Wallace '48

Firstly, this band called the Hangdogs made a really good album of progressive union and folk/country/rock songs called Wallace '48 in 2003. Really good songs.

Secondly, throughout the collection and mainly in the essays "Journey to Atlanta" and "Encounter on the Seine" I found myself thinking of how different our views of politics and race across age lines, even within just 10 years of each other. Once while I was in college, I returned to my high school to edit their literary journal. This was during the Obama/Clinton Democratic primaries in '08. There were several essays extolling the virtues of Obama's "Hope" campaign, stories of how invested in the political process the Obama campaign had made these high schoolers feel. Baldwin might say that they had not been conditioned to not expect anything from politicians yet. Baldwin also made me consider teaching undergrads at Emerson. When we try to come to terms in class with essays that deal with contemporary racism, many students frustratingly claim that the author is exaggerating or that things are better now, only a few years since the article. The same goes for feminist arguments; you often get the "she's just been dumped too many times, she's on her period" responses. But queer rights arguments aren't questioned in that demographic nearly as often. Baldwin's line about Americans being "lovers of justice" but not lovers of the victims of injustice rang true to me through these responses.