XTsWfAGtbiI/AAAAAAAACvQ/7LK-RJsfSHsdTs72gHr_NJdMkoIsQGaRACLcBGAs/s1600/rising%2Bout%2Bof%2Bhatred.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1061" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EZzc69C0fT8/XTsWfAGtbiI/AAAAAAAACvQ/7LK-RJsfSHsdTs72gHr_NJdMkoIsQGaRACLcBGAs/s200/rising%2Bout%2Bof%2Bhatred.jpg" width="132" /></a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/books/review/eli-saslow-rising-out-of-hatred.html" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; text-indent: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">See an excellent </span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/books/review/eli-saslow-rising-out-of-hatred.html" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; text-indent: 0px;">review</a><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> of </span></span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Rising Out of Hatred</span></i><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GtqfBpbnyc4/XTxkYeo2z7I/AAAAAAAACwk/p_YmDcuKKkIlmYEz1qDuAjjtjXcGbheegCLcBGAs/s1600/where%2Bto%2Binvade%2Bnext.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="192" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GtqfBpbnyc4/XTxkYeo2z7I/AAAAAAAACwk/p_YmDcuKKkIlmYEz1qDuAjjtjXcGbheegCLcBGAs/s1600/where%2Bto%2Binvade%2Bnext.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;">The power of forgiveness is illustrated in Michael Moore's film <i>Where to Invade Next </i>when Moore interviews the father of a son killed by a white supremacist in Norway</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><b>Books and Films</b></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify;">I highly recommend the novel, </span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; text-align: justify;">The Little Red Chairs</i><i style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; text-align: justify;">,</i></span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: x-large; text-align: justify;"> </i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">by <a href="http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2016/06/the-demonic-and-vulnerable-in-edna.html">Edna O'Brien</a> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">for its searching exploration of how the humanity of one of the central characters is severely damaged and how another finds the capacity to reclaim her own</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: large; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">"Alexi Zentner's, </span><b style="font-size: 14pt;">Copperhead</b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">,</span><i style="font-size: 14pt;"> </i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">spins several threads that eventually knit together. </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Although
the President's name is</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">mentioned only
twice, in reference to the Woman's March that occurred shortly after his inauguration,
the novel is firmly ensconced in the Trump era where racial and class tensions
have been exacerbated. The novel's incendiary language exploits these divisions
mirroring the raw rhetoric the President deploys in his rallies and almost
daily tweets.</span><b style="font-size: 14pt;"> </b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">There is </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">an
incisive exploration of toxic race relations and the stigma associated with
being labeled as so-called 'white trash.' It is also an
investigation about the relationship between the alt-right and the religious
right in America. Throughout, a teenager navigates through these
treacherous landmines, makes a serious mistake and as an adult attempts to
address it."</span> </span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large; text-indent: -24px;">—</span>Robert Douglas, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1067146614825058182&pli=1#editor/target=post;postID=7831376763939637769;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=postname">full review</a></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;">"Anyone who has spent 48 minutes on the
phone waiting for a customer service representative can identify with the
mounting impatience of the title character in Ken Loach’s scalding cinematic
outcry, <span style="border: 1pt none; color: #326891; padding: 0in;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahWgxw9E_h4" style="text-size-adjust: 100%;" target="_blank" title="">“I, Daniel Blake.'</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt;">That’s how long Daniel, a 59-year-old widowed carpenter
recovering from a heart attack, waits to connect with a government
representative in the first of many infuriating phone calls. Multiply that
frustration a hundredfold, and you can imagine the Kafkian nightmare that
Daniel endures as he seeks the restoration of his employment and support
allowance from the British state after it was mysteriously taken away. Treated
with suspicion, hostility and barely disguised contempt by low-level government
officials, Daniel is required to supply exhaustive proof of his disability and
of his futile job search.....</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vOUR-_IvICk/XXotaS3UctI/AAAAAAAADC4/bOL0i3MJBVo5SkijvSTtDi0yRYxnG67FACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/daniel%2Bblake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="188" data-original-width="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vOUR-_IvICk/XXotaS3UctI/AAAAAAAADC4/bOL0i3MJBVo5SkijvSTtDi0yRYxnG67FACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/daniel%2Bblake.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I Daniel Blake</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.4667px;">What makes the pain of this film bearable is Daniel’s unquenchable decency, courage and perseverance: Mr. (Dave) Johns, who....portrays (Daniel) as a genuine working-class hero with a deep streak of kindness and generosity, a besieged Everyman who reacts to injustice and humiliation with fuming indignation. He refuses to surrender to despair.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: small;">"</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: -24px;">— </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Stephen Holden, <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/movies/i-daniel-blake-review-ken-loach.html?referrer=google_kp">The New York Times</a> </i>December 22, 2016</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #212121; font-size: large; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">After suffering a heart attack on stage, Daniel Dareus retires from
