NYCweboy

Precious

Nothing I write, nothing others have written, can really convey the power of Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.

Which may be why I have been struggling since Saturday to write a review of it... or indeed, to write almost anything.

Precious is astonishing, overwhelming, powerful, brilliant... and heartbreakingly sad, unbelievably hopeful, and like nothing that's come before... and yet, is a completely timeless, archetypal story of survival through adversity. All that, and it forces you to see what we try, very hard, not to see, in our lives, our cities, and our culture.

Set, ostensibly, in 1987, Precious is the story of Precious Jones, a 16 year old African American woman living in poverty. She likes school, but is barely getting by, when it is discovered that she is pregnant... with her second child. All of which is announced to us in about the first 5 minutes.

Finding out how Precious got to this point, and what she does beyond it, is the story of the film. The film is frank, often brutal in depicting the painful home life Precious has with her mother, who is physically, verbally and emotionally abusive. In the dark, run down apartment they share, you can see how Precious holds herself tightly within, because to reveal herself is to invite more abuse. And you can see - via brilliant, beautiful realizations of her dreams and fantasies - how much Precious holds within that is vibrant, alive and ready to break free.

The opportunity Precious has to break free comes when she is transferred to an alternative school for at risk women, a small class of about 8, led by an impassioned, caring teacher. Through her lessons, Precious learns to read, to express herself (they have to write a daily journal), and to share her hopes and dreams, fears and mistreatments.

If education is the window of opportunity it is, as is often observed, also dangerous: as Precious learns to feel better about herself and to realize that she can achieve the things she wants, it becomes impossible for her mother to maintain the level of control necessary to keep Precious servile and fearful. And when Precious reveals, in heartbreaking detail, how she got to be 16 with two children to her social worker, her whole world is up-ended, and the cycle of abuse comes to a powerful, fury-filled climax.

Created in the eighties at the height of the "welfare queen" and Reagan era discussions of reforming welfare and breaking "cycles of dependency", Sapphire's novel takes on a number of preconceptions and refuses to provide easy, rote answers; the reality of life on welfare and in poverty is complicated, the life situations painful and complex (which is why, though the film visually straddles the present and the recent past, the 1987 setting is so necessary: welfare as we knew it is not we have now).

Director Lee Daniels great achievement, then, is to let those larger societal observations come through without having them take over the story. However one feels about the "cycle of dependency" or how one views the system of welfare, Precious reminds us at every turn that this is, ultimately, a human story where the larger implications mean nothing if we can't see or feel the people in question.

Daniels real strength as a director lies in his work with actors, and here he mixes the work of newcomers, veterans and unexpected celbrities and gets amazing work out of everyone. That Mariah Carey is virtually unrecognizable as the social worker Precious goes to and ultimately reveals her story to is by itself breathtaking; or Lenny Kravitz taking a part that ten years would have belonged to Jeffrey Wright and shows that he too has the depth and sensitivity to be the lone, decent male in the proceedings. And who knew Sherri Shepherd - that's right, on The View - was such a capable, naturalistic performer.

But Precious hinges on three central performances, all of them brilliant, yet different. Paula Patton imbues the teacher, Blue Rain, with such passion and sense of purpose that she manages to override notions that the part is, at times, almost too good to be true. We do not get enough images of teachers who honor their profession; we need more of it.

As Precious, Gabourey Sidibe more than holds her own opposite her remarkable costars, all the more amazing for a newcomer and nonprofessional. In the beginning her impassive, defiant look seems to define all that we can know about Precious; yet, by degrees, we begin to see the difference between the armor Precious uses to protect herself in the world and the strength and inner resilience she has to carry her through. It's all there in Sidibe, and because of her size, and her dark skin, she also serves to challenge our notions of how, even now, we marginalize some of the black experience - never mind our weightist obsessions with showing only thin people - in favor of other, easier, views that fit our cultural expectations.

Even more, though, the film's real force of nature is Mo'Nique, as Mary, the mother who is, by turns, monstrous, frightening, and intensely vulnerable. To me, her performance is something on the level of Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce (or Bette Davis in The Little Foxes), harking back to the golden age actresses and their ability to play such fascinating, monstrous characters because of their ability to hold us, riveted, in their fierce, fearsome star power. That Mo'Nique trusts Daniels enough to "drab down" her usual star qualities, and disappear into Mary's selfish, childlike demanding nature is remarkable; but the real power is how, in the end, she delivers the monologue that brings together all we have seen and fills in the blanks that take the story to its final, desperate, heartbreaking yet necessary conclusion.

