(NAME-MCE) Name-mce Digest, Vol 721, Issue 1

mukh at email.sjsu.edu mukh at email.sjsu.edu
Wed Jan 30 17:20:08 EST 2008



Can anyone suggest simulations, like the ones on race [Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes]
that are available or that people use to teach about sexism and gender
discrimination?

Carol Mukhopadhyay

Quoting name-mce-request at nameorg.org:

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> Today's Topics:
> 
>    1. Re:  Parents complain lesson on racism was too upsetting
>       (dee36392 at msn.com)
>    2.  Real Origins of Clinton as The first Black President
>       (Tracey de Morsella (formerly Tracey L. Minor))
>    3. Re:  Parents complain lesson on racism was too upsetting
>       (Bill Howe)
>    4.  [Fwd: Morrison -Clinton as the first black president - ]
>       (Tracey de Morsella (formerly Tracey L. Minor))
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:07:21 +0000
> From: dee36392 at msn.com
> Subject: Re: (NAME-MCE) Parents complain lesson on racism was too
> 	upsetting
> To: "NAME-MCE - National Association for Multicultural Education
> 	EmailDiscussion Group" <name-mce at nameorg.org>
> Message-ID: <BAY136-DAV406AD259F02F7F3D38F739C350 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
> 
> This teacher should have known better. This is no different than the bkue
> eyes/brown eyes activity which has cost some teachers their jobs!
>         
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Anselmo Villanueva" <anselmo.villanueva at gmail.com>
> 
> Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:55:55 
> To:name-mce at nameorg.org
> Subject: (NAME-MCE) Parents complain lesson on racism was too upsetting
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Parents complain lesson on racism was too upsetting
> 
> A Martin Luther King Jr. Day lesson about racism and segregation angered
> some Idaho parents, who said the exercise was too upsetting to their
> children. Fifth-graders were assigned to a yellow or green group and told
> not to talk to or use the same bathroom as anyone in the other group. One
> teacher said he has included the lesson in his class for 16 years with no
> complaints. Times-News, The (Twin Falls, Idaho) (01/23)
> 
> Complete story below.
> 
> http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2008/01/23/news/local_state/129254.txt
> 
> School exercise draws heat
> 
> Jerome parent says MLK Day activity went too far for fifth-graders
> By Andrea Gates
> Times-News writer  Twin Falls ID
> 
> A Martin Luther King Day lesson intended to teach hundreds of fifth-grade
> students about racism, segregation and tolerance was more disturbing than
> educational, one parent said.
> 
> About 200 to 225 fifth graders from Summit Elementary were randomly assigned
> a color, yellow or green, and teachers told them not to talk to peers of
> different colors. Bathrooms were segregated, and videos about the issue were
> also shown to kids, said school staff.
> 
> The exercise deeply disturbed some students, said Mike Stokes, the parent of
> a 10-year-old.
> 
> "It kind of blew me away. I found her lying in her room crying," said
> Stokes. "I don't feel that's the right way to teach."
> 
> Stokes said he heard some students threw things like pencils and paper at
> others.
> 
> Principal Alice Hocklander, however, said she had no knowledge that things
> were thrown.
> 
> Not all fifth-grade teachers chose to participate in the activity, which was
> done last year with sixth-graders. Monday was the first time it was done
> with fifth-graders, school staff said.
> 
> Stokes said he also heard that during the exercise teachers called some
> students names, such as "stupid."
> 
> One teacher, John Derr, said he has done the exercise for 16 years without
> any complaints.
> 
> "I didn't observe nor hear the word stupid," said Derr, who is also a
> part-time sports writer for the Times-News.
> 
> Derr said the exercise was meant to bring alive the lesson of King, and to
> show students what it's like to be judged by color rather than character.
> Teachers also had discussions with their students about feelings after the
> exercise.
> 
> Most students understood what was going on and went along with it, but a few
> got a little emotional, Derr said. So teachers reminded them it was just an
> exercise and told them not to take it personally. But some fifth-graders
> seemed more emotional about the exercise than past classes have been, he
> said.
> 
> "What we're trying to do is teach a message," said Derr. "As educators,
> sometimes we can talk a lot about a particular topic, but for the students
> to actually experience it, that's the greatest teacher."
> 
> But Stokes said this is not a lesson kids should have to go through. And
> now, he said, he's considering pulling his child from the school district.
> 
> "That's something devastating to kids that young - look how many years it's
> been since that's happened," Stokes said. "If that's how they treat
> students, there's got to be a better school around."
> 
> Summit teachers are now reviewing the exercise.
> 
> "We're going to take a good, hard look at this" said Hocklander. "We have a
> very caring staff and we wanted this lesson to be something they'd remember
> ? But not negatively."
> 
> Andrea Gates can be reached at 735-3380 or Andrea.Gates at lee.net.
> _______________________________________________
> This is a mailing of the National Association for Multicultural Education -
> (NAME) Listserv list - www.nameorg.org. The materials included reflect
> diverse perspectives of NAME Listserv participants and do not necessarily
> reflect a position of the National Association for Multicultural Education.
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> 
> 
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> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:46:12 -0800
> From: "Tracey de Morsella (formerly Tracey L. Minor)"
> 	<tdlists at multiculturaladvantage.com>
> Subject: (NAME-MCE) Real Origins of Clinton as The first Black
> 	President
> To: MCP at edchange.org,  Name-mce at nameorg.org
> Message-ID: <479F6664.6040201 at multiculturaladvantage.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
> 
> Our first black president?
> It's worth remembering the context of Toni Morrison's famous phrase
> about Bill Clinton so we can retire it, now that Barack Obama is a
> contender.
> 
> By Elizabeth Alexander
> 
> Jan. 28, 2008 | Toni Morrison's statement that Bill Clinton is America's
> "first black president" has been repeated so often that it even came up
> as a question to Sen. Barack Obama in the presidential debate on Jan. 21.
> 
> We are now at a moment where more and more voters are showing that they
> are willing to elect an actual black president. In his historic and
> overwhelming South Carolina victory, Obama won a majority of whites
> under 30, along with the vast majority of African-Americans and most
> women. Real and urgent issues affect black people all across the nation.
> Endless joking about Bill Clinton's being America's first black
> president steers us away from serious and long-overdue conversations
> about race, as well as accountability on the part of both Clintons -- as
> well as all of the presidential candidates -- with regard to
> African-Americans. Even Morrison (who endorsed Obama today) might agree
> that her phrase has been distorted and overused, and is confusing our
> discussions about race today.
> 
> Morrison made the comment only once, in a short essay in the New Yorker
> in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impending
> presidential impeachment proceedings. As far as I could find, she has
> never used the phrase again and has not disseminated it beyond the New
> Yorker piece. Her words have been used frequently and almost always out
> of their original context, as a way of signaling Bill Clinton's supposed
> comfort with and advocacy for black people, to the extent that Hillary
> Clinton even attempted to joke that she was "in this interracial marriage."
> 
> A look at the context of the words at the source is illuminating.
> Morrison began by describing a nation glued to unseemly details of Bill
> Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, as Kenneth Starr pursued
> his investigation and Republicans cheered him on. She questioned the
> pitch of Starr-fueled hysteria, and said: "Years ago, in the middle of
> the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin
> notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any
> actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime
> ... The always and already guilty 'perp' is being hunted down not by a
> prosecutor's obsessive application of law but by a different kind of
> pursuer, one who makes new laws out of the shards of those he breaks."
> 
> Morrison was not saying that Bill Clinton is America's first black
> president in a cute or celebratory way, nor was she calling Clinton an
> "honorary Negro." Rather, she was comparing Clinton's treatment at the
> hands of Starr and others with that of black men, so often seen as "the
> always and already guilty 'perp.'" Even in its original context the
> comparison doesn't quite work. African-American men have been demonized
> for centuries without having done anything but be black men, while
> people of all political stripes would likely agree that Clinton put
> himself in a compromised position with the Lewinsky situation, even if
> the political reaction was out of proportion to his alleged "crime."
