Singers

A few thoughts on some of my favorite singers...

Bob Dylan - He's versatile, first off. Between Highway 61, Nashville Skyline and Modern Times, his voice has drastically changed. That's pretty cool that he can go with the flow of his life and accomodate his music.

Jeremy Enigk (Sunny Day Real Estate & The Fire Theft) - It's weird, his voice is very intoxicating. It's hypnotic and beckoning. I've had times where I HAVE to listen to SDRE or The Fire Theft because I heard something similar to him or his guest appearance on the new mewithoutYou CD, and suddenly, my soul beckons to hear his flowing emotion...

Sufjan Stevens - He sings and he plays the freakin' oboe. That's all you need to know. He's a very talented musician who can write a song about anything and make it sound interesting.

Aaron Weiss (mewithoutYou) - Between [A-->B] Life and Brother, Sister, his voice has softened and become more emotional to reveal his soul. As Bob Dylan's voice accomodates music, the music accomodates Weiss' voice. He can't sing well, but he can convey emotion and write very very poetic songs, so he's up there.

Cedric Bixler-Zavala - So, okay. Amputechture absolutely sucks. Now that that's clear, he's a decent singer who tries too hard sometimes, both musically and ideologically, and who can enlighten you if you try and find out the meanings of some of his songs.

--

So there's only four. Honorable mentions that were knocked off because of their lacking song-writing abilities: Claudio Sanchez (Coheed and Cambria), Davey Havoc (AFI); artists left off for trying to swim in the Mississippi River with clothes on: Jeff Buckley.

A little while back I wrote an essay entitled "The Difference," that highlighted the difference between being Christ-like and being a Christian.

I'll admit, that essay failed you the reader.

It didn't offer the solution, it only implied it.

Here's the solution: We must bridge the gap between the pious and the profane, to accept and realize we are all one, that we are all the same. We are one body (Romans 12), and we are all Saints (Ephesians 1). Love one another. And bridge the gap between striving to be Christ-like and being a Christian. Too many Christians take it lightly.

So Stop Taking it Lightly. Seek God with all your heart. That's the only solution. Then there will be no need for sections of the Church when we are all one body (1 Cor. 12), for we all do our part.

I am your mouth, you are my ear.

Plowing

Existence is based solely on your state of mind.

I do not exist for I am merely a facsimile, a mere bastard copy of God in a human body, caught up within my stupid, idiot sin.

How it is and how it will be

In talking recently with an ex-girlfriend who exuded most of the qualities of a woman I would want to marry (that's all I'm in it for now), I realized something: I've narrowed the pool to damn near puddle. Consider this: I want a girl who's a virgin, who doesn't drink doesn't smoke, is a Christian, takes God seriously. And I'm 18. That's two things: How am I going to find a virgin, even now, unless she's a conservative, pious, bitch. That's what I'm going to end up marrying, what I think is now a pious and conservative bitch.

I'm as liberal and extremist as they come, and I'm going to seemingly be chained to the right in some sort of circular haze.

But wait, Evan, if you exist, then she must exist!

Oh hell, I'm fucked.

I was once the wine.

In my Eng. 101 class we had to read Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran," which discussed a group of female students who met in a secret classroom to discuss literature in a setting where the can shed their head-coverings and their inhibitions.

In the class, we started to discuss all the freedoms of Americans, and that got me wondering: What is worse, the blatant atrocities of the then Islamic Republic of Iran, or the subversive prejudice hate-and-fear tactics of the American government?

I mean, sure, they're openly persecuted, by the police state and the Islamic Legalism, but not by the people. In America the hate is drilled into the people by the media and suddenly it's no longer the government but the people that are the assholes, the prejudiced. The government plants the seed and it germinates into 1940's German lynchings and Japanese internment camps to perhaps protect them from the hatred of the average American. I can imagine that the average American woman, since "That Fateful Day," has had their level of hatred to both Middle-Easterns and Muslims. But an average Iranian woman hates the government, and they just force it upon their people.

Well? What would you rather have?

Just to pass the time....

I recommend you go out and get the new mewithoutYou CD, if not for the lyrics, than for the music...

It's amazing.

"I'm still waiting to meet a girl like my Mom but who's closer to my age."

Vicarious Atonement

I pray that all things I've said and will say are of You, oh God, oh Father. Keep me whole, keep me as your saint, keep me from blasphemy. I want to teach your message of unity and love, not a worldly partisan view--of vicarious atonement through our prayers and through Christ. As Paul said, all things are from You and through You and to You--and, thus, unity it is. Religion means nothing, You means everything.