In the four days since I've seen it, Precious has come back to me, every day, refusing to let go. Even now, I can weep for the girl and her pain, or smile at her determination and refusal to be, literally, held down. By degrees, the film continues to reveal itself, to make me think, and to see. To realize my own privileges, to recognize that I have been blessed, as most of us are, with a life nowhere near so challenging and a family that is there to love and support me. Gratitude, and hope for our humanity, really, is this film's unexpected gift. Precious has made me think about the world I - we - try to shut out, explain away, talk our way around... so that we don't have to face the hardships, the desperation... but also miss the strength and determination that drives someone to become the best person they can be. 

Precious could, easily, give into simply making the audience suffer and feel bad for all that we don't do, as a society, even now, for those in need. Instead, it let's us see that, even in the darkest moments and most difficult lives, there are things that can lift indviduals out of despair, if only they will try. And no, the film is not perfect - at times seeming unrealistic, visually held back by what was clearly a very low, tight budget - but for what it is, what it accomplishes, and what it reveals... Precious is nothing short of a miracle, a revelation. It demands to be seen. And I have to demand that you see it.

You Better Work!

(This post was inspired by a post by my friend Red over at her Poverty Blog at Change.org... and expands - widely - on a comment I put up over there.)

Every so often, the left side of the blogosphere gets caught up in discussing the plight of American workers - how bad we have it, how much disparity we have in income (which is what happens when CEOs make multimillion salaries while hourly workers can get less than minimum wage), how bad our benefits are (health reform!), and how, compared to many countries, we get very little time off for vacation or illness.

I always have mixed feelings about these things - and the way America differs from other countries when it comes to notions of vacation and sick time. I think a lot of this is tied to our work ethic, and it's worth noting that people who have time available, often, rarely take it. And that, for many, the problem isn't time, and for businesses the problem isn't money... it's the question of who can do the task of another when that person needs to take time off.

The reason for problems in retail and food service around sick time is about carrying extra bodies - especially now, in a recession, when most retail operations are running close to the bone on staff, the question of a person calling out sick can mean havoc for those who are left. I've worked in department and specialty stores for a long time, and currently for Starbucks. Losing a worker to an illness or a long term outage of another sort deeply affects our ability to be fully staffed, and puts enormous pressure on the rest of our team... and ultimately, what suffers is our ability to provide good service, which leads to a bad customer experience... which leads to loss of business ("I tried to buy a blouse at Macy*s... and there were no cashiers!"). And so, very often, conscientious workers, even with illness, tend to show up. Sick time, in these cases, isn't necessarily all of the issue.

I also spent time as a worker in corporate HR, at a company with generous vacation, sick and maternity benefits (which tried, especially, to be family friendly, with sensitive policies for moms and dads). And, as often as not, our problems were as much about workers refusing to take time as it was workers who took too much - and a lot of time spent coaching managers that they could not set unreasonable time expectations for their teams based on their own driven workstyles. Even so, for many workers, there was still a problem of coverage and replace-ability; losing an assistant for days or weeks was simply putting additional work on other assistants with full workloads.  But the alternative - carrying extra staff - was not an option, either (and an unfamiliar, expensive temp also rarely afforded a good solution).

My point isn't to suggest that as a nation, we don't have a problem with sick time that deserves to be addressed; my point is that we have a complicated set of cultural norms and expectations around work in America that drive our policies and processes. Government mandates for sick time benefits (which will be hard to get past business lobbying anyway) do not guarantee that sick time will get taken, or that workers will feel less pressured to show up, even when ill. Changing that requires a longer, broader, cultural conversation around work, and our lives outside of work. We really don't have that conversation very much, I find. And we could certainly use it.

But I think to have that conversation, we also need to see a new paradigm develop, on the left, about how we talk about working, and workers. Since last year's election, with progressive ideas enjoying a fresh momentum, the discussion around labor issues has returned... well, to Big Labor. Despite the fact that the majority of Americans are no longer unionized - and many can't, or won't, wind up being unionized - the discussion of labor issues starts, on the left, often, from a place where unions are the first, best option. That protecting workers works best when the workers are united. It's lovely thinking... it's just not our reality.

