The Souls of Folk

When we left for vacation eight days ago, just after the Don Imus firing, there was near-constant talk on the cable news channels about how this was going to start a "national conversation on race."

Are we still talking?

Is this national conversation still taking place?

Is this the same national conversation on race we also were supposed to have following Hurricane Katrina and the OJ trial?

How long did these conversations last, and what came of them, before we stifled ourselves?

***

"... the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line."

--- W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903.

The (semi-sensical) margin notes are mine, circa 1997.
Some things never seem to change, do they?