[Diary reposted from Oct. 21, 2008, because it is even more germane now that Proposition 8 has passed, and because of some misapprehension that this essay was purely about the civil rights movement of the 60’s. For "aboutness" please read the three concluding paragraphs, at least. For the photos, scroll down.]
It is no radical gesture for a Black person to order lunch, or to drink from a fountain, or to walk to school, or to travel to the capital city. This has been true for many years, perhaps for all of your life, dear reader (as it has been for most of mine).
This was not always so. However aware we might be of that past reality, of those circumstances and their changing, we are well past the flashpoints of two generations ago. Now our racial dialogue, when we as a nation are willing to have it, can be much more nuanced, sometimes even civil. When it is not, the historical echoes make themselves heard, and the memories rise up like the ghost of Hamlet’s father. In this, my little conceit, some of us are Hamlet, some of us are spectators, and some of us (regardless of what role we play or played) are completely off-stage, forgotten, at least for the moment.
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