After working on a Congressional campaign, my campaign manager boss wanted to run for City Council - which she did, ultimately, and won - and she started by sitting with her key staff and talking about what a run would take. One thing that came up, because she felt strongly about it, was that she wanted to be critical of the teacher's union, one of the most powerful in New York. And, ever the contrarian, I raised the traditional lefty point: how do you win by pissing off union workers? How can you say unions are bad?

As I said, she ran, and won... and she remained a vocal critic on education, and especially of the teacher's union... which, over time, managed to marginalize her and eventually get her off the Council. Which kind of proved my point. But over time... I've come to see hers.

I am not anti-union - no one, I think, can seriously claim true liberal or progressive thinking without supporting the notion of organized workers - but I think how we think about labor, labor organzing, and our working lives in America, has to change among liberals, and soon... or we can't make the kind of progress that needs, desperately, to be made. We need, as progressives, to understand and admit that  the interests of all workers and the interests of organized labor are not always the same. And we need to face up to the business realities that sometimes union rules and requirments can work against good business practices. And that includes popular unions like the Teachers, auto workers, and healthcare workers. The tension between what's good for unions, and what's good for other workers needs to be brought out into the open and examined... or we can't make further progress. For anyone.

And no issue reflects those tensions - our old labor thinking not fitting our current problems - than on questions like vacation and sick leave and other worker benefits. Thinking, simply, in terms of a government mandate to require the availability of time off won't get it done. Business interests are arrayed against it; but just as importantly, as I mentioned, the work we do, and how we think about it, colors how we approach using the benefits we already have, and what benefits we expect. More vacation time... will not mean more vacations. More sick time will not reduce our public health problems. Not until we seriously talk, in the culture, about a different idea for our work ethics, and a different approach to our working lives.

Health reform is another key example - unions, for instance, are not necessarily thrilled about plans to tax so called "Cadillac plans" that offer better benefits at increased cost; often because unions have managed to negotiate such plans for their workers (ah, being united might pay off in benefits? Who knew?). But more centrally, the problems we have with healthcare stem from 60 plus years of tying our healthcare benefits to our working lives; and perhaps the most problematic element of "reform" under discussion - and the least thought through - is that many of the reforms under discussion would further solidify, rather than reduce, our links between healthcare and employment. And in part, it's seeing that we link healthcare and employment... because we think pretty much everyone can, and should, be employed.

It fascinates me - much as it has my mother, in all of her professional life - that so much of who we are as Americans (that is, our working lives and how much who we are is tied up in what we do) is often talked about so little, and rarely with a clear eye for the work we actually do. We continue to talk, often, about work as if we are a country dominated by manufacturing and farming... when we are in fact a country dominated by service work, retail jobs, and white collar professions. We are more specialized, more productive because of technological advancements... and less able to replace one another mindlessly as we were on assembly lines and in the harvest (we think, in fact, of retail service work as mindless... when it's not). Until we can refocus our discussion of work on the work we actually do... I don't think we can figure out how to reshape our working lives. And more to the point... I'm not sure, culturally, that we actually want that. Until we talk about it, though... we'll never know.

How.... get back to work!

Get Off The Crazzy* Train

What's amazing (to me anyway) about the "speech to schoolkids" flap is that we're trying to take this seriously. The crazy assertions about a "socialist agenda", the cries of "indoctrination".... all of this is so thoroughly absurd, and yet somehow, there has to be some attempt to "respect" an alternative viewpoint.

Bollocks. Though I suspect that with each new addition to the crazy train, it's becoming clearer that this stuff is just getting more and more "out there", we've got to move more firmly to draw a line, and realize that it's been crossed. And stop pretending that there's anything here worth debating. That means letting go of reflexive defensiveness when crazy conservatives use hot button words like "socialist" and "fascist" to throw a generalized label over their opponents. It means ignoring and marginalizing foolish activities like bizarre boycotts, misplaced "marches", dopey "tea parties" and the like. Don't treat these absurdities as news, don't give the sensationalists the attention they crave... and when you do talk about them, be clear about what they are: fringe elements and outliers, whose bizarre assertions aren't just fabricated... they're not worth serious consideration. Of any sort.

