Impromptus

Against re-segregation, &c.

By
The Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Mass. (Marcio Silva / Getty Images)
On holiday parties in Boston; crime in D.C.; the nation’s security; a great Broadway show; and more

The mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, “said a mistake was made when an invitation to a holiday party meant for elected officials of color was sent to officials who do not fit that description.” I have quoted from this news report.

Yeah, there’s a holiday party in Boston for “elected officials of color.” How you qualify, I’m not sure. But some people who do not qualify received an invitation, and the invitation was subsequently rescinded.

Let me quote one more paragraph from the report:

Wu said the event for “electeds of color” will be held at the Parkman House and that another holiday party for “all elected officials” and members of her cabinet will be held at the same location on a different day.

It seems a little late, in 2023, but I feel like calling for desegregation in America. I do not want to be apartheid South Africa. What’s next, separate drinking fountains?

I like the old liberalism, of integration and colorblindness. Of E pluribus unum. I dislike the new liberalism (a false liberalism, an anti-liberalism) of color-consciousness and apartness. (That’s what “apartheid” means, by the way: “apartness.”)

Mayor Wu was elected in November 2021. Let me quote from something I wrote just before:

The race has pitted Michelle Wu against Annissa Essaibi George. Wu is the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants; Essaibi George is the daughter of a Tunisian immigrant and a Polish immigrant. This is all-American.

I then quoted a report from the Associated Press, which began,

Are Arab Americans people of color?

The question has been bubbling beneath the surface of Boston’s historic mayor’s race, where one of the two candidates, Annissa Essaibi George, has found herself challenged on the campaign trail about her decision to identify as one.

I commented,

Wouldn’t it be interesting if people in this country identified as Americans, or simply human beings, and ceased to fret over this “of color” business?

As critics — and even some appreciators — often remind me, I am a dinosaur. And that includes clinging to the idealism — the Americanism, I would say — of the mid 20th century. I think “identity politics,” in almost every circumstance, stinks.

I do.


More in Race

• Maybe racial segregation is occasionally justified. I don’t know. Last month, the Wall Street Journal published a report headed “To Shrink Learning Gap, This District Offers Classes Separated by Race.” The subheading read, “High school in Evanston, Ill., offers so-called affinity classes, in which Black and Latino students are separated from white students.”

“Affinity classes,” huh? Maybe there’s an argument for them. I can’t help feeling, however, that George Wallace, Lester Maddox, and Orval Faubus would be pleased.

• A word about crime: Two professional sports teams in Washington, D.C., are set to move to Northern Virginia. The District has been beset by crime. The immediate victims are . . . well, the victims. The victims of murder, rape, robbery, etc. But, as time goes on, society as a whole is victimized.

• Here is a simple report out of Pontiac, Mich. (where some of my family originates). Maybe not so simple. I’m not sure a playwright or novelist could pack more drama — more human emotion and pathos — into a work than this brief and straightforward report contains. It begins,

A judge sentenced a Michigan teenager to life in prison Friday for killing four students and terrorizing others at Oxford High School, after listening to hours of gripping anguish from parents and wounded survivors.

I would like to quote the report at length. But maybe better to say: Just read it, if you are so disposed, when you get the chance.

• “They have these things in the drawer, ready to go.” I heard Bob Novak say that after 9/11. And he made a motion with his hands, as though pulling something out of a drawer.

He was talking about plans to tighten national security. He was against these plans, in general, pointing out that some people seize on catastrophes or emergencies to implement things they have always wanted to implement anyway.

One has to beware this tendency. Novak was right about that, I think.

I thought of him when I read this news story:

FBI Director Christopher Wray called Tuesday for the reauthorization of a U.S. government surveillance tool set to expire at the end of the year, warning Senate lawmakers that there would be “devastating” consequences for public safety if the program is allowed to lapse.

A little more information:

At issue is Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the U.S. government to collect without a warrant the communications of targeted foreigners outside the United States. Law enforcement and intelligence officials see the program as vital to combating terror attacks, cyber intrusions, espionage and other foreign threats.

The report further tells us that “the program, created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is due to expire at the end of this month.”

Above, I used the word “tendency.” My tendency is to err on the side of national security. Maybe that’s wrong. Maybe one should err, if one must err at all, on the side of “civil liberties.” Forgive my quotation marks. Without national security, your civil liberties are out the window. Our liberty is kaput.

To be continued (unendingly).

• Fred Hiatt was a great friend to political prisoners and freedom fighters. He was the editorial-page editor of the Washington Post. (I podcasted with him in 2019, here.) He regularly focused attention on political prisoners; he was loath to have them forgotten in some dungeon.

And he did not care whether the imprisoning dictatorship was left-wing or right-wing. He cared about human rights. And individuals. I can tell you, from years of experience, this is rare.

Fred died in 2021. And Freedom House has now named a program in his honor: a program for the freeing of political prisoners. I can’t think of anything more fitting.

A press release quotes Fred’s widow, Margaret Shapiro: “As a journalist, Fred felt a huge responsibility to write about activists and journalists around the world who put their lives at risk to demand democracy and freedom in their own countries. They were so brave, and Fred was determined that they not be allowed to vanish from our sight.”

(Ms. Shapiro is herself a journalist.)

• When I saw the below, a song came into my head. I’ll quote it in a second.

The song that wafted into my head: “Memories light the corners of my mind. Misty watercolor memories . . .”

• This column has taken up religious Trumpism before. It is a phenomenon that will be studied for years to come, I suspect.

• News from my hometown:

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Police in Michigan have arrested a 12-year-old boy who they said led them on a chase in a stolen forklift.

Police were called to Forsythe Middle School at about 6:45 p.m. Saturday . . . Officers found the forklift heading south through the city and gave chase at speeds between 15 and 20 mph.

For the rest of the story, go here. Don’t say nothing ever happens in A2.

• “Michael Blakemore, a Single-Season Double Tony Winner for Directing, Dies at 95.” We learn from the obit that Mr. Blakemore “had the unique distinction of winning awards for best musical and best play in 2000.” The musical was Kiss Me, Kate, a revival (obviously). The play was Copenhagen.

I’m not much of a theater maven. I’m not a theater maven at all. But I can tell you that I’ve never enjoyed a show more than I did that Kiss Me, Kate. My face hurt at the end. I had smiled all through.

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