Country Road

At night when it’s dark with no moon and you hear that sound and then the brakes squealing, you know someone has hit a deer. You wait to hear the next sound and hope that you don't. You put on your shirt and walk down toward the road. You don’t know what you’ll see. One time a car left the road completely and ended up in the woods making a path out of small broken trees. Tonight, she stayed on the tar just a few feet north of the deer.

“Is everyone okay?” you will ask when you see the flashing blue lights of the volunteers. He walks over with the flashlight and points just beyond you, so as not to blind you but to try and make out who you are.

“Yeah, she’s just shook up. I was on my way to a fire, but thought I should take care of this first.”

“Should I make any calls?”

“No, she’s calling the State Troopers now. I have my cell phone with me, too.”

“Is the deer still alive?”

“Yeah, it’s still kicking, but I didn’t bring my pistol with me.”

You will wait and see what’s next. He walks back toward the young woman who is shaken by her damaged car, the dying deer, the darkness of this night that didn’t let her see that beautiful animal crossing the road. This country road seems deserted at night, but it's not. In the darkness, possums cross with feral cats, foxes, coyotes, skunks, raccoons, and deer. This road is in their way.

“Did you call the troopers?” you’ll hear him ask her, but her voice is too soft to hear what she says back.

“There’s a nice lady up there if you need help.” He points his flashlight across the road.

He walks toward his pick-up truck and leaves for the fire. She turns to examine her car.

The deer has stopped moving. I turn and walk toward the house. No pistol will need to be fired tonight.

Allan Bérubé's Gift to History By John D'Emilio

THE OBITUARY OF ALLAN BÉRUBÉ that appeared in The New York Times began with a reference to his MacArthur Fellowship and then moved on to Coming Out Under Fire (1990), his groundbreaking history of gay men and lesbians during World War II. Such obvious attention to these two markers as the signal achievements of his life is understandable. The MacArthur award labeled Allan a “genius,” and a book about World War II planted him squarely in the mainstream of American history. As a topic, it is readily legible to almost everyone as “important.”

I think of Allan differently. “Public intellectual” is a contemporary phrase that perhaps comes closer to capturing who he was and what he did, but even that distorts my picture of him. Public intellectual conjures images of tenured academics of high repute—my former dean, Stanley Fish, pops to mind—who, besides composing their scholarly studies, also publish op-eds in the Times and The Washington Post or essays in The New Republic. Or, these days, they blog and are quoted by other bloggers. That still isn’t Allan.

Allan was a community historian. He believed passionately in the power of history to change the way individuals and even whole groups of people understood the world and their place in it. Except for short interludes, such as the year he held a Rockefeller Fellowship at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in New York, he was always without formal—and paid—connections to the institutions that sustain intellectual and cultural work. He reported, so to speak, to the people whose history he wrote about. He most cared about how community members—LGBT folks—responded to his talks and his writings, not in the sense of craving their approval, but more as evidence that the history he uncovered was having an impact.

Click for D'Emilio's complete article honoring the life and work of Allan Bérubé.


Listen to NPR interview with Allan Bérubé by Terry Gross on Fresh Air December, 2007.

Thank you, Lisa, for sending D'Emilio's article.

When Does Puerto Rico Matter?

The other night on CNN the “pundits” were going at it. The talking heads were discussing – what else? – should Hillary stay or go and should Obama (btw: why is she called by her first name and he called by his last name?) call it a win already and say, “I accept the nomination.” Consensus was that Obama should not say he won (yet), but no consensus on what Hillary should do.

The pundits have their own terms through which they conduct their "analysis." Here are the current favorite vocabulary words, study them for your political spelling bee: Metrics, Math-That-Doesn’t-Work, Fighter, Super Delegate, Delegate, and incredibly enough, Puerto Rico.

I was listening up, my Boricua ears pricked and my Puerto Rico antenna twirling to get the best reception and then Paul Begala said, “No one asked me, but I say let's make them a state. But no one asked me.”

Um, no, Paul no one asked you, and newsflash, you cannot make us a state. Puerto Ricans would need to decide that first. This is precisely what we have been fighting over since the United States Marines invaded the island in 1898 (the same year the U.S. “acquired” Hawai’i which is to say overthrew the sovereign kingdom of Hawai’i) and “acquired” Puerto Rico from Spain as the spoils from the Spanish – American War.

For details go to the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress

Once again, Puerto Rico is important only because the island has something someone from the U.S. needs: 63 delegates that will vote for Hillary or Obama. The gold being mined are votes. “Let's make them a state” being the battle cry as Hillary and Obama dig for their own benefit, neither one of them having the courage to talk out loud about the historical consequences of U.S. military coups against sovereign nations. Here are some more vocabulary words for the political spelling bee: Displacement, Diaspora, Cultural Destruction, Environmental Devastation, Colonization, Imperialism.

Yes, words matter. And the language words are spoken in matter, too. Y en Borinquen hablamos Puertorriqueño. Nuestro lenguaje tiene sus raices en las lenguas de España, Africa, y Indigenas de los Taínos. Una mezcla que explica nuestra historia de conquista y de resistencia y que nos compromete a un futuro como un pueblo, una nacíon, una cultura. Puerto Rico es un Estado Libre Asociado. Got that, Pundito?

Hawai’i and Puerto Rico were not just “acquired;” we were invaded by the U.S. military which marched across the islands, taking towns, and cities, and our leaders overthrown. Since 1898 we have been struggling for autonomy and sovereignty. The flippant remark by Paul Begala, “Make them a state” exposes the colonial relationship as the patronizing and humiliating relationship it has been and continues to be.

And there is something about "Let's make them a state" that sounds uncomfortably like, "Let them eat cake."

Pan, Tierra, Libertad.

Today’s New York Times has an op-ed piece on Puerto Rico titled, "Puerto Rico’s Moment in the Sun." You better read it quick before the sun disappears behind another political cloud.

Syracuse Cultural Workers Prints New Poster

Karen Kerney, SCW Art Director and one of the poster’s designers, presents a copy of the new poster to Audrey Shenandoah, Elder of the Onondaga Nation, Haudenosaunee. The Haudenosaunee have been instrumental in encouraging the UN to include indigenous voices.

This is a beautiful poster and it is available in various formats. Check it out at Syracuse Cultural Workers