This peice was wonderful. Wonderfully written Jen.

Right on, Jen. Good to wake up to. Thank you.

I always appreciate it when you write about race, Jen. Funny. When Charles does it he gets eviscerated in comments.

This was very much an on-target analysis. One thing to keep in mind is that the lack of social/spatial segregation does not guarantee mutual acceptance, support, empathy, shared goals etc, as the case studies of Bosnia and more recently Iraq show. Unfortunately, there's more work that needs to be done.

However, that work is literally impossible without popping the bubbles. That is merely the first step.

A great piece you link to. Coates' writing shows it's possible to avoid the fashionable tendency to dart back and forth between wheelspinning outrage and exhausted despondence. His essays have momentum. Not to invoke Gore Vidal, but I'm going to anyway.

In this essay, a highlight for me as a reader was when he refers to the great event that I believe kept Obama scrambling for the "mute" button during most of his first term: passing health care reform. His terrible mishandling of the Sherrod affair, decisions about stimulus, bank bailouts, Gitmo, drones, judicial vacancies...his singlemindedness/obsession on not giving the right enough ammo to derail health care reform really fucked up his chances of making good decisions and taking strong action on those fronts.

He made that political decision, and here are the results.

Thanks Jen, great stuff. I've been recommending that TNC piece all over the place. It's illuminating, exhilarating, and depressing all at once. Plus, a nice walk down memory lane--the foot of University Avenue in East PA. I am somewhat amazed to remember that, as callow, underage freshmen and sophomores, my buddies and I went down there (actually, East Palo Alto is neither "down" there, nor "East" of Palo Alto, but due north) for cheap drinks in the dives along Whiskey Gulch. I am surprised we made it back, over and over again. Refreshing my memories with a little research, I find out that East Palo Also was almost re-named Nairobi in 1968. Too bad that didn't happen!

Thanks, Jen. True stuff. TNC is my hero, not just for great pieces like that one but for his blog, which is unlike any other I've read. Who else says "I don't know, educate me" as often?

Thank you for linking to that piece, Jen.

Thanks for writing this and linking to the Coates piece, and PLEASE keep writing here on race (and encouraging your colleagues to do the same)!

You keep writing, Jenny! You're gonna change the world!!

Great work Coates. Great work Graves.