firecat

well, that article took me way out there in some interesting loops of opinion and commentary. it was fun, but a bit dizzying. I guess I have a lot to learn about reading the words of others, as the abundance and interwoven-ness is far more complex than I knew.

as for the content, I'm reminded of an evening a few weeks ago where several of us were trying to pick a movie to watch on cable pay TV and we considered "The Help." all but one of the folks in the room were people I used to spend a lot more time with in the past, and with whom I've had numerous good, deep conversations about race politics. So I suggested that while I'd heard/read that there were a lot of concerns about the movie, that we'd be a good group to watch it with so we could have a good discussion afterwards, which would include figuring out which things we liked and which things we had problems with. when I said that out loud, the most vocal of the group said she didn't understand what I was saying, and the rest then said no, they didn't want to see the movie. it really let me know that our window of trust and open space for having difficult conversations had closed, the end of an era (which probably ended a while ago, but that's another story). so I guess being a fan of problematic things is also relative to who you are conversing with, though I know that at least I am going

to continue to ask the hard questions, even if I'm conversing with myself.