The Great 2006 AHA Road Trip And Hope Shredder

I am coming up on a very important anniversary: attending my first American Historical Association annual conference in Philadelphia back in 2006.  I was there as a grad student making my first of six consecutive runs on the job market.  I came into it nervous but with great hope, I came out of it with my confidence shaken and my hope for the future shredded.  This time of year every year I thank God and the universe that I no longer have to subject myself to the horrors of the academic job market.

The trip started with high expectations.  A friend and I rented a car together, and decided to drive all the way to Philly and to share a hotel room to save money.  Being grad students we had to economize the best way that we could in the face of the ridiculousness whereby penniless grad students are expected to pony up big bucks to travel to a faraway city and get a lavish hotel room all for twenty minute interviews that could easily be conducted over the telephone.  We at least sprung for a full size sedan, and drove a beautiful Chevy Impala, much more reliable and much roomier than my '92 Mazda Protege, which was being held together by spit and bailing wire at that point.  The automatic seatbelt had stopped working and the horn had been removed because it had developed a mind of its own.

We drove that Impala over 700 miles straight on from central Illinois to Philly, listening to Johnny Cash over and over again, particularly "Sam Hall."  I remember stops at those isolated service stations on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, furtively smoking cigarettes backs against the cold January wind.  We rolled into the City of Brotherly Love on a cold night, parking at a surface lot near our downtown hotel, which was bustling with the nervous energy of hundreds of junior scholars trying to keep their shit together in the face of overwhelming fear and anxiety.

I didn't really see my friend until we left because he had something like twelve interviews, which made me curse studying Europe rather than Asia, which was hot that year.  I did have four interviews, however, a decent haul for someone without a PhD yet.  Once I got to the conference hotel, I realized that I may have made some unorthodox decisions.  I intentionally did not wear a business suit to my interviews, but dark tweed and tie with a dark shirt and black pants.  It seemed like a good idea before I left, but now I felt exposed.  That uneasy feeling stayed with me when I went to the hotel suite where my first interview was located.  Some background: this was for a job I considered ideal.  It was at a university in Chicago, at that point my favorite city in America.  It was primarily not a research position, but  those faculty in the department had research bona fides.  This was my ideal job, but I was having to interview for it without ever done an academic job interview before.

I predictably bombed.  I epically fucked it up so bad that I have only recently been able to come to terms with it.  I prepared intensely for this interview, I even took the time to look up and read the scholarship of the people on the committee.  I can still tell you to this day that one of the committee members wrote about the Portuguese colony of Sao Tome as well as the postwar communist insurrection in Malaysia.  Things were going okay, then they asked me about how I would teach a set of specific topics courses.  At that moment it hit me that the committee chair had told me in his phone call before our interview to prepare some answers for this.  But being a moron, I had forgotten about it, and had done an insane level of preparation for things that weren't nearly so important.  I came up with some answers off the top of my head, which were obviously not impressive.  They practically shooed me out of the room at the point.

I knew I had fucked up, and then I had to go to an interview with a large public university in Texas.  While this school was in a small city I had been to before and disliked, the school itself would have massive research support and a light teaching load.  My confidence was so shaken, however, that some of my answers to their questions were so quiet that I had to be asked to repeat them.  (The committee members were really nice, at least.)  Being trapped in a hotel suite with a group of people deciding your future is so stressful that I can only last 30 minutes, but the interview ended up lasting 45 minutes because the chair informed me that the person after me had moved their slot, and for some reason decided to extend my interview.  At that point I thought I was going to vomit.  I was too demoralized to sustain my "interview face" for that long. There went another job down the drain.

My third interview was with a small liberal arts college in rural Virginia.  It was in the Appalachians, my favorite landscape in America, and I'd heard good things about the collegiality of its department from someone acquainted with the school.  This is the one interview where I felt comfortable, largely thanks to the friendliness of the committee.  At the same time, I got the feeling that they had a very specific need to fill, and I was not the guy to fill that need.  Still, it was the one interview I left Philly thinking I hadn't totally fucked up.  I had even managed to overcome the awkwardness of interviewing in an actual hotel room, rather than a suite.  And yes, one of the committee members was sitting on a bed.  (Having your future decided in what feels like a "drug deal gone bad scenario" isn't comfortable.)

I definitely didn't do a great job with my last interview, which was on the last day of the conference in the morning with a private university in Los Angeles.  It was also my one and only interview in the official interview area.  Sitting with a bunch of other anxious and shell-shocked grad students in ill-fitting business attire made sitting outside of the hotel rooms waiting to be let in seem positively heavenly by comparison.  It was a place that smelled of fear, desperation, and broken dreams.

I remember the committee chair coming to get me, and walking with him past table after table after table.  This space seemed endless, and filled with the voices of young academics trying their hardest to impress while holding it together in a huge sweaty cacaphony.  I was seated in front of four people, almost like a tribunal.  I had a hard time knowing who to look at, and I still remember the committee chair being amused at one of my answers.  They were looking for something, and I wasn't it.  It didn't help that at that time in my life I was probably afflicted by undiagnosed anxiety disorders and depression, so in such situations I was incapable of acting naturally and probably came off as the kind of weirdo that you cross the street to avoid.

The time between the interviews is a little bit of a blur.  I have some strangely specific memories, though.  I walked with a friend down to the tourist sites, and I had to wait in a ridiculous security line to see the Liberty Bell.  My PhD university still had an alumni party at the AHA back then, and I quaffed the free booze and got some words of comfort from the people I knew who had been able to find in prior years.  Over the three days I ate at a lot of Irish pubs, since there were many in the area and they were the one affordable non-fast food eating option.  I ate from a huge box of mandarin oranges bought to supplement my diet of lamb stew and shepherd's pie.  I spent my spare time reading George Packer's Assassin's Gate and contemplating the war in Iraq.  Such things were actually a welcome distraction from the intense waves of fear washing over me.  If I didn't get a job, I didn't know what I was going to do with myself.

Those thoughts crossed my mind the next day as I drove with my friend on a bitter cold morning back to Illinois.  I remember the snow on the ground in the woods of central Pennsylvania, and my friend telling me stories about growing up in China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution.  I was at least really happy for him.  I look back at this trip, though, and I have a hard time feeling any sentimental nostalgia.  While I know this isn't the case for most people, my time in grad school was pretty idyllic.  I had amazing friends, lived the life of the mind, and was lucky not to have any financial emergencies at a time when I was poor.  The trip to the AHA suddenly made me realize that this idyll was coming to an end, and that it was not going to have a happy ending.  In the ten years since I have lived in three different states, met my wife, started a family, and switched careers.  The ending has been happy, but only once I made the decision to leave academia.  There's so much I cared so much about back then that I don't care about anymore, especially the academic job market.  I think back to the great 2006 AHA road trip and feel longing for my friends who live so far away today, but no longing whatsoever to be part of that world anymore.

Tamir Rice and the American Police State

I don't watch videos of police shooting suspects anymore because I watched the Tamir Rice video when it was first released.  I have never, ever seen anything so absolutely horrifying in my entire life.  The image of a 12 year old boy being shot down by a police officer in about two seconds has been burned into my mind and I cannot get it out.  From time to time over the last year it has bubbled up to haunt me whenever I hear about new cases of police violence.  I think about my students, many of whom fit Tamir's profile, yet older apparently more "dangerous," and get sick to my stomach with fear and anxiety.

By all accounts the officer who shot him was an incompetent, trigger-happy shithead.  The fact that he was allowed by the city of Cleveland to have the power of life and death over a child is in itself a crime of epic proportions.

Yes, there were some odd circumstances, namely that the dispatcher had made the situation sound much more dangerous than it actually was.  But even if Tamir Rice was holding a real gun, there's nothing, absolutely nothing that can explain the fact that he was left laying there, bleeding out, without any medical help, other than the complete and utter disregard that the officers on the scene had for his life.  If do not think he race had anything to do with that lack of regard then I don't even want to bother talking to you.

Of course, he didn't have a real gun.  He didn't point it at anyone.  Tamir lived in an open-carry state, where it is not a crime to carry a gun openly.  Watching the video, it is completely obvious that there is no way that Timothy Loehmann was able to properly assess the situation.  He was intending, perhaps from (or before) the moment he arrived, to shoot and kill Tamir.

And yet, there is no indictment.  Indictments are so easy to procure that lawyers like to joke that "you can indict a ham sandwich."  Yet in Ferguson, New York, and now Cleveland, it seems impossible to indict a white police officer who kills an unarmed black person.  It's almost too obvious to state this, but so many people in America don't want to believe it, so here it goes: when it comes to African Americans, the United States is a police state.  Any police officer who kills an African American will not be punished, because white society is so deeply invested in its fear of black people and its desire to enforce white supremacy.  Few white people will say that openly, of course.  But their lizard brains react in terror when they see black people taking to the streets to protest brutality, and those same lizard brains automatically search for ways to exonerate white police officers who kill black people.  Anything that challenges the status quo of radical residential segregation with black ghettoes patrolled by police officers who are above the law in their ability to use violence makes their fear reflexes go off the charts.

And yet white people are vastly overrepresented in the militia, open carry, and anti-gun control movements.  Many of them are constantly fearful of a "big government" that they think is trying to control their lives, all while endorsing that government's surveillance of Muslims and mass incarceration of people of color.  The crime rate goes down, but they freak out nonetheless about a perception of rising crime.  That perception is merely a barometer of their own fear that white supremacy is being undermined.  Again, they are not fully conscious of this fear, because in "post-racial" America the only racists are the ones wearing white sheets, and they think that to notice and talk about race makes someone the "real racist."

The anxieties around white supremacy are so deeply ingrained in the backs of the minds of white people that even I have to tell my own lizard brain to shut the fuck up from time to time.  (The implicit bias tests get at this issue.)  That's just how powerful this mental disease is.  Until it is eradicated, and more white people can choose humanity over fear, I worry that the American police state will be able to maintain itself, killing more innocents as it goes along.

What My Theoretical Baseball Hall Of Fame Ballot Would Be

When I was younger I had an interest in sports journalism, but I was so painfully shy and anxious that I wasn't able to interview anyone on the school basketball team for articles in my middle school paper, and that was the end of that.  Now that I am older, less shy, and a better writer, I think about an alternate universe where I am a beat writer for a major league baseball team.  That job would, of course, give me a baseball hall of fame ballot.

All hardcore baseball fans have their own opinions of how they'd vote, and this year I thought I would actually lay out my own, and hopefully generate some thoughts about why criteria ought to be used to make such a decision.  Before breaking down the ballot, I'd like to offer my own considerations:

Did They Used To Be A "Future Hall of Famer"?

Some players are routinely called "future hall of famers" when they're still playing.  This usually means that they are so good that no one really doubts their worth.  Except for certain exceptions (see: PEDs) I think players who were assumed to be going to the Hall when they retired ought to be the first candidates considered.  This year I look at Pedro Martinez and Ken Griffey, Jr and say, "yeah, well duh!"  I know this applies to a small number of players, but that small number was so great that it seems insulting to have to put them through the wringer like we do with borderline players.  This is also why I hate the practice of certain sportswriters not letting players in on the first ballot.  No player has been a unanimous first ballot hall of famer, which is just a joke.  

Comparison To Others At Their Positions In Their Era

I think one major thing to think about when voting for the Hall of Fame is the value of the players relative to their own time.  This is why I don't like the use of milestone stats.  If a player plays in an era of high offense, 3000 hits is not as important.  If a player was the best at their position for the greater part of their career, they should be an automatic induction.  This is why I hated that Ron Santo was kept out for so long.  In a vacuum his numbers look borderline, but he was the best third baseman in the National League in his time, and along with Eddie Matthews he was the best ever in the National League before Mike Schmidt.  I think the idea that baseball stats are comparable over time is a useful myth for baseball fans, but it is still a myth nonetheless.  All stats should be adjusted according to era, which is perhaps a better way to look at the likes of Sosa and McGwire, rather than getting in a snit about PEDs.

Longevity And A High, Sustained Peak
I think hall of fame players should have both played long careers and had a significant, multi-year peak.  This was why it took Jim Rice so long to get in. During his peak he was the best hitter in the American League, but he fell off and retired fast.  Had he played three more quality years, there would have been little doubt about his candidacy.  In his case the height of his peak canceled out his lack of longevity.  This standard can be a little cruel.  JR Richard, like a lot of power pitchers, had control issues in his youth, but then became an absolutely amazing pitcher before having to retire due to a stroke.  He probably would have put up Randy Johnson-level numbers, but never had the chance.  Longevity alone also isn't enough. I love that LaTroy Hawkins has pitched in 21 seasons and in more games than all but nine other players in MLB history, but just doesn't have hall of fame stats otherwise.  To judge peaks I tend to look at how players rank in certain statistical categories.  I am still not sure if a player who is very good throughout a very long career but never the best at any time, like Bert Blyleven, is fit for the Hall.

Ignoring Awards and All-Star Votes
I should also be clear about things I do not consider, namely awards and All-Star nods.  The latter is totally erroneous, because 1. The voting is based on only half a season 2. The starting nods from fans are largely a popularity vote and 3. Managers have to pick a player from each team and to fill holes, meaning the All-Star teams are NEVER the collection of the absolute best players.  As far as awards go, these are often correct, but often just wrong, especially if we are talking about MVP, Silver Slugger, and Cy Young votes in a pre-Sabermetric age when stats like wins, saves, RBIs, and batting average were given far too much weight.  As far as Gold Gloves are concerned, they were long a notoriously subjective award until very recently.  I hate it when a player isn't named and someone says "but they won X number of Gold Gloves and were on X number of All Star teams!" So what?

A Floor Standard
If player is not clearly better than the worst players in the Hall, they should not be inducted, since this would both be a sign they aren't worthy for the Hall, and would also keep standards for the Hall of Fame from being lowered.

A Consideration of PED Use
This has been one of the biggest issues in recent Hall of Fame classes.  I do not follow either extreme.  I will not disallow players because they played in the Steroid Era, nor will I pretend as if PEDs have no effect on a player's status.  In the first place, if a player would not have been able to get into the hall without PEDs, they're out, no matter how contrite they are. This means that despite his big milestone numbers, Rafael Palmeiro is out.  (Look at his power number before and after 'roids.)  In the second place, players who were not known to have used PEDs until AFTER they had already built HOF careers should be considered.  Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens obviously fall into this category.  But I have another consideration: genuine contrition and honesty.  If players keep lying about it even after they got caught, and then maybe apologize or come clean due to ulterior motives, I am not inclined to let them in.  For players who are speculated to have used, but where no evidence exists, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, but only if they are not borderline cases for induction.  That sucks, but the Steroid Era has consequences.  Those who say let them all in apparently think it's okay to punish those players who played clean twice over.  The juicers got the records, the status, and the contracts that came with it.  If they wanted the Hall of Fame too they shouldn't have cheated.

Without further ado, here are the players I've picked from the 2016, grouped into separate categories:
players I would definitely vote for, players I would certainly not vote for, and players I wouldn't vote for this year but would consider in future votes.

Hall of Fame
I would vote for:

• Ken Griffey, Jr: No duh! One of the best all-around players of his era, one of the greatest power hitters of all time, and never a hint of rumor about PEDs
• Tim Raines: Best leadoff hitter in the National League in his era and over 800 stolen bases in an era when the game had less scoring and thus both of those things were very valuable
• Mike Piazza: maybe the best offensive catcher ever with a carrier OPS+ of 142 (rumors of PED use unsubstantiated)
• Jeff Bagwell has never been directly linked to PEDs despite suspicions. His numbers alone merit induction, especially his career 149 OPS+, attained at a time of high offense

I would definitely not vote for:

• Brad Ausmus, David Eckstein, Jeff Kent, Mike Sweeney, Mark Grudzielanek, Mike Lowell, Garret Anderson, Randy Winn, Luis Castillo, Mike Hampton, Troy Glaus, and Jason Kendall on pretty obvious grounds
• Billy Wagner, Lee Smith and Trevor Hoffman, who were excellent closers but are also beneficiaries of the save stat
• Sammy Sosa for the fact that his homer numbers would have been impossible with his pre-PED wiry physique
• Mark McGwire both for use of PEDs as well as being a one-dimensional player, a kind of supercharged Dave Kingman
• Fred McGriff, whose numbers don't quite measure up, but should get some recognition as an excellent player
• Nomar Garciaparra for not having a long enough career of full seasons
• Jim Edmonds: fine all around player, but never really had a truly great season
• Gary Sheffield, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens for PEDs, though Clemens and Bonds had HOF careers pre-PEDs

Players I wouldn't vote for this year, but think are worthy of extra consideration and perhaps might get a future ballot:

