Race And Class

By Eric Goodman University of Nebraska Press. 288 pages. $18.95. Reviewed by John Shortino Within the first few pages of Twelfth and Race , Eric Goodman introduces many of his novel's major themes: racial tension, family secrets, parental abandonment, and the loss of identity. As the book opens, Lorraine, a young mother, leaves her family and mixed-race son, driven away in part by their rejection of her Puerto Rican boyfriend. Her son, Richard, grows up to have his identity stolen.

To a parent, the death of a child - particularly one who is murdered or accidentally killed by other children - always evokes in me the most profound emotions. Three incidents last week had a chilling effect on my psyche. The first, and the one that has gotten the most national attention, was the massacre of 12 high school students and one teacher by two of their classmates in Littleton, Colo., an upper-middle-class suburb of Denver. The two perpetrators, ages 17 and 18, were heavily armed with guns and pipe bombs.

A 29-year-old woman goes to the top of a 21-story building to watch a sunrise. There, two armed men rape her and force her to jump from the roof. She grabs a television cable that miraculously breaks her fall. She holds on, naked and screaming, until residents of the building save her life. The story makes the inside pages of New York's newspapers. Life in the city goes on. Weeks later, a 28-year-old woman goes out for an evening jog. She is beaten, gang-raped and left for dead.

During a Sept. 2 NBC telethon for victims of Hurricane Katrina, rapper Kanye West launched an unscripted, self-indulgent diatribe declaring that "George Bush doesn't care about black people. " He also riffed against the Iraq war and generally made the case that America is racist. He should be ashamed. Just last week, Time magazine dubbed West "the smartest man in pop music" and "Hip Hop's Class Act" - which, in retrospect, seems to have kept the bar for that industry not far from its historical low. Assume for the sake of argument that West's rant were accurate.

As with zillions of other grade schools in countless small towns, the holiday season at East Fallowfield Elementary School means a big recital. The children had practiced their instruments, such as glockenspiels and tambourines. They filed into an auditorium festooned with American Indian dolls with brown, white and orange faces. Then their voices chimed old favorites from Israel and Liberia. Merry Christmas, everyone - and Happy Hanukah and Happy Kwanzaa. Confused over all the different holiday celebrations?

Playwright Tracey Scott Wilson grew up in the kind of solid, middle-class family where race consciousness permeated the household like the smell of greens cooking in the kitchen. The politics of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Panthers were both fair game for dinnertime discussion. Wilson's mother, a nurse, and her father, a manager at the Port Authority, all but banned Tracey and her three older siblings from watching television - that is, unless an African American was on. Such an event caused the whole family to gather around the tube, and they'd call up their Newark, N.J., neighbors to make sure they were tuned in as well.

Listen to these IQs of the rich and famous, as reported in the media. A very bright Madonna (140) outshines John F. Kennedy (119), who's slightly above normal. The extremely brilliant Reggie Jackson (160) scores above them both. Gangster John Gotti (110) is stuck with mid-level smarts. And poor J.D. Salinger (104) is merely average. What do these numbers mean? That Madonna would make a top-notch president? That Kennedy could've written better novels than Salinger? That Reggie Jackson should run the world?

'The truth makes for a bad sermon. It tends to be confusing and have no clear conclusion. " So says Father Flynn from the pulpit of St. Nicholas, the Bronx church where this young and popular priest has set up shop in the fall of 1964. In Doubt , John Patrick Shanley's crisp, cogent adaptation of his own Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play (tellingly called Doubt, a Parable when it debuted in New York in 2004), the truth is left for the audience to decide. And while the conclusion isn't necessarily clear, it is unsettling.

WE HAVE HOPE. Of course, that word was the cornerstone of Barack Obama's campaign, but it took his historic victory yesterday to make us realize how much of it we have been missing. Steadily, over the years, we have felt the erosion of hope for a country united on the principles of democracy and fairness, a country that could once again lead the world based, not on military might, but on a steadfast defense of human rights. For so long, we have missed the hope that ordinary people could join together to bring about change.

IREAD with interest Dave Davies' overview of the pros and cons of the new stadiums (Feb. 16). While I believe the article was fair and thorough, I was surprised that no mention was made of the Children's Fund, which was a part of the final negotiation. The fund promised to provide $2 million a year for 20 years (half each from the Phillies and Eagles) for programs and services for Philadelphia's children and families. At the time, many of us took no position on the pros or cons of the stadiums, but we were clear that if the public were to invest in playgrounds for higher-income adults, we ought to be making sure Philadelphia neighborhood children could benefit as well.

By Eric Goodman University of Nebraska Press. 288 pages. $18.95. Reviewed by John Shortino Within the first few pages of Twelfth and Race , Eric Goodman introduces many of his novel's major themes: racial tension, family secrets, parental abandonment, and the loss of identity. As the book opens, Lorraine, a young mother, leaves her family and mixed-race son, driven away in part by their rejection of her Puerto Rican boyfriend. Her son, Richard, grows up to have his identity stolen.

The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates and Race, Class and Crime in America Palgrave Macmillan. 256 pp. $25 Reviewed by Vernon Clark The picture that appeared around the country was alarming: Renowned Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. standing with the aid of a cane on the porch of his Cambridge, Mass., home, his mouth agape, his wrists in handcuffs, surrounded by police officers, one clutching the professor by the arm. The incident behind the image - the arrest last July 16 of the acclaimed black scholar inside his home by a white police officer responding to a report of two men believed to be forcibly entering a home - grabbed global attention.

WAS THE police officer who arrested Henry Louis Gates in his Cambridge home a racist, or did Gates overreact to a cop just doing his job? Did President Obama make matters worse when he commented on the case during a Wednesday news conference, or did he make an important point? Is that conversation, being carried out over Internet, TV, radio and print, the same one that's being conducted in Philadelphia over the controversial Domelights Web site? A week after Gates was arrested, these questions - and what they mean in "post-racial" America - are still being hotly debated.

'The truth makes for a bad sermon. It tends to be confusing and have no clear conclusion. " So says Father Flynn from the pulpit of St. Nicholas, the Bronx church where this young and popular priest has set up shop in the fall of 1964. In Doubt , John Patrick Shanley's crisp, cogent adaptation of his own Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play (tellingly called Doubt, a Parable when it debuted in New York in 2004), the truth is left for the audience to decide. And while the conclusion isn't necessarily clear, it is unsettling.

WE HAVE HOPE. Of course, that word was the cornerstone of Barack Obama's campaign, but it took his historic victory yesterday to make us realize how much of it we have been missing. Steadily, over the years, we have felt the erosion of hope for a country united on the principles of democracy and fairness, a country that could once again lead the world based, not on military might, but on a steadfast defense of human rights. For so long, we have missed the hope that ordinary people could join together to bring about change.

IT CAN BE argued that the conventional and traditional institutions (family, schools, churches, business, government) are out of step with the needs of children and youth - specifically black children and youth. Many of the black youngsters whom I've worked with in Philadelphia over the last 15 years are nothing more than canaries in the coal mine who reflect the conditions in their environment, the physical and social toxins. The cumulative effect of the negatives and hassles in the world these young people live in has traumatized and stifled any resiliency that might help them overcome the odds.

Looking at how a candidate campaigns can offer clues as to what kind of leader he'd be. Philadelphians say they yearn for a leader who'll be mayor of the whole city, who'll rise above the grubby same-old, same-old at City Hall, who'll offer both vision and focus, who'll put city before self, who'll reach for new alliances with suburbs and Harrisburg. There's only one candidate in this race who has risen steadily in the polls by drawing support from all races and all neighborhoods, while the other candidates drooped.

The United States might not know who Russell Peters is, the Anglo Indian comedian from Canada whose snarky smarts, crackling characterizations of racial stereotypes, and well-heeled mimicry have made him the toast of the North (not to mention the rest of the planet) for nearly 20 years. But we're about to find out. Right after he wakes up. "I forgot we were supposed to talk until my brother knocked on my door," Peters says from the home in Toronto he shares with his sibling.

BACK IN THE late '80s, when I was an undergraduate at Duke University, I stumbled into a lacrosse party in a dorm that was located about a lacrosse-man's long-pole throw from the office of the president. I didn't see any strippers, but the party was rowdy in the way that most college parties are when they involve alcohol, a high percentage of male athletes and one oblivious resident adviser. This was before the university took the lacrosse team and moved their residential quarters to an off-campus but university-owned house closer to the environs of Durham.

Carrying a cardboard placard, Sue McMurray bore witness alone in front of the now-infamous "Lacrosse House" yards from the East Campus of Duke University on Thursday afternoon. "We Believe Her," the sign said. Other signs plastered on the porch railing of the shabby white-frame house disagreed. "Innocent Until Proven Guilty," one said. It was in this house, prosecutors say, that late on March 13, a black female student from nearby North Carolina Central University, hired as an exotic dancer for a team party, was raped, beaten and choked by three white men who taunted her with racist names.