Look, never mind the part about Obama selling some sort of blinkered "socialism" as if liberal ideas were dirty and foreign; consider the absurd notions of "indoctrination" as if any kid could be thoroughly brainwashed by a speech. On television. By some old guy in a suit. This isn't how indoctrination works. And indeed, the more salient point is... indoctrination generally doesn't work. And Americans - who have culturally enshrined a notion of free thinking, questioning authority and challenging symbols of status quo and the establishment - really have neither the patience, nor the discipline, for it.

I think the left has three main foibles that let this stuff gain traction - a decided willingness to give everyone a chance to share, in a forum of mutual respect; a reverence for the right to dissent; and a fear of seeming, well, too authoritarian and rigid. Add those things up, and you get an amazing breadth of room for crazzy* cons to offer up their best outlandishness, without evidence, or grounding in reality, or really, any connection to reality at all.

The day may not be today... but I think the national tolerance for this kind of asinine pointlessness is evaporating quickly, and for myself, I think it's time to say it - there's no reason to pay attention to this craziness, to take it seriously, or give it any place in a reasoned discourse. It's well past time for thinking, reasonable people to stop staring, stop arguing, and stop pretending. There's nothing to see here. Really... nothing. Let's get off the crazzy* train - and let it fly off the rails all on its own.

(* Years ago, my J in B would sing me Patsy Cline's "Crazy", but mispronounce it as "Crazzy" - i.e. wthout the long "a" sound - and for me, anyway, it became a shorthand way to refer to the "crazier than crazy"  people and events one runs into in every day life. So no, unlike my usual misspellings... it's not a typo. It's deliberate.)

Eat It

The blogosphere, I expect, will all have to weigh in on Michael Pollan's musings in this week's New York Times Magazine - it's a thin week, and there's little else to do at the beach house or the country house... or wherever upscale yuppies drive to just outside the city. Myself, I think Pollan's finally given himself away, and offered little in the way of useful rethinking about food and cooking.

Up to a point. I think my main objection to Pollan's sour take - that we don't cook anymnore and the culture encourages us not to - is just that so many of us try to fight against just such certainties. I like to cok, I always have. When I was 12, I had to fight the traditional gendered expectations of my junior high teachers and Administration to get a place taking Home Economics, rather than shop. I wasn't likely to do carprentry... but I did have to cook weekly meals for my family since my mom worked.

Although I'm not a huge cooking fan of Julia Child (I've never made a French Chef recipe, and I tend to agree the kind of French cooking she espoused is somewhat passe), I watched the show and I agree with the assessment of others - and the coming Julie and Julia movie - that The French Chef made you feel good about wanting to cook. Listening to Julia Child's passion and her enthusiasm... who didn't want to at least try?

At the same time, though, I think Pollan is laboring through some dull preconceptions that one doesn't have to share - his sense that Child pushed creative cooking on the "Feminine Mystique" generation of early second wave feminists feels forced. I don't remember it that way, and I think, as both my mom and her sister noted, the complexities of cooking in their day was as much involved as any sense of dawning feminism; and Pollan undercuts himself by admitting that most of us, not just women, and not even just women working outside the home, take much less time to cook than we have in the past.

I agree with Pollan that the Food Channel has moved away from celebrating cooking to celebrating eating, with similarly disastrous results; and that its selling of "celebrity chefs" is weird and off putting (though I think his generous descriptions of Emeril Legasse as genius are a stretch; I've eaten in Emeril's restaurants, and they're okay, but not overwhelming). But who's watching? As much as my foodie friends know the Food Network shows... they're cooking lives come from other sources and inspirations. Pollan says nothing about the interest in cookbooks or the success of an outlet like Williams Sonoma, key indicators of the culture of cooking, I think, is still out there.

Yes, we have a culture focused on quick cook colutions, fast eating, and often unhealthy options. But, as Pollan is quick to lecture us, we have a corporate dominated food production complex to congratulate for that, and while all the negative aspects need to be shown, it's also the case that Pollan's arguments for local growing and sustainable food policies don't sell well, partly because they seem superior and classist. We didn't all grow up in a home where Mom stayed home, watched the French Chef and followed Julia Child. And our food realities kind of have to accept that, like it or not, we have a culture bias to seeing cooking as cumbersome and time consuming... and a function, often, of class.

