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March 28, 2006
Cynthia Carr's "heroic achievement "
In certain precincts occupied by certain members of the American intelligentsia, it has for some time been quite the fashion to ferret out racists in one's familial woodpile and then to write books about them. The ostensible purpose of these books is to provide intimate, confessional evidence of the degree to which racial prejudice has infiltrated every conceivable corner of American life. Their obvious if unstated purpose is to show how the (white) author has triumphed over his or her sordid ancestral inheritance to become a person of impeccable credentials on matters racial. Though all due modesty and claims of imperfection are expressed, the reader is expected to stand and cheer as, at book's end, the author's heroic achievement is revealed in full.
. . .
Like too many other journalists writing books these days, Carr is under the impression that how she got her story and how she feels about it are more interesting (and, implicitly, more important) than the story itself. She could not be more wrong.
"A journalist returns to her hometown to uncover the meaning of a horrific lynching," a review by Jonathan Yardley of "Our Town" by Cynthia Carr, The Washington Post, March 26, 2006
Posted at March 28, 2006 06:27 AM | Categories: Bigotry
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