Okay, so this is over the top, to be sure, but, ignorant of much beyond H. L. Gates' name and face and maybe a sound bite (byte?) here or there with Charlie Rose, and having not followed the arrest story very closely, I did me some late night googling, just to find out the details, but in so doing I also found this, by Ishmael Reed, another name I know, but not much more than that. Reed has a lot of chips on his shoulder (with Gates, with feminists, the list goes on), but there's also interesting stuff here. Or, maybe what I mean is, there's a lot of interesting stuff here, perhaps the most interesting among it being all the chips on Reed's shoulders. Here's one of many insightful bits: "
Last week Rachel Maddow called Gates “the nation’s leading black intellectual.” Who pray tell is the nation’s leading white intellectual, Rachel?" How many of you out there heard our own Ms. Maddow say that and didn't think twice about it?