Fixing our food issues- getting better agricultural policies, helping to encourage more people to cook their own food (it actually helps diet) more and with more natural ingredients - are important, and worthwhile goals. How we do it, I think, is indeed embodied in Julia Child - it's passionate, it's positive, and it leaves room for people to mess up and go their own way. That Pollan can't quite see that - or can't quiet figure out how to encourage it - is, I think, indicative of where the "food movement" is going wrong. And as long as he's here to harangue us about not being good enough... I suspect a ;lot of people will just want to stay on the couch that much longer, eating it.

Awesome Award 2: It's Just Sex

When I started my idea of an "Awesome Award", it was kind of a lark (and a way to celebrate a pal)... but I've actually kept an eye out for additional posts that meet my own, personalized, criteria for awesome posts that really sum up a particular issue. And I found one! Via Ezra (and a reminder that he tries to be one of the good guys), this, well, awesome post from Jessica at Feministing, taking on the whole idea of a "hookup culture" and pointing out that it's really just more "dirty girl" propaganda from the far right:

And these books are just the latest in a long line of publications and reports - almost all put out by conservative organizations (and I'll explain why that's important in a minute) saying that hooking up is the most dire issue facing young American women today.

A short publication - a little booklet meant for college women - put out by the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute, for example, says that the more sexual partners women have, the more depressed they are and that young women who have sex are just going to end up sad, lonely dropouts with HPV.

(I'm paraphrasing obviously, but this is in fact what was written in the publication.)

The booklet hinges so much on scare tactics that it goes as far as to wish STDs on fictional characters.

"It's easy to forget, but the characters on Grey's Anatomy and Sex in the City are not real. In real life, Meredith and Carrie would have warts or herpes. They'd likely be on Prozac or Zoloft."

Just as an aside, I think it's really telling that a lot of anti-hook up books rely on anecdotes from TV or the movies - characters that are totally fictional - because they often can't find real life examples for their scare tactics.

That's just part of it. Go read the whole thing.

Gone Fishin'...

As previously announced, the NYC Weboy will be on a hiatus from blogging here for the rest of August. Please scroll down, as it's likely that J in Baltimore and RedStar may fill in the gaps with musings, links and photos of their own. You may also find me blogging some critical things over at newcritics. I will not be checking this blog on any kind of a regular basis, but I can be reached via e-mail (nycweboy at nycweboy dot com)... and I do welcome correspondence. I will resume blogging the Tuesday after Labor Day. Yes, that means I will not blog about the Democratic Convention... but just assume I liked Hillary's speech, that the VP selection is not my favorite choice, and I wasn't all that impressed with Obama's speech.

Have a great summer. Enjoy.

School's Out... Possibly Forever.

In the continuing fallout from the credit crisis (the bigger, more accurate way to describe the Mortgage Mess), we are only now beginning to see the enormity of the problem. One way was the recent revelation that New York City has a glut of one bedroom apartments - more than have been on the market in years - because new buyers can't get mortgages.

Another, just coming to light in the past week or so, is that the student loan market has dried up.

According to the Wall Street Journal today (and I thought the New York Times over the weekend, but I can't find the article), students are find it increasingly difficult to get loans to pay for school (and more, apparently, will this year). This is especially true at community colleges and technical schools, where students are often fending for themselves (in other words, not parents seeking loans for 18 year olds, but older students themselves), and may not have a credit history, or certainly not a good one, to qualify.

But that's not to say that traditional four year college students are untouched.  Many loans, subsidized by the Federal Government are still available, but those loans have not by themselves been enough for many students and families to cover college costs. This had led to a rise in private lenders offering add-on loans, often enormous, to families, saddling students with debt amounts in the six figures upon graduation.

Like mortgages, the idea that this was unsustainable was bound to occur; but still, the rapid dissolution of school lending is somewhat surprising. But one of the worst areas of inflation, which has received scant attention, is the sepctacular rise in tuition rates, especially at private colleges and universities, but even state schools, especially prominent ones like the SUNY and UC systems, have been progressively pricing lower income students out of the best schools in their systems. What's worse though, is that the loan crisis is unlikely to slow the tuition increases or even result in lowering of tuition. Wealthy schools may merely dip further into their endowments to fund lower income students (which goes to the embarrassing hefty endowments some schools have amassed in the favorable markets, but will still mean educational opportunities for only a lucky few). Other schools, that struggle with endowment issues, will not have that option.