• Edgar Martinez, whose numbers are borderline, but who also was the first designated hitter to be great at that job, rather than being a cast-off outfielder or first baseman.  My issue boils down to whether "DH" is a position or not.  Because I am inclined to say no, I doubt I could vote for Edgar, as much as I loved him as a player.
• Larry Walker did not have great longevity and had numbers inflated by playing in Denver in the Steroid Era, but he was also the best hitter in the National League from 1997 to 1999.  Also a great fielder.
• Mike Mussina's most impressive stat is his win total, which is an arbitrary stat.  That said, he showed a lot of consistency over a long period of time as a top flight starter. Then again, he never led the league in ERA, strikeouts, or WHIP.
• Curt Schilling was clutch in the postseason, but his regular season stats are borderline for the Hall
• Alan Trammell's case is really, really hard.  His offense is not quite good enough (110 career OPS+) but he was a fine fielder.  However, he was not ever a leader in any season in any fielding category.  It's tough, but this is a case where you have a tremendous player who is not quite Hall worthy.

Low Cut Connie "Shake It Little Tina"

Keeping with my resolution to pick more tracks of the week from current artists, I've been digging Low Cut Connie since I heard a blazing in studio set from them on the Sounds Opinions radio show/podcast a couple of months ago.  They are truly a rock and roll band, as opposed to a rock band, because they've got rhythm (the roll).  This is good-time party shake your ass music, and not enough of it gets made anymore.  All the danceable music these days is spat out by machines, so as good as it is, it just don't SWING like it should.

If you want to hear that swing, check out "Shake It Little Tina" from the band's most recent album.  The song is an homage to Tina Turner in the late 1960s, and like a lot of their songs, the original meaning of the term "rock and roll" is never far off.  It's largely a piano-based band, but the piano as a percussive instrument, the way it was used by Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles.  This song also has a great skanky guitar part that makes this sound like one of the best Rolling Stones songs the Stones never recorded.  In fact, Mick and Keef haven't come up with something this good in over thirty years.  Long may it groove.

Being A Parent Makes Me Both Hate And Love Christmas More

After yesterday's consumerist orgy it's time for some preaching by Reverend Billy

One of the biggest cliches in the book is that parenthood changes everything, and it's a cliche because, well, it's true.  In many ways this is obvious.  I usually subsist on six hours of sleep a night, and have cleared the eight hour mark maybe a dozen times in the last three years, usually only when I was too sick to sleep less than eight hours.  Smaller things have changed too, like Christmas.

Through most of my adult life, Christmas was pretty ho-hum. With two three year old girls, that has changed drastically, and Christmas has become a lot more significant in my life.  In many respects, this has meant that I love Christmas the way I loved it when I was a child.  My daughters take such joy in the Christmas season, from the songs to the gifts to the time with family.  It's very difficult for a lot of that not to rub off on me.

At the same time, however, it is extremely difficult for me not to develop great levels of hate and resentment against Christmas.  The Christmas season is perhaps the biggest reminder I have of how much power the broader society has in shaping my daughters and how hard it is for me to instill the values I want to impart.  In the first place, the consumeristic side of Christmas is especially pronounced with children.  I don't know if there has been a change in this since my childhood or what, but every year my children are buried under a tide of toys and trinkets.  I blame the Wal-Martization of America, which was not yet complete when I was a tyke.  It's easy, without thinking, to buy a child a mountain of toys, since they come at dollar store prices.  They also have dollar store quality but never seem to leave the house, forming a giant mass of cheap plastic crap to take up space, be stepped on, and constantly clutter living spaces up while rarely being played with.

The people giving the gifts have great intentions, and I really don't fault them for anything, obviously.  It's more that the Christmas season injects the usual consumerist ethos with steroids. And I guess it would be a real dick move to ask that any money spent on toys just be put into my daughter's college funds.

What's harder to stomach is the enforcement of patriarchal norms.  My daughters love Star Wars and superheroes, but for those who don't know them well, they default to all manner of pink princess stuff.  My daughters practically get buried alive in it.  What is even crazier is that they get non-princess toys, like cars and airplanes and even mini-baseball bats, in special pink, girl forms.  The message is pretty clear: being a girl means having a gussied up, less realistic, less REAL version of what boys have, because deep down cars, and trucks and baseball bats are for them, not girls.

