“There’s a big market out there,” said Bill Bradley last Tuesday, “for people who want straight talk about race — for people who want to realize the full extent of their humanity.” Humanity-extent realization has been Bradley’s stock in trade ever since he announced his retirement last year. And to further his work, he hosted a panel discussion at Chicago’s Field Museum with Race Matters author Cornel West, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, and Pulitzer-prize-winning novelist Richard Ford, among others.
The discussion, modestly titled “Conversation on Race and the Creative Imagination,” was long and involved and not altogether coherent. But the most arresting thing about it had nothing to do with what the discussants said. As reporters filed into the event, they were handed a press release that gave them a detailed account of the discussion before it had even happened! “When a national leader and leading authors were asked today how to improve communication between the races,” read the press release, “they focused on a simple but powerful idea . . .” The handout went on to describe how many people attended the discussion, what the mood was in the hall, how the participants handled audience questions, and how long the palaver lasted. It even quoted what the participants said, notwithstanding the inconvenient fact that they hadn’t said anything yet.
And you know what? It was pretty accurate! Only one glitch: The press release quoted at length participant/author Sandra Cisneros, who said some pretty moving things. Only, she hadn’t said them. Somewhere between the writing of the press release and the actual discussion, Cisneros took sick and skipped the show.
No-shows were a problem all that afternoon. A Progressive Caucus designed to “save the soul of the Democratic party” could not save itself. Its flier promised that Gloria Steinem and Rep. Ron Dellums would speak. They were nowhere in evidence, disappointing all 60 attendees. A disheartened Alan Charney of the Democratic Socialists of America thundered, “Why isn’t Bill Clinton responding to the leftist base of the Democratic party?” He shouldn’t feel too bad; apparently, even the leftist base isn’t responding to the leftist base anymore.
