News from the Plains: All this RED can make you BLUE
Is it Noonan or is it Not?
by Barry Friedman
"Yes, fall. And then winter, spring, and summer. And then, who knows, the Gods tell us, perhaps another fall again, another winter, spring, and summer.
Gods. Reagan. America.
Ahhhh.
How long, how many seasons? It is tough—so tough--to fathom the season, as it is to fathom the sea, the ocean, the shining city.
My point—and how I have one—is that this all could have been prevented.
Yes, I say “maladroit.” But it’s a dark maladroit, an exclusionary, if you will, maladroit-ness.
For this black man, this president now entering his--oh, how I've lost count--could have prevented this, but his is a cyclical cynicism that does not yield, much less stop, for the light.
Oh, how I wish it did.
How I wish for so—this is so painful—much more.
He doesn’t say be “Black like me”; he says be “Black like you.”.
Reagan—oh, so white, oh, so strong—would have said, “Be like me, be like … Americans.” Rid yourself of the hyphen and the strut, the music and the hoops. Think Ted Williams as much as you do Jackie Robinson; The Beatles, not James Brown. Wear bright colors. And who wouldn’t want to do that … be like a man who gave us back … ourselves. On a horse, in smart jodhpurs, stylish and pressed, caressing a vibrant calf, riding, big and muscular, and in a proud West … who wouldn’t want that, wouldn’t want the wind rushing through their hair? Okay, for American American males, not so easy; still, then, in their faces.
I’ll tell you who doesn’t. This president, this man of the Ivy League and shirtless vacations in Hawaii, and, yes, James Brown songs … this golfer!
I grieve for the IRS, I grieve for those everywhere with a dream in their hearts, the generations of people. I grieve for institutional, governmental agency openness.
Really, I do.
I dream. I see mountains and mornings and revolutions (I may have mentioned that).
I grieve for the drib and the drabbing.
Let it flow, let it gush.
The truth, the power.
Oh, I yearn for that.
I gasp.
Truth, wash over me.
I can’t help but grieve as I wait.
For my America. For yours."--P. Noonan