As for the federal financing of loans, that's not so great either; like it's sister agencies of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Sallie Mae (the student lender public/private corporation) has been roiled by scandals, mostly related to cozy insider relationships within its board and with lenders, and favorable loans to influential parties. Now, as the loan markets suffer, Sallie Mae, like Fannie and Freddie, is suffering from poor quarterly results, though not the massive loses of the other, larger entities. Moreover, state entities are discovering that they can't find lenders, either; Massachusetts recently announced that its loan program was being suspended... just in time for the new school year.

And with Congress having just passed a large, messy bill (that does helpfully make Pell Grants more widely available among a few other options) meant to show mainly symbolic "progress" on Education (from a Congress of no particular progress on nearly anything else), it will be hard to go back, this fall, and try to fix the financial levers. None of which delves into our lopsided notions that everyone needs a college degree (much like the notion that everyone needs to own a home, it just may not be the case, and as well, speaks volumes about our problems in elementary and secondary preparedness), nor makes any examination of our distressing employment picture, where those with less than a college education are left with few job options as well (which is why the drying up of loans to technical schools and community colleges for working class students is especially harsh). All of which adds up to a sudden, likely jolt over the coming month or so as the "human interest" stories explore the realities of the lack of loan availability - dreams deferred, put on hold... or possibly lost forever.

Morning Lady Morsels... For Those Of Us Watching More Than Our Figure

An all female survey of the web today:

• Angry Black Bitch writes one of the best things I've seen on the practical realities of being a community organizer and activist. Admirable as all hell.
• Since I no longer have RedStar (*sob*), let's go to Pam Spaulding for the resignation of Alphonso Jackson
• Among many great things to think about today at Feministing, check out this post for the complexities of abstinence programs and double standards.
• Speaking of standards, Amanda Marcotte offers the question of what makes the deal breaker.
• And Michelle Malkin looks at love and politics... from the conservative side.
• One of the reasons I admire LaShawn Barber - much deeper knowledge of the recording industry than I have.
• I'm Maureen Dowd, and I'm a Sarcastic Bitch. It's just that simple.
• In the Hollywood minute, let's give credit to Melissa over at Shakes for driving Jay Leno to an apology for "your gayest look"
• Also, in the Hollywood minute, let's appreciate some women's humor:
• Okay, one more Feministing thing, because I, too am the face of feminism:

Upper Echelons, And The Next Election

I don't want to get too caught up in the hand wringing over last night's results, because I think it was wildly optimistic to think that there would be an out come other than Obama succeeding in Wisconsin, and I said as much going into it.  And the real tests come in the next few weeks, when we will see if the certainty on the right is matched by certainty on the left.

But what I'd like to point out really just crystallized for me this morning, as I thought about exit polling results: if I'm disheartened about last night's outcome, it's because I think the exit polling reflects something on both sides that's more than a little distressing - the triumph of the elite over the working class.

Throughout this election cycle, one of the most striking elements of the results has been Barack Obama's lack of appeal to the working class.  High school graduates, people making under $50,000 a year... these people have gone, significantly and consistently for someone else, usually Hillary Clinton.  Even last night, people with high school diplomas, or who never finished high school, went for Clinton 53-44. People earning less than $50,000 were 51-49 Obama, an essential tie.

It's easy to, as folks over at Cogitamus do, dismiss winning these folks as unnecessary.  And by the looks of it, it may well be; Obama is the first candidate whose appeal to the elite of the left may be enough to win him the nomination and ultimately the Presidency (hat tip to Nick Beaudrot over at Cogitamus, for a fascinating list of similar candidates with similar appeal... all of whom lost).

The question is... is that what we really wanted?

History... Will Teach Them Nothing

Edward Larson (I know... who?) raised my eyebrows yesterday in The Wall Street Journal with yet another attempt to float the "liberals know nothing of history" argument.  This trope says that only conservatives read, know, or understand history, while liberals... oh hell, let's just let Larson tell it:

Liberal Democrats have always looked to the future with hope and embraced marginalized groups. When they look back, even to the deeds of their own former leaders, they see trails of tears like the one over which Andrew Jackson drove out the Cherokee. Blemishes on past presidents, even those who pointed the way toward future progress, tend to stain them wholly for at least some key elements within the Democratic coalition.

Yes, it's true: we're all so embarrassed about America's past, and our role in it, that we can't bear to look at it. Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman... hell, even Andrew Jackson, as Larson states.  It's all so depressing....

Oh wait, I had the sarcasm button on. Now let's talk about why all of this is nonsense.