Even if they were getting gifts I liked more, the whole thing would make me uneasy because of the massive waste of it all.  The sheer scale of gifts is frightening in its extremity; so much so that we barely give them anything for Christmas because we know that the deluge is coming.  Seeing the massive pile of presents in our living room right now is actually making me feel sick at the waste and decadence of it all in a world where so many have so little.  It's not because this stuff cost so much, quite the opposite.  It's the thought that this bounty of stuff is the result of exploited labor, both in the factories where it's made and the stores where it's sold.

Beyond all that, Christmas events encourage them to get all dressed up, and what's wrong with that? Those who know me know I like to dress up.  But for my daughters, they are quickly turned into little objects, told they are pretty, etc.  There's nothing wrong with being pretty, but when that's the one thing other people want to notice about them, the patriarchy is lurking.

So now that I am a parent, Christmas is filled with vastly conflicting emotions.  On the one hand, I feel such happiness at the smiles on my daughters' faces, and the cheerfulness they showed when racing down the stairs yesterday morning.  It's great to see them interact with their extended family, especially their cousins.  On the other hand, I feel so trapped and horrified when seeing them buried under mountains of cheap crap produced by exploited labor that reinforces sexist gender roles.  Maybe next year I can develop some counter-programming.

America 2015 (A Year On The Brink)

"So It Goes" by Nick Lowe seems to be an appropriate song for this year

Every year about this time I take stock of what's happened, both in my personal life and in the larger world.  This year, 2015, will either be seen in the future as an important turning point (a la 1968), or a momentary outbreak of change that quickly subsided (like 2011, the year of Occupy.)

The thing that dominated the political scene in America this past year was the color line.  In regards to the Black Lives Matter movement, the protests related to the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in 2014 did not quickly become a thing of the past, as unrest in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray showed. In that case the attorney general actually secured indictments, but the trial process has been difficult.  Movements against racism went well beyond the police.  In Chicago the mayor himself was implicated in covering up a cop's murder.  At the University of Missouri students actually managed to get their president to resign for not doing enough to address racism on campus.  Pressure was put on Democratic candidates for president, and now Bernie Sanders is explicitly endorsing the movement's goals. The Democrats rely on black votes to win elections, and the BLM movement might thus finally break the two-party consensus of "tough on crime" dating back to Clinton.  Despite the setbacks recently in Baltimore and the continuing headlines of police shooting unarmed African Americans, the new anti-racist movements could be poised to bring about some major changes.

Of course, whenever the color line gets challenged, white people spring forth to its defense, and fight that defense more fervently the more that line gets challenged.  The Republican Party has been using racial resentment against president Obama for years, but in 2015 that coded resentment was out and proud, thanks to Donald Trump.  His campaign initially benefited from him being perceived as a straight-talked who would upend traditional politics.  He achieved staying power, however, by going after Mexican immigrants in openly bigoted terms.  The success that this has brought him has forced many other Republicans to follow suit, leading to the opening of an Overton Window.  Trump has advocated mass deportations of millions, the kind of thing carried out in only the most repressive states, and yet his popularity keeps rising.  Fear and resentment of Muslims has grown in staggering fashion, so much so that Republican officials fell over themselves to be the first to castigate Syrian refugees and proclaim that they weren't welcome.

In a sign of the times, the violent white supremacists are coming out of the sewers and out into the open in ways I've never seen in my lifetime.  Some of them shot four black protesters in Minnesota, and the protests at the University of Missouri were partially spurred by white supremacist graffiti. Anti-Muslim hooligans have been defacing mosques and Muslim centers all around the country.  Trump is speaking to these and their grievances, and white power groups and figures have now endorsed him.  Trump may very well go down as a historical oddity, like Boulanger in France in the late 1800s.  But like Boulanger, Trump represents deeper forces at play.  Just as France in the fin-de-siecle was a place of extreme political and cultural divisions, so is America.  In both cases reactionary elements have a romance with authoritarianism and removing "internal enemies."  The anti-Semitism of the late 1800s has been replaced with Islamophobia and racial resentment, but both rooted in the desire by a particular group to "take our country back."  If 2014 finally ended the fatuous talk in the media of a "post-racial America," 2015 was the year that openly expressed white supremacy came back into the national discourse.

