Found on the Sidewalk, 28 April 2019
The Sunday New York Times, Washington edition, is delivered to my house sometime before 7:00 a.m. most Sundays—a gross extravagance and ecologically catastrophic sin for which there can be no moral justification or atonement. Here are some things I gleaned from that paper, in all my decadent shame, ink-smudged and coffee’d up and unbothered by my children’s pleas for attention.
The NYT sometimes prints the word “bromance” right on the front page.
The print headline: “The Evolution Of an Alliance At Biden’s Core”
Where is it: Front page, above the fold, continued on page 18
What is it: Peter Baker’s account of the years-long relationship between Barack Obama and Joe Biden, from Biden’s description of Obama as a black fella who was “articulate and bright and clean” to Obama eulogizing Biden’s dead son and calling Joe his brother.
Why is it: Biden is running for president to Make America Great Again, but uhh, less racist, and the idea is that the Obama/Biden relationship is central to understanding Biden, or at least how the public will perceive him.
A fun part: Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ assessment of Biden’s bona fides.
The short of it: Biden and Obama developed a close friendship after some early mutual distaste for one another.
What matters: Joe Biden is probably the likable, charming dope you think he is. He’s definitely not going to be the president, though! Sheesh.
2. Journalists love to write gentrification stories.
The print headline: The Neighborhood’s Black. The New Home Buyers? White.
Where is it: Front page, lead photo, center, continued on page 20
What is it: A profile of a gentrifying neighborhood outside Raleigh, NC, and, using census and mortgage data, a portrait of the changing racial demographics of cities and suburbs around the country.
Why is it: Who doesn’t love a story about gentrification?! Racial resentment, generational wealth disparity, red-lining, clueless white people, aggrievement, general race stuff—we slurp this stuff up!
The worst part:
In neighborhoods like South Park, white residents are changing not only the racial mix of the community; they are also altering the economics of the real estate beneath everyone.
“That’s what finally came to me — it’s not just the fact that the neighborhoods look different, that people behave differently,” said Kia E. Baker, who grew up in southeast Raleigh and now directs a nonprofit, Southeast Raleigh Promise, that serves the community.
Some of that change can be positive, she said. This realization was not: “Our black bodies literally have less economic value than the body of a white person,” she said. “As soon as a white body moves into the same space that I occupied, all of a sudden this place is more valuable.”
The Times made it a pull-quote, because of course they did.
This is a poisonous thing to believe about the world, taken by itself. It is certainly not “literally” the case that white bodies have more economic value than black bodies in and of themselves. I am not blind to the realities of economic inequality by race, nor the history that has produced those outcomes and perpetuates them today. It is one thing to believe that “systemic racism” has produced an unjust world—it is something else entirely to say that white bodies have more value than black bodies. I’m sure that Kia Baker and I could have a long conversation about what she means, and that we would agree far more than we would disagree about the circumstances that lend truth to a real-politic reading of her pull-quote. But it is in the isolation of the statement, the elevation of the words to unexamined received wisdom, where the real poison hides.
And that’s what bums me out about the Times using the quote at all, to say nothing of blowing it up and making it the most important line of the whole story. These words will pass through the minds of the “woke” like preached truth, wallowing as they do in the sort of pessimistic realness that so often passes for critical thought. It is not the case that the whiteness of the body makes the ground at its feet more valuable. It is not the case that black bodies are less valuable. It’s more important to say that than to affirm the opposite. The Times may believe that using that quote forces people to confront uncomfortable truths, but all it does is preclude a lot of people from ever being able to engage in the conversation that must be had if the underlying problems are ever going to be addressed. This sort of language, especially in isolation, can be good at identifying problems, but I’ve yet to see an example of it solving any.
3. Jamelle Bouie thinks Republicans are trying to lock-in minority rule.
Print headline: The Republican War on Democracy
Where is it: Sunday Review, page 3
What is it: A column in which Bouie argues that the GOP is making a concerted, multi-front effort to rig American democracy such that a right-wing conservative minority has a disproportionate majority hold on government power.
Why is it: Because he’s right! Republicans are currently hostile to an accurate count of people living in this country, because an accurate count would diminish their power. Republicans are hostile to the will of the people, because the will of the people is likely a diminution of their power. Republicans are currently hostile to efforts to get more people to vote, because the more people that vote, the more Republicans’ power would be diminished. Republicans are hostile to executive power, but only in places where they’ve just lost the executive. In short, Republicans are hostile to democracy, because an accurate accounting of the will of the people of this country would result in less power for Republicans. (This happens to also be the primary reason why my brilliant plan to blow up the Electoral College could never, ever happen in this current political reality.) Republicans don’t want to win the game, they want to win the video replay review on a technicality.
