I've Read Some Things: Part 1 of 3

Sorry - this is going to be about a month's worth of posts in one single day. I've been slacking, but I've got a lot to talk about.

I'm attempting to read 100 new books from 1 December 2006 to 1 December 2007. I've read 25 so far, so I think I'm doing pretty well.

I read a book this month by Barbara Chase-Riboud called The President's Daughter.

The book was about Thomas Jefferson's natural daughter, Harriet Hemings, born to Sally Hemings in the late 1780s or early 1790s. Jefferson allowed her to run away at the age of 21, but she was never freed. He freed a couple of his sons upon his death, but not Sally Hemings (although the book alleges she didn't want to be free), and not his daughter. Nothing really is known about Harriet Hemings after she ran away, so Chase-Riboud created a life for her based on one of her brothers' "confessions" that was published in a newspaper long after Jefferson's death.

An interesting thing I learned in the book is that the Hemings children were only one-sixteenth black, so none of them had African-American features at all. Harriet Hemings was said to resemble Jefferson so strongly that visitors to the house were completely taken aback by it.

So, the hardest part of the story for me to understand was why this woman seemed to dwell so seriously on getting caught or getting outed or her secret. Her life went on for years and years after she ran away, but she was never able to just bury that within herself. I think that might speak more to my ability to self-deceive than any actual problems with the concept, though.

And then I finally figured it out - the reason she couldn't get it out of her head was because she was raised a slave. So black was not only a color to her, it was an entire state of being, because she was raised so completely differently from her white half-sister.

So, now I get it. And I recommend the book - it was very, very engrossing. I read it in two days.

And then I read two Anita Shreve books, which are upcoming in this space.

Nick Saban is a Racist.

Who knew? He's a lot of things, but I never knew racist was one of them.

For those of you who may not know, Nick Saban used to be head football coach at Louisiana State University. He left LSU to be the head coach of the Miami Dolphins (in the NFL) and at the end of the regular season left Miami to be the head coach at the University of Alabama. This in spite of several denials - even up to the morning he accepted the Alabama job - and lots and lots of declarations that "he wasn't going anywhere."

So, integrity? None found. But this??

According to ProFootballTalk.com, Saban was talking to reporters in a supposed "off the record" discussion on January 4th, after his introduction as Alabama's head coach - but, a tape recorder was indeed rolling. And on it, he said:

[quote]My friends are okay with it. The rest of those guys? One of my, one of my guy on the board -- you guys won't be able to put this on the thing -- was walking down the street, one of the Board of Trustees guys like these people around here and sitting up on the stage today at LSU, is walking down the street yesterday before the Sugar Bowl. He calls me. There's a guy working in a ditch. One of those coon-ass guys that talk funny. I can't talk like him but he can. Most people in Louisiana can. And he says, 'Hey, you see where Coach Saban signed up with Alabama?' You know however they talk. And the Board of Trustees guy says, 'Yeah, I saw that.' And he says, 'That son of a bitch. I feel like he's f--king my wife.[/quote]

Audio can be found here: http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm You've got to scroll down a bit.

Possibly just as puzzling to me is the fact that several readers of ProFootballTalk.com have written in to say that "coon-ass" is not a racial slur in the South. I'm sorry - I live in Texas and if you ain't talkin' about the rodent or the hound, it's a damn slur. I have never heard it used otherwise.

I'm betting, though, that Alabama won't even reprimand him. It is the University of Alabama, after all. Roll tide.

I should probably also mention that National Signing Day is coming up here, in an immediate fashion. Saban has been recruiting heavily in Louisiana, and even if Alabama doesn't reprimand him, this will bite him in his racist ass. Why on earth would a black recruit go play for a guy like this? Or, for that matter, if he was really just referencing Cajuns, like so many have said, why would a Cajun?