That's Capital

Barack Obama’s election left me walking on air for three or four days. A Black man in the White House. A massive youth vote. A broad and varied coalition. The break-up of the Solid South. States won in every region: Colorado in the Mountain West; Iowa in the Plains; Florida, North Carolina and Virginia in the South; and outright dominance in the Northeast, Great Lakes Region, and on the West Coast. A true milestone passed. I went to visit my dad the day after the election just to ask him: “Did you expect to live to see this?” “No, Son,... Read more →

If you can, catch PBS's recently broadcast July '64. It's a terrific documentary that starts with the reading of Langston Hugh's poem, "A Dream Deferred," a pungent portrait of the connection between value and identity, and the violence that can erupt when such ties are ignored. A film about the 1964 Rochester race riots that sparked the first National Guard intervention in a northern city, the documentary's elegant simplicity inspires thought about race, class, cultural assimilation (or its opposite), and even film making or media. But ultimately it had me mulling over the powerful human relationship to money that is... Read more →