May yours be the glory forever, Amen.

Being Christ-like doesn't ordane you Christian, it ordanes you as a better person, seeking better life. Anyone of any religion can attain enlightenment, and, since all things are through God, a man can attain enlightened saint-hood via any religion, any road.

Why does only one religion have to be right?

Will you carry me across the sea....?

John 14:6 was God, whom Jesus is part and parcel of. It was God saying, "No one gets to God but through God." If we ca believe in a trinity, why can't we believe in a polynity? Jesus's death was the final atonement, the final sacrifice, the final need for any sort of enlightenment. Prophesy will still remain, but new religions will pass away. I need to find biblical evidence for that one.

Religious boundaries make sense in the context of human life. We cannot fathom something without boudnaries. We write in paragraphs, end our sentences with periods. We live in countries and are afraid of supposed aliens.

Thus, closed religious thought follows suit to all we live.

But doesn't God transcend all we live...?

I hate to come back to inclusionistic thinking, but that's how it goes, I guess...

Volume 1 a huge success! Gearing up for Winter!

By popular demand, work has started on Winter and All, 2006! That's the new issue to come out in the Winter of We are all Serial Killers!

We've had great feedback! It's a hit! They love us!

Air1's Response

Dear Friend,

We appreciate the time you took to share your perspective with us. I'll
pass on your message to Programming.

May God bless you in a special way today.

Laurie Davidson
Correspondence Assistant to Programming

--

I wonder if programming will send me something...?

Message sent to Air1, regarding my previous essay.

In 2004, I was an avid listener to Air1, absorbing all its messages, all its factions, all of its often-conservative push and lean and pull.

The drug-related testimonies really dug into me like a dull blade, creating a gash that was tattered around the edges and orange with contempt--Can we not have God without the drugs? Are we allowed a Christ which we are led to without the negative influence shoving us into his loving arms? Why didn't I ever hear that?

I stopped listening, though, around December, 2004. The station has become a joke since then--turn it on to hear the same old songs from 2004, with a marginal chance of hearing something new.

Your music's message has grown stagnant: A homogenous faith that is naught but what one person believes it to be. One view, one mind, one God. But the one God can be interpreted an infinite amount of ways. He is God, we are human. And my faith has grown away from Air1, from your message--not because it's blasphemy, but because it's stale.

You may choose to retort with the fact that bands have yet to release a new album in a few years (Like Barlow Girl). But then I also bring up FM Static's song "Crazy Mary" which was just recently played this morning [9\26\06 2:00 AM], according to your recent plays list. It was played despite the fact that there are 12 new songs from their Album "Critically Ashamed" to be played.

Sure, other radio stations have repetition, but at least it's indicative of what's current, what's new. There's an ebb and flow to Christianity, there's an ebb and flow to music, there's relativity to everything...

Except, seemingly, Air1, who stubbornly stays put with their old songs and their same-old message. Yes, Jesus died on the cross. Yes, I want a faith like that, to see the dead rise, etcetera. But what about the effects of faith on life? What about the struggles, the doubts of the infallibility, what about the trite, collective, "I'm sorrys" that often come with lulls in Christians as they all, in conjunction, realize their faults, and have their doubts.

Where are your doubts, Air1?

--

They apparently get 5000 emails a month, so I may have to wait awhile for a response. But I'll definitely post their response once I receive it. And I will get one... Unlike the emails I sent to Ray Comfort, the renowned Christian Evangelist. I had so many questions, that only he could answer, because those were his beliefs, and yet he never responded to me. But if I do get a response, I'll make damn sure to post that one too.

No response, no feedback, no discussion--just one person, on his soap box, speechifying, expecting everyone in the arena to be in agreeance... When most are in grievance.

No big Church.

The Truth Belongs to God, the mistakes were Mine

It's been said that there are often moments in our life where all our thought, all our energy is suddenly transmuted down the channel towards our soul. All the thickets of education pushed away, and drifting down and into ourselves we go...

On Broadway and 19th, SSE of Dodger Stadium.

Los Angeles. 2006.

A small Mexican Restaurant, hailed by my father and escalated to greatness. With a yellow and red patio, and a small kitchen, we were contextually misplaced--far too white.
We order, we wait. We take pictures, we feel like tourists. The small parking lot is splayed with farm-animal murals. Cows, chickens, pigs.

Carnitas Burrito.

The horse is fast. 17 to one.

In this dinginess, in this bum-sorrow of half-way poverty, I see it: my soul. Sifting down the cement LA River, I see myself, within myself... I see the empