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Speaking of Eliott Bay
Full disclosure. This isn't actually BookNerd.
I saw former late 60s radical (as in Weather Underground) Mark Rudd read from his 1965-1977 memoir at Elliott Bay a few weeks ago—his unique perspective on the 60s gone haywire.
Weather Underground cohorts Mark Rudd (top) and Obama "albatross," Bill Ayers
I had one of those moments: Rudd was great. He had wise, and not trite, stuff to say about the SDS into Weatherman fiasco, but oy vey the Seattle audience!
Rudd read three different sections—the last being from his epilogue, which focused on the 40-year reunion at Columbia for former students like Rudd who staged the famous campus shutdown/protest/takeover in the Spring of '68. Rudd's epilogue starred the black students who—forty years on now—finally filled the white folks in on their experience of the dramatic events on campus.
For example, the white kids had assumed that part of the split between the white and black kids at the demonstration had everything to do with militant "Black Power"—which was in vogue at the time. But as it turns out, the black students were put off by the white kids' disrespect for the property. These black kids ultimately had more in common with the earlier, well-organized (1963) civil rights movement than with the militant white kids who were trashing the place. That was only one of the misunderstandings that came to light. Fundamentally, the black kids had second class status at the Ivy league university, and their protest was far more caught up in continuing their parents' struggle than in the white kids' general revolution against their parents.
All eye-opening stuff. Especially for a central participant like Mark Rudd, who's white.
Okay, now for the Seattle moment: During the Q&A, someone actually asked this: "Why didn't you co-write the book with a black student?" The crowed seemed to nod in agreement.
P.C. lunacy. As if Rudd needed a cultural consultant to write his own fucking memoir.
I saw former late 60s radical (as in Weather Underground) Mark Rudd read from his 1965-1977 memoir at Elliott Bay a few weeks ago—his unique perspective on the 60s gone haywire.
Weather Underground cohorts Mark Rudd (top) and Obama "albatross," Bill Ayers
I had one of those moments: Rudd was great. He had wise, and not trite, stuff to say about the SDS into Weatherman fiasco, but oy vey the Seattle audience!
Rudd read three different sections—the last being from his epilogue, which focused on the 40-year reunion at Columbia for former students like Rudd who staged the famous campus shutdown/protest/takeover in the Spring of '68. Rudd's epilogue starred the black students who—forty years on now—finally filled the white folks in on their experience of the dramatic events on campus.
For example, the white kids had assumed that part of the split between the white and black kids at the demonstration had everything to do with militant "Black Power"—which was in vogue at the time. But as it turns out, the black students were put off by the white kids' disrespect for the property. These black kids ultimately had more in common with the earlier, well-organized (1963) civil rights movement than with the militant white kids who were trashing the place. That was only one of the misunderstandings that came to light. Fundamentally, the black kids had second class status at the Ivy league university, and their protest was far more caught up in continuing their parents' struggle than in the white kids' general revolution against their parents.
All eye-opening stuff. Especially for a central participant like Mark Rudd, who's white.
Okay, now for the Seattle moment: During the Q&A, someone actually asked this: "Why didn't you co-write the book with a black student?" The crowed seemed to nod in agreement.
P.C. lunacy. As if Rudd needed a cultural consultant to write his own fucking memoir.
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