A fun part:
The demographic changes coming over the next few decades — the continuing rise of a more diverse electorate, with more liberal views than previous generations — won’t destroy the Republican Party or make it electorally insolvent. But it may make right-wing conservatism a rump ideology, backed primarily by a declining minority of older rural and exurban white voters. You can already see this taking shape. Among the youngest Republicans, 52 percent say the government should be “doing more” to solve problems, as opposed to 23 percent of Republican baby boomers.
In this environment, the only way to preserve right-wing conservatism in American government is to rig the system against this new electorate. You tilt the field in favor of constituencies that still back traditional Republican conservatism in order to build a foundation for durable minority rule by those groups.
4. Robert Durst’s bathroom confession maybe wasn’t.
Print headline: HBO Film Faces Own Trial in Durst Case
Where is it: Arts & Leisure, page 25
What is it: Remember Robert Durst, that weirdo rich guy that had the HBO documentary made about him, called The Jinx?
It turns out that the thrilling conclusion of that documentary may have been less of a strictly accurate document of events as they happened, and more of a little bit of creative license with the editing. In the film, Durst goes to the bathroom after being confronted by the filmmakers with some compelling evidence of his own guilt. He left his microphone on, though, so it turns out they had a recording of him mumbling to himself in there. He says, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”
But according to Durst’s lawyers, and admitted to by the filmmakers, they cobbled those two sentences together from different parts of the recording, and reversed the order.
Durst’s lawyers want the judge to make inadmissible all evidence gathered by the filmmakers because they presented the audio in a prejudicial manner in their movie. Good luck with that, lawyers!
A fun part:
The final episode aired on March 15, 2015. Mr. Durst had been arrested just the night before and as a reporter who had long covered the case, I was invited by Mr. Jarecki to join a group of about 30 people at his Upper East Side home to watch the show. The group included Jeanine Pirro, the former Westchester County district attorney who had reopened the investigation into Kathie Durst’s disappearance; Rosie O’Donnell; Diane Sawyer and members of Kathie’s family.
The living room went silent after Mr. Durst’s chilling words aired. Then some of Kathie’s family began quietly weeping. An indignant Ms. O’Donnell quickly demanded, “How could they possibly withhold this information for so long?”
Who wouldn’t want to be in that room?! Trump-favorite Jeanine Pirro, Diane Sawyer, and an indignant Rosie O’Donnell! Hollywood types are so weird.
The short of it: While this certainly raises some questions about the various ethical lines filmmakers have to walk when they’re making a documentary—especially in the role these filmmakers found themselves in, as investigators trying to prove the guilt of their subject, especially at this point in our culture, where the outrage and castigate and cast-out machinery can be revved to full speed at the first hint of an accusation—it seems unlikely that Durst will be able to skate because the documentary dudes edited his confession to sound slightly more confession-like.
What matters: Certainly not Ethics in Documentary Editing! This creep killed at least three people! And made for some thrilling goddamn television!
5. Some people are just fuckin’ nuts.
The print headline: An Amputee vs. The Sahara
Where is it: Sports Sunday, main feature
What is it: A profile of Amy Palmiero-Winters, a 46-year-old with a prosthetic leg who went to Morocco to compete in a 140.7 mile, six day race through the desert.
Why is it: Because some people are just fuckin’ nuts.
A fun part:
The rocks kept bouncing Palmiero-Winters around. She fell on her right knee. An m-shaped scab formed. At a checkpoint after 13 miles, she wiped away tears. Still, she planned to keep running through the night.
The thermometer on her running leg reached 144 degrees in the afternoon. A sandstorm kicked up before dusk. Some runners and vehicles came to a brief halt. Officials at one checkpoint put on ski goggles. But Palmiero-Winters remained behind the storm and began to pick up speed in a flat valley at night, wearing a headlamp and a glow stick on her backpack.
Seriously though, why?:
She wanted to complete this race to inspire, to show how not to succumb to artificial limits, she said. She wanted her children to understand about pushing the envelope and not selling themselves short.
“When it’s your last day, you want to come in skidding sideways, your body worn out,” she said, discussing her approach not only to running but to life.
I understand this impulse. I respect the dedication to pain endurance and perseverance in the face of the impossible. It’s a beautiful, insane human instinct—one I admire and find completely nuts at the same time. I think she’s a little full of shit with her rationale, though, and she may not even realize it.
There’s a little bit of totally inexplicable compulsion at the heart of these attempts at seemingly super-human accomplishment. I’m glad she’s able to articulate a reason for doing these things, but I think, deep down, there’s something far more inexplicable going on.
I watched that documentary Free Solo a while back, and I got a strange sensation watching that Alex dude. If he could articulate why he wanted to do the thing, he wouldn't then have to do the thing. If he could explain why he wanted to do it, he would know he didn't have to do it. There is something about being unable to articulate the why that almost animates the compulsion, I think.
