Overnight Obsessions

Last night I learned about Bill Bennett the former Secretary of Education's remarks about reducing crime by aborting "every black baby in this country." Read it for yourself: http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/30/bennett.comments/index.html

Certainly one bigot doesn't speak for all of America, but after watching the bereaved and bereft of New Orleans plea for help that did not come and after watching so much suffering right here in New York City, I think that perhaps I was naive about the depths of racism in my country.

As some kind of reaction to this, my other obsession is the sweet little book The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Cisneros is in complete opposition to the brash cruelty of Bennett and his ilk. She is charming, writing in the voice of a bright, sensitive, and thoughtful Chicana girl named Esperanza.

Esperanza tells us about a day in her neighborhood when she says: "You can never have too much sky. You can fall asleep and wake up drunk on sky, and sky can keep you safe when you are sad. Here there is too much sadness and not enough sky. Butterflies too are few and so are flowers and most things beautiful. Still, we take what we can get and make the best of it."