conducting and moves back to a small village in Norrland where he spent some
years as a boy. It doesn't take long before Daniel agrees to conduct the local
choir and the effect is transformative for both him and the choir members.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #212121;">"A beautifully crafted film with some outstanding
performances. It tells a very human story with fully realized characters but it
is also a story about community and art. The choir can only achieve harmony by
being open and honest with themselves and each other. It is a meditation on the
relationship between art and organized religion." (Unable to locate the source of this quotation.)</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YDtClsWi0uI/Wb17tqV3JEI/AAAAAAAACgA/DLWv5aks1okoWv3n1xeqWcWp8Yiipiq8ACLcBGAs/s1600/in%2Ba%2Bbetter%2Bworld%2B4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="251" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YDtClsWi0uI/Wb17tqV3JEI/AAAAAAAACgA/DLWv5aks1okoWv3n1xeqWcWp8Yiipiq8ACLcBGAs/s1600/in%2Ba%2Bbetter%2Bworld%2B4.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: large;">Set in modern day Denmark and what is likely South Sudan <i>In a Better World</i> dramatizes the responses to acts of aggression, whether it is from a warlord, a schoolyard bully or a belligerent mechanic. What makes the film so exceptional is that it questions the inadequacy of passivity and the need for vengeance. The film also illuminates the responses to grief and loss, and the process of healing.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #404040; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">"</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">(Director
Susanne) Bier weaves an intricate and sensitive portrait of masculinity and the
complexities of male bravado. At what point must you stand up and protect
yourself, and what does it mean to stand up and be there better man? And more
importantly, what are the dangers of unbridled machismo? Bier explores here
themes with dignity and grace, even if they're often a bit too tidy and well
defined. The film exists squarely in a world gone mad, but the surroundings
almost seem too precise. It's undoubtedly a beautiful film, impeccably crafted
and executed, but at times it's almost to a fault.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br style="outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;" />
<br style="outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;" />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Nevertheless, Bier handles tricky emotional territory with
great skill, creating a solid drama with the heart of a great thriller. Her
young stars are astonishingly good, and bear the brunt of the film's
considerable emotional weight as it builds to a shattering climax. While it may
lose a bit of steam afterward, it skillfully <span class="fbprotectedwrapper"><span style="outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;"><span style="outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;"><span id="app2558160538_extraReview781724451_771206479More" style="outline: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">juxtaposes outdated
masculine ideas versus contemporary societal responsibilities in a consistently
engaging way. Bier's bow may be a bit too neatly tied where it should be ragged
around the edges, but this is really compelling, and ultimately thought
provoking stuff."<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="fbprotectedwrapper"><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large; text-indent: -24px;">— </span>Matthew Lucas, <a href="http://www.fromthefrontrow.net/2011/04/review-in-better-world.html">From the Front Row</a>, April
2, 2011</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: grey; font-size: 14.0pt;">"On first
introduction, Ove (Rolf Lassgård) is a grumbling, busybody stickler whose
pedantic neighbourhood rule enforcement and chastisement is likely to be
interpreted as over-the-top. The dry comedy of the establishing scenes is
effectively heightened by a signature musical motif, a technique similarly
employed in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Lady in the Van. </em>Like
its British relative, <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">A Man Called
Ove </em>is a hilarious character study. Ove is a delightfully
cantankerous man and even has his own damning catchphrase frequently directed
at those who cross him, yet by the film’s end a complex and sympathetic
portrait has </span><br />
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0MzZKKjbQNI/Wc6-pNGN3BI/AAAAAAAACjw/pM4bLH_SaiYhdgoacXZj98c6loLU8aHvwCLcBGAs/s1600/a%2Bman%2Bcalled%2Bove.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; font-size: 1.0625rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0MzZKKjbQNI/Wc6-pNGN3BI/AAAAAAAACjw/pM4bLH_SaiYhdgoacXZj98c6loLU8aHvwCLcBGAs/s320/a%2Bman%2Bcalled%2Bove.jpg" width="213" /></a><span style="color: grey; font-size: 14.0pt;">been woven.</span></div>
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<span style="color: grey; font-size: 14.0pt;">Through flashbacks Hannes Holm
gradually reconciles the present day Ove with his milder younger self (Filip
Berg). Though this is hardly an original technique (the more sentimental and
idealised <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Notebook</em> is
almost identically structured), <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">A Man
Called Ove </em>creates a remarkable and unprecedented level of
understanding and empathy for its protagonist. By the credits you might just
wish Ove was your own neighbour.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A
Man Called Ove </span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">is told with love and care, and a level
of craftsmanship that would make Ove proud. This epic of a life and those it
touches advocates for tolerance and breaking down prejudices - surely there is
no more worthwhile or timely message. Swedish cinema triumphs again."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">— </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rachel Brook, <strong><span style="color: grey;"><a href="https://oneroomwithaview.com/2017/06/30/man-called-ove-eiff-2016-review/">One
Room with a View</a>, </span></strong>June 30, 2017 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Robert A. Douglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10014493684700663399noreply@blogger.com3