In the midst of all of this, guns played a big role in 2015, from San Bernardino to Umpqua. This past year confirmed something we already knew after the Newtown massacre: gun control is just not going to happen.  If a room full of dead children wasn't going to move the issue, nothing else ever would.  Something most progressives don't seem to understand is that for a large group of people, guns are a crucial element to their very identity, and many of those people think gun ownership is a bulwark against government tyranny.  Beyond the headline-grabbing massacres, the open carrying of guns at protests has gone from something that once caused great alarm a few years ago to a commonplace occurrence.  America was always a heavily armed society, but it is now one where guns are allowed almost everywhere, and where they are being used in protests to intimidate and imply the threat of violence.  Americans now think that in response to the threat of terror that we need MORE guns, not fewer.  Banning assault weapons used to have huge amount of support, now only a minority would back it.  2015 may very well go down as the year that the NRA's interpretation of the role of guns in society actually became conventional wisdom.

Looking forward I try not to let my usual pessimistic tendencies predominate.  There are levels of political action and activism by young people that I have not seen in my lifetime; it's the kind of thing I so sorely wanted to be a part of in college where I formed a club with a handful of friends to that end because there were no organizations on campus for social activism.  While Bernie Sanders will likely not get the nomination, the fact that he draws the level of support that he does is heartening.  Anti-racists are making the likes of Rahm Emmanuel run for cover and are forcing many institutions to confront structural racism.  Years of activism by the gay rights movement paid off this year with the Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage.  Transgender people are getting rights and recognition when they used to only get scorn and mockery.

At the same time, I can't escape the thought that these green shoots of progress will only prompt a much stronger reaction, uprooting them violently.  Trump is leading the Republican race as a quasi-fascist, and even if he doesn't win, his army of supporters is still out there, ready to act and ready to listen to another demagogue.  There is still no justice for Sandra Bland and countless others.  The most fearful among resentful white people are literally sticking to their guns.  2015 was a year on the brink in America, 2016 will likely decide whether that brink will be breached or not.

December Sunsets and the Velvet Underground

I was looking through the back pages of my old, and defunct blog, and found a memory worth sharing from 2005, ten long years ago.  It comes from my last year in graduate school, right before I attended my first American Historical Association conference and slowly began to realize that my future was about to get really rocky.  Something about the winter solstice really resonates with me, and instead of trying to write something new, I thought I'd share something old that better articulates the feelings that this time of year can give.  These are feelings independent of Christmas, but of the elemental effect of the longest night of the year, the reason why the ancients decided we needed some times of good cheer to counteract it.  Here it is below, complete with reference to a discman.  Dolores the cat, I can gladly say, still lives:

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December sunsets, I love them so. So today, after feeding my friends Rachel and Ed's wondrously lustrous feline Delores, I took a walk around in the late afternoon, listening to the Velvet Underground's first album on my discman. It's one I love, especially in December, it just sounds wintry to me for some reason, even though I first started listening to the album in the spring of 1994. Nico's voice (or Nordic foghorn, more accurately) is like a chilly north wind, and the sparks of feedback courtesy of Lou Reed's guitar shoot into my skull like the cold air knifes through my coat. When I listen to "Heroin" or "All Tomorrow's Parties" on that album, though, they seem to physically warm me somehow.

John Cale's background drone on "Heroin" replicates the hazy feeling of a December dawn. The setting sun today created that orange-grey dusk that somehow sets my heart affire in ways that I cannot comprehend. It is ethereal, as if I am on another planet further from the sun, where the sun is more of a star that provides light but no warmth, and a dim light at that. Perhaps it is in the shortest days of the year that we come closest to seeing universal death, and it just might be that brush with mortality that gets me every time.

Or maybe just memory. Growing up, my family would go to Mass on Christmas Eve at 5PM, the church's "children's Mass." Because my parents have a pathological fear of being late, we always arrived more than half an hour early, able to take any seat in the church, and right as the sun was setting. The church lay in a spot where the sun would strike the stained glass quite directly, flooding the church with a golden bath of color and warmth. It would set before the special Mass so full of ritual, and in a child's eyes, magic. (When a child is very young, that's what religion is to them.) The setting sun of Christmas Eve was probably the closest I came to religious ecstasy in my life, and I guess there's a piece of that exhilarating feeling in the sunset I saw today.