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neither noble nor inoffensive
Monday, August 21 2006
After a day which I'd spent doing intermittent spackling, Gretchen and I visited our friends J & B in High Falls. We'd been given permission to bring our dogs, so while we socialized, Eleanor wandered the entire neighborhood adjoining Steep Hill Road, chasing cats and barking at strangers. (Sally, on the other hand, stayed close by.) B wasn't there initially, and J turned out to be a most unpredictable bartender, mixing drinks that alternated between undrinkable alcoholic to unsatisfyingly weak. Conversation mainly concerned animal rights issues, particularly the case of a local zoo that is closing down and might be selling its wild animals (many of which belong to familiar charismatic African species) to canned hunts in mean places like Texas. Folks like Dick Cheney can think of no better way to spend a day than shooting child-friendly Kudu at close range.
Just before we left, Jay showed a clip of an old movie from 1944 where a couple of white folks were shucking and jiving in a manner designed to caricature contemporary African Americans. It was the kind of footage not often shown today, because it reminds us of how racially backwards we were not so terribly long ago. Such footage is important, even if it's unlikely to be shown in places other than on a friend's teevee. The constant editing of history to make it seem noble and inoffensive is itself neither noble nor inoffensive.
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