Love is strong, but racism is stronger

This morning I finished reading the novel The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers. The story is mostly told by Joseph (Joey) Strom, though there are flashbacks to tell his parents’ stories. He serves as accompanist for his brother Jonah, whose golden voice was evident from an early age, a prodigy. At age 11 Jonah is sent from the family home in New York to a residential music school in Boston to study music, only if Joey goes too. Then both go to Julliard before launching a touring career, Jonah singing and Joey playing. I appreciated and enjoyed the descriptions of music and also reading descriptions of events using musical terms. I wonder if not knowing music would be a hindrance to enjoying the book. I understood the mentions of composers and liked that the author didn’t have to spell it out for me. I very much enjoyed the lyrical language of the story. The boys, plus a younger sister Ruth, are the children of David Strom, an ethnic (non practicing) Jew who escaped Germany in 1939. Several pages go by before we learn their mother, Delia Daley, is black. Jonah is described as having skin the color of amber with reddish hair. Joey is noticeably darker. Jonah is hailed as a black man singing European music. This mixed marriage means a good deal of the story is about racism. David and Delia meet at the famous 1939 concert where Marian Anderson sang at the Lincoln Memorial because, as a black woman, she was denied the use of a concert hall. We see the daily slights the couple must put up with – she must pretend to be his housekeeper when they’re out in public. Delia is denied entrance to a music school, though from the expressions on the professor’s faces she is obviously better than many of the white girls. In Boston Jonah is allowed to have a white girl as a friend, but she’s gone the moment there is reason to think she might be a girlfriend. We are in the midst of many milestones of black history, such as the Watts riots in Los Angeles. There is an ongoing discussion that a bird and a fish can fall in love, but where do they build the nest? David and Delia want to raise their boys to be a part of America after racism. Surely that will happen by the time the boys become adults in the 1960s. Delia’s father, a physician, declares that’s not possible. Her sons won’t be seen as a hybrid of black and white with the better traits of each, but will be seen as black. Love is strong, but racism is stronger. There is discussion within the Daley family that the music Jonah is singing is not his. I looked up Richard Powers in Wikipedia. Three things of note: First, it confirmed what I saw of the author’s photo on the book – he’s white. And he does a great job of telling the story from the black point of view (though a black person might dispute that). Second, I see I’ve already read another of Powers’ books, Orfeo, a story that includes an exploration of modern classical music. The main character is dismissive of popular music because, he says, it is locked in a harmonic prison. Third, there are several other books by this author I may have to find and read, such as the one that got him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I recommend this one. Sigh. Back to the mundane world where a big issue is still racism. Yesterday I mentioned that the GOP in Georgia has begun the process of taking over the election board in Fulton County, the county with the most Democrats. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos provided a few more details. And Mehdi Hasan quoted Rep. Jan Jones of the Georgia House:

Today, I led 5 House members in formally requesting a performance review of Fulton County elections officials. The State Elections Board must conduct an in-depth investigative review of Fulton election processes, as spelled out in SB 202.

Hasan added:

This is not a drill. Here are state Republicans in Georgia openly and proudly beginning the process of taking over elections control and counting in Georgia’s most populous, 2nd-most diverse, and heavily Democratic county. Meanwhile Biden and the Democrats talk a good game but do…nothing to stop this open attack on the 2022 and 2024 elections.

We know that, of course, the “performance review” will not be truthful or fair. Joan McCarter of Kos reported the Senate voted on the next step of the bipartisan infrastructure bill. And it passed. It needed 10 GOP votes and got 17. This step means the Senate will begin debate. It’s smaller than what Biden agreed to in June and a lot of it is still vague. And there’s still a lot of opportunity for Moscow Mitch to derail it. Leah McElrath tweeted a diagram from the New York Times comparing the original $2.6 trillion plan, which is now $0.55 trillion. The amount to retrofit buildings for energy efficiency was gutted. In home care was gutted. Climate research and innovation was gutted. Transportation was cut almost in half. Funding for utility improvements was cut by two-thirds. Only pollution abatement saw an increase. That Democrat only infrastructure bill better follow along quickly. Mark Sumner of Kos reported on the latest in the energy market. I didn’t know that in 1950 renewable sources of electricity were only behind coal in a ranking of sources. Renewables, mostly hydro, supplied more electricity than natural gas and nuclear. Then again, the energy needs in America now are more than 20 times what we needed then. Renweables are back in second place, having edged out nuclear and coal, though still behind natural gas. Sumner’s main point is coal as a source of electricity continues its plunge. Coal supplies only a third of the electricity it did in 2005. This is good news. Natural gas is far less dirty than coal. But it still gives off climate warming gasses. Our next task is to do to natural gas what we’re doing to coal. The energy industry has shifted in profound ways. But it must still shift by a lot more and that will require a hard shove from government. Mohamad Safa, a human rights and environmental activist, tweeted:

What we learned in 2020? That oil is worthless in a society without consumption. That healthcare has to be public because heath is public. That 50% of jobs can be done from home while the other 50% deserve more than they’re being paid. That we live in a society, not an economy.

Sen. John Kennedy of Lousiana is, as far as I can find, not related to the president of the same name. That’s a relief. At a confirmation hearing for Hampton Dellinger for the head of the Office of Legal Policy of the Justice Department, Kennedy asked Dellinger, “Do you believe in God?” That sent Hunter of Kos into a snarky rant, including proposing alternate answers Dellinger could have used, such as “Depends. Dylan or Springsteen?” The rant also included ridiculous questions Kennedy could have then asked. Hunter started and ended his rant with:

You will not be surprised to learn that the impetus for Kennedy's question was abortion, and specifically that Dellinger had made statements blaming Republicans for anti-abortion laws. “Did it ever occur to you that some people may base their position on abortion on their faith?” the Louisiana Lamprey continued. ... Most importantly, why is the Republican version of God so consumed with sex that all the rest of the world's problems go unmanaged for the sake of battling this one? Why is Kennedy so all-fired certain that he and his kin are accurately interpreting the will of God Himself, when the only holy edicts they can suss out from that conversation all revolve around what God wants them to about other people's genitalia? Somebody's being a real pervert here, and I'm not sure the Omnipotent Creator of All Things is the culprit.