I had a great digital sabbath today. I was wiped out from the week so I slept until 10am, had breakfast, and then crawled back into bed with Amy until 2pm.
I spent the afternoon on the couch reading March by John Lewis , Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. It’s a comic book trilogy that is the story of the Civil Right Movement through Congressman Lewis’ eyes.
While I’m reading very little current news right now, I am reading a lot of American history. I’m in a Civil Rights phase that started with Devil in the Grove . I’m sure some of my recent work with Defy Ventures had caused me to dig in deeper into this segment of American history. I know that my reaction to the recent election is reinforcing this.
I was born in December 1965 so the Voting Rights Act had already passed. While I was born in Arkansas I grew up in Dallas, Texas so I was somewhat disconnected from the dynamics of race in the deep south and instead got to experience a different dimension of it since there is generally a Texas version of most things.
I’ve always been confused by the labels Hispanic and Latino and, after living in Boston from 1983 – 1994 and getting a dose of a totally different version of race dynamics than I’d had in Dallas, I realized my upbringing in fashionable far North Dallas was a comfortably privileged one.
Reading a book like March in 2016 helps me realize how far we’ve come as a country, but at the same time reminds me how much more we can and need to do.