Thurgood

I saw Thurgood today with some folks from Covington. It was very good. Laurence Fishburne was spectacular in his role, and often times was laugh-out-loud funny. I can't recommend it highly enough.

The most interesting thing about the play was actually the audience, however. Anytime Marshall mentioned a historical name or fact (Homer Plessy, Japanese Internment, Douglas MacArthur), the audience gave a collective "mmm", as if to say, "yes, I remember that from 6th grade Social Studies." And whenever Marshall announced the achievement of some civil rights victory, the crowd broke out into applause. As I said to a friend, it felt very "U-S-A! U-S-A!" to me. Albeit not in a good way -- more as a way of externalizing ourselves from the "past" Marshall was speaking about. I'm very skeptical that, if Justice Marshall were alive today, he would support our efforts to externalize racism as something "past".