My own true love

Being home in bed with the flu has allowed me to rewatch Gone With the Wind, which I first saw as a young teen. It is an incredible story, but what struck me was how much less I would enjoy it if I had seen it for the first time as an adult.

Watching it now, it’s hard to scrub your mind of the context of what was going on in the late 1930s when the movie was made. Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights leaders were trying desperately and unsuccessfully to get anti-lynching legislation passed. President Franklin Roosevelt and Senate Democrats blocked it repeatedly: too divisive an issue, and they had other priorities.

To repeat: For Congress to condemn the kidnapping, torture, and murder of U.S. citizens by gangs of vigilantes was seen as divisive.

GWTW is an apologia for slavery in the sense that it doesn’t even bother to make excuses for it. It’s as natural and accepted as pretty dresses, marriage proposals, and dozens of beaux — that is, a backdrop. Slaves are referred to by the euphemism “servants,” and despite the Academy Award-winning performance of Hattie McDaniel, there is no awareness that the black characters may have lives or histories of their own.

When Scarlett comes home to a ruined plantation and the death of her mother from typhoid, we see the sympathetic faces of the few remaning slaves. But the movie does not betray by so much as a twitch of a camera that the slaves themselves may have suffered the loss of their own parents, far earlier and in much more brutal ways.

The movie isn’t about the slaves, of course. It’s about Scarlett, and it’s a darned good story about her. But the lush romance of the music, the beautiful sweep of the camera across the land — these are seductive distractions from the fact that while millions of Depression-era moveigoers basked in the nostalgia, we were failing to live up to the sweetest, strongest promise of the American dream: Equal protection under the law.

Don’t tell me I’m stupid

“Girls can’t do science.” “Asians are better at math.” Yup, it’s stereotype time. Studies have long shown that people do worse on tests when they’re reminded that they’re not supposed to be smart. It’s called stereotype threat. Just having students mark a box for Male or Female is enough to trigger the effect, meaning that people do badly on tests even when they know the material.

Good news. New research suggests that a few small changes — like moving the “What is your gender?” checkbox to the end of the test, and announcing to students beforehand that the test is gender-neutral — can dramatically improve students’ scores. Read the full post, complete with practical suggestions for teachers.

(Via.)

No, you can’t live there

Do you have somewhere to sleep tonight? I do. It’s clean, safe, and well heated. If your place is too, we’re both lucky.

But for other folks, the ripple effects of the Katrina catastrophe just keep on spreading. I can’t pretend to be able to give you a full recap, but this holiday season, 4000 homes and apartments are being demolished. Here’s the deal (Terrific short video, with music, at that link).

Get daily updates at Justice for New Orleans. And listen to presidential candidate John Edwards:

Edwards said there is a lack of affordable housing in New Orleans and that the crisis is a result of government policies that have failed Gulf Coast residents since Katrina and Rita struck in 2005.

“Rents have doubled,” he said in a statement. “Families are being evicted from FEMA trailers and now the administration is trying to make a bad situation worse.”

Edwards said the demolition should be halted until replacement housing is ready to be inhabited.

We failed our fellow citizens miserably when the hurricane came. That’s no excuse for failing them again by letting our government officials treat people unfairly. Right now in New Orleans, the message is that if you’re black and poor, you’re not allowed home. That’s not right.

Please go watch that video. And then pick up the phone, send a donation, or get yourself on a bus.