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

[Janice R Welsch]

We will be focusing on simulations and other games May 20 and 21 during our 15th Dealing with Difference Institute at Western Illinois University. Our theme is "Playing Games to Awaken Multicultural Consciousness" and will include many exercises and simulations that help students understand sexism, gender discrimination, racism, and related issues. If  you want further information check the Illinois Association for Cultural Diversity website at http://www.wiu.edu/iacd or contact me and I will forward a more complete description of the institute.

Janice R. Welsch, Professor Emerita
Co-Director, Expanding Cultural Diversity Project
Department of English & Journalism
Western Illinois University
1 University Circle
Macomb, IL 61455
309-298-2057

----- Original Message -----
From: mukh at email.sjsu.edu
To: name-mce at nameorg.org, name-mce-request at nameorg.org
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 4:20:08 PM (GMT-0600) America/Chicago
Subject: Re: (NAME-MCE) Name-mce Digest, Vol 721, Issue 1





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.
> 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
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> 
> 
> 
> Name-mce mailing list
> Name-mce at nameorg.org
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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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