> Morrison seemed here to be making a dark admonishment about what it
> means to be tarred with the same brush that has punished
> African-American men throughout this country's history.
> 
> Once we stop rehashing this term out of context, we can stop accepting
> as a given that African-Americans have already had their black
> president, and focus instead on this actual African-American candidate
> we have before us, Barack Obama. We should also ask real questions about
> the Clinton legacy vis-?-vis African-Americans, instead of accepting
> uncritically that they have always worked to advance the interests of
> black people. We shouldn't forget the fates of Lani Guinier and Jocelyn
> Elders, for instance, as we evaluate President Clinton's record in
> advancing African-American appointees.
> 
> I am not arguing that the Clintons have done nothing to advance the
> cause of civil rights. I am saying that they get too much credit for
> their record, as well as for their supposed cultural comfort with black
> people. Both Clintons came of age during public desegregation, in which
> they like many other whites were exposed to black people in schools and
> in the workplace to a greater degree than those who came before them.
> Their apparent comfort with black people is generational, not an
> occasion for widespread celebration. I daresay George W. Bush shares
> that same comfort being in proximity to African-Americans, given all the
> hours he spends sweating on the elliptical machine next to Condoleezza
> Rice. His appointments of Colin Powell and Rice are inarguably historic.
> Given the way the phrase has been used, you might think that Bush could
> be termed a black president, too.
> 
> "Black" isn't a cute moniker, a stylish accoutrement, nor a "down-home"
> way of speaking. An actual black man now stands before the nation,
> making the case for why he thinks he is the best choice for president.
> Regardless of what happens in the weeks and months to come, America is
> listening.
> 
> http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/01/28/first_black_president/print.html
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:47:13 -0500
> From: "Bill Howe" <bill at billhowe.org>
> Subject: Re: (NAME-MCE) Parents complain lesson on racism was too
> 	upsetting
> To: "NAME-MCE - National Association for Multicultural Education Email
> 	Discussion Group" <name-mce at nameorg.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<d7c555be0801290947r2ca918b6h5e0f3e680a77ba83 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> 
> In the past when I have used Jane Elliot's Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes video, I
> have gotten some comments from teachers that they would never do an exercise
> like that because of fear it would traumatize their students. Some of these
> same teachers are also insensitive to the fact that many minority students
> live this on a daily basis, not just an exercise during Black History Month.
> Where is the outrage over that?
> 
> On Jan 28, 2008 4:55 PM, Anselmo Villanueva <anselmo.villanueva at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > Parents complain lesson on racism was too upsetting
> >
> > A Martin Luther King Jr. Day lesson about racism and segregation angered
> > some Idaho parents, who said the exercise was too upsetting to their
> > children. Fifth-graders were assigned to a yellow or green group and told
> > not to talk to or use the same bathroom as anyone in the other group. One
> > teacher said he has included the lesson in his class for 16 years with no
> > complaints. Times-News, The (Twin Falls, Idaho) (01/23)
> >
> > Complete story below.
> >
> > http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2008/01/23/news/local_state/129254.txt
> >
> > School exercise draws heat
> >
> > Jerome parent says MLK Day activity went too far for fifth-graders
> > By Andrea Gates
> > Times-News writer  Twin Falls ID
> >
> > A Martin Luther King Day lesson intended to teach hundreds of fifth-grade
> > students about racism, segregation and tolerance was more disturbing than
> > educational, one parent said.
> >
> > About 200 to 225 fifth graders from Summit Elementary were randomly
> > assigned
> > a color, yellow or green, and teachers told them not to talk to peers of
> > different colors. Bathrooms were segregated, and videos about the issue
> > were
> > also shown to kids, said school staff.
> >
> > The exercise deeply disturbed some students, said Mike Stokes, the parent
> > of
> > a 10-year-old.
> >
> > "It kind of blew me away. I found her lying in her room crying," said
> > Stokes. "I don't feel that's the right way to teach."
> >
> > Stokes said he heard some students threw things like pencils and paper at
> > others.
> >
> > Principal Alice Hocklander, however, said she had no knowledge that things
> > were thrown.
> >
> > Not all fifth-grade teachers chose to participate in the activity, which
> > was
> > done last year with sixth-graders. Monday was the first time it was done
> > with fifth-graders, school staff said.
> >
> > Stokes said he also heard that during the exercise teachers called some
> > students names, such as "stupid."
> >
> > One teacher, John Derr, said he has done the exercise for 16 years without
> > any complaints.
> >
> > "I didn't observe nor hear the word stupid," said Derr, who is also a
> > part-time sports writer for the Times-News.
> >
> > Derr said the exercise was meant to bring alive the lesson of King, and to
> > show students what it's like to be judged by color rather than character.
> > Teachers also had discussions with their students about feelings after the
> > exercise.
> >
> > Most students understood what was going on and went along with it, but a
> > few
> > got a little emotional, Derr said. So teachers reminded them it was just
> > an
> > exercise and told them not to take it personally. But some fifth-graders
> > seemed more emotional about the exercise than past classes have been, he
> > said.
> >
> > "What we're trying to do is teach a message," said Derr. "As educators,
> > sometimes we can talk a lot about a particular topic, but for the students
> > to actually experience it, that's the greatest teacher."
> >
> > But Stokes said this is not a lesson kids should have to go through. And
> > now, he said, he's considering pulling his child from the school district.
> >
> > "That's something devastating to kids that young - look how many years
> > it's
> > been since that's happened," Stokes said. "If that's how they treat
> > students, there's got to be a better school around."
> >
> > Summit teachers are now reviewing the exercise.
> >
> > "We're going to take a good, hard look at this" said Hocklander. "We have
> > a
> > very caring staff and we wanted this lesson to be something they'd
> > remember
> > ? But not negatively."
> >
> > Andrea Gates can be reached at 735-3380 or Andrea.Gates at lee.net.
> > _______________________________________________
> > This is a mailing of the National Association for Multicultural Education
> > -
> > (NAME) Listserv list - www.nameorg.org. The materials included reflect
> > diverse perspectives of NAME Listserv participants and do not necessarily
> > reflect a position of the National Association for Multicultural
> Education.
> > If you would like to subscribe (or unsubscribe)to this listserv go to
> > http://mail.nameorg.org/mailman/listinfo/name-mce_nameorg.org. You can
> > read all past postings in the archives at
> > http://mail.nameorg.org/pipermail/name-mce_nameorg.org/
> >
> >
> >
> > Name-mce mailing list
> > Name-mce at nameorg.org
> > http://mail.nameorg.org/mailman/listinfo/name-mce_nameorg.org
> >
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> Bill Howe
> 
> Travel to China - June 1-14, 2008 - 12 nights -  (Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin,
> Yangshuo & Shanghai)  Teachers & Health Care Professionals -
> http://www.billhowe.org/China2008.htm > Feb 1 deadline to register.
> 
> Web - http://www.billhowe.org
> Blog - Travel - http://billhowe.org/BillBlog/
> Blog - Multicultural Education - http://billhowe.org/MCE/
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:08:01 -0800
> From: "Tracey de Morsella (formerly Tracey L. Minor)"
> 	<tdlists at multiculturaladvantage.com>
> Subject: (NAME-MCE) [Fwd: Morrison -Clinton as the first black
> 	president - ]
> To: scifinoir2 at yahoogroups.com,  MCP at edchange.org,
> 	Name-mce at nameorg.org
> Message-ID: <479F6B81.3090504 at multiculturaladvantage.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: 	[NPHC] Clinton as the first black president - Morrison
> Date: 	Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:59:20 -0500
> From: 	Mia Brydie <miabrydie at bellsouth.net>
> 
> 
> 
> http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/clinton/morrison.html
> 
>  
> 
> Toni Morrison
>  
> 
> Clinton as the first black president
>  
> 
> /New Yorker/, October 1998
>  
> 
> /Thanks to the papers, we know what the columnists think. Thanks to 
> round-the-clock cable, we know what the ex-prosecutors, the right-wing 
> blondes, the teletropic law professors, and the disgraced political 
> consultants think. Thanks to the polls, we know what "the American 
> people" think. But what about the experts on human folly?/
> 
> This summer, my plan was to do very selective radio listening, read no 
> newspapers or news magazines, and leave my television screen profoundly, 
> mercifully blank. There were books to read, others to finish, a few to 
> read again. It was a lovely summer, and I was pleased with the decision 
> to recuse myself from what had become since January The Only Story Worth 
> Telling. Although I wanted cognitive space for my own pursuits, averting 
> my gaze was not to bury my head. I was eager for information, yet 
> suspicious of the package in which that information would be wrapped. I 
> have been convinced for a long time now that, with a few dazzling 
> exceptions, print and visual media have thrown away their freedom and 
> chosen jail instead--have willingly locked themselves into a 
> ratings-driven, moneybased prison of their own making. However 
> comfortable the prison may be, its most overwhelming feature is loss of 
> the public. Not able, therefore, to trust reporters to report instead of 
> gossip among themselves, unable to bear newscasters deflecting, 
> ignoring, trivializing information--orchestrating its minor chords for 
> the highest decibel--I decided to get my news the old-fashioned way: 
> conversation, public eavesdropping, and word of mouth.
>  
> 
> I hoped to avoid the spectacle I was sure would be mounted, fearing that 
> at any minute I might have to witness ex-Presidential friends selling 
> that friendship for the higher salaries of broadcast journalism; 
> anticipating the nausea that might rise when quaking Democrats took firm 
> positions on or over the fence in case the polls changed. I imagined 
> feral Republicans, smelling blood and a shot at the totalitarian power 
> they believe is rightfully theirs; self-congratulatory pundits sifting 
> through "history" for nuggets of dubious relevancy.
>  
> 
> I did not relinquish my summer plans, but summer is over now and I have 
> begun to supplement verbal accounts of the running news with tentative 
> perusal of C-SPAN, brief glimpses of anchorfolk, squinting glances at 
> newspaper--trying belatedly to get the story straight. What, I have been 
> wondering, is the story--the one only the public seems to know? And what 
> does it mean?
>  
> 
> I wish that the effluvia did add up to a story of adultery. Serious as 
> adultery is, it is not a national catastrophe. Women leaving hotels 
> following trysts with their extramarital lovers tell pollsters they 
> abominate Mr. Clinton's behavior. Relaxed men fresh from massage parlors 
> frown earnestly into the camera at the mere thought of such malfeasance. 
> No one "approves" of adultery, but, unlike fidelity in Plymouth Rock 
> society, late-twentieth-century fidelity, when weighed against the 
> constitutional right to privacy, comes up short. The root of the word, 
> /adulterare, /means "to defile," but at its core is treachery. Cloaked 
> in deception and secrecy, it has earned prominence on lists of moral 
> prohibitions and is understood as more than a sin; in divorce courts it 
> is a crime. People don't get arrested for its commission, but they can 
> suffer its grave consequences.
>  
> 
> Still, it is clear that this is not a narrative of adultery or even of 
> its consequences for the families involved. Is there anyone who believes 
> that that was all the investigation had in mind? Adultery is the 
> Independent Counsel's loss leader, the item displayed to lure the 
> customers inside the shop. Nor was it ever a story about seduction--male 
> vamp or female predator (or the other way around). It played that way a 
> little: a worn tale of middle-aged vulnerability and youthful appetite. 
> The Achilles' heel analogy flashed for a bit, but had no staying power, 
> although its ultra meaning--that Achilles' heel was given to Achilles, 
> not to a lesser man--lay quietly dormant under the clich?.
>  
> 
> At another point, the story seemed to be about high and impeachable 
> crimes like the ones we have had some experience with: the suborning of 
> federal agencies; the exchange of billion-dollar contracts for proof of 
> indiscretion; the extermination of infants in illegal wars mounted and 
> waged for money and power. Until something like those abuses surfaces, 
> the story will have to make do with thinner stuff: alleged perjury and 
> "Lady, your husband is cheating on us." Whatever the media promote and 
> the chorus chants, whatever dapples dinner tables, this is not a mundane 
> story of sex, lies, and videotape. The real story is none of these. Not 
> adultery, or high crimes. Nor is it even the story of a brilliant 
> President naive enough to believe, along with the rest of the citizenry, 
> that there were lines one's enemies would not cross, lengths to which 
> they would not go--a profound, perhaps irrevocable, error in judgment.
>  
> 
> In a quite baffling and frustrating manner, it was not a "story" but a 
> compilation of revelations and commentary which shied away from the 
> meaning of its own material. In spite of myriad "titles" ("The President 
> in Crisis"), what the public has been given is dangerously close to a 
> story of no story at all. One of the problems in locating it is the 
> absence of a coherent sphere of enunciation. There seems to be no 
> appropriate language in which or platform of discourse from which to 
> pursue it. This absence of clear language has imploded into a surfeit of 
> contradictory languages. The parsing and equivocal terminology of law is 
> laced with titillation. Raw comedy is spiked with Cotton Mather 
> homilies. The precision of a coroner's vocabulary mocks passionate 
> debates on morality. Radiant sermons are forced to dance with vile 
> headlines. From deep within this conflagration of tony, occasionally 
> insightful, arch, pompous, mournful, supercilious, generous, salivating 
> verbalism, the single consistent sound to emerge is a howl of revulsion.
>  
> 
> But revulsion against what? What is being violated, ruptured, defiled? 
> The bedroom? The Oval Office? The voting booth? The fourth grade? 
> Marriage vows? The flag? Whatever answer is given, underneath the 
> national embarrassment churns a disquiet turned to dread and now anger.
>  
> 
> African-American men seemed to understand it right away. Years ago, in 
> the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: 
> white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker 
> than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's 
> lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: 
> single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, 
> McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually 
> all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to 
> disappear, when the President's body, his privacy, his unpoliced 
> sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was 
> metaphorically seized and bodysearched, who could gainsay these black 
> men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear "No matter how 
> smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will 
> put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, 
> albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, 
> sent away in disgrace, and--who knows?--maybe sentenced and jailed to 
> boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your 
> expletives belong to us."
>  
> 
> For a large segment of the population who are not African-Americans or 
> members of other minorities, the elusive story left visible tracks: from 
> target sighted to attack, to criminalization, to lynching, and now, in 
> some quarters, to crucifixion. The always and already guilty "perp" is 
> being hunted down not by a prosecutor's obsessive application of law but 
> by a different kind of pursuer, one who makes new laws out of the shards 
> of those he breaks.
>  
> 
> Certain freedoms I once imagined as being in a vault somewhere, like 
> ancient jewels kept safe from thieves. No single official or group could 
> break in and remove them, certainly not in public. The image is 
> juvenile, of course, and I have not had recourse to it for the whole of 
> my adult fife. Yet it is useful now to explain what I perceive as the 
> real story. For each bootstep the office of the Independent Counsel has 
> taken smashes one of those jewels--a ruby of grand-jury secrecy here, a 
> sapphire of due process there. Such concentrated power may be 
> reminiscent of a solitary Torquemada on a holy mission of lethal 
> inquisition. It may even suggest a fatwa. But neither applies. This is 
> Slaughtergate. A sustained, bloody, arrogant coup d'?at. The Presidency 
> is being stolen from us. And the people know it.
>  
> 
> I don't regret my "news-free" summer. Getting at the story in that 
> retrograde fashion has been rewarding. Early this week, a neighbor 
> called to ask if I would march. Where? To Washington, she said. 
> Absolutely, I answered, without even asking what for. "We have to 
> prevent the collapse of our Constitution," she said.
>  
> 
> We meet tonight.--Toni Morrison
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
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> End of Name-mce Digest, Vol 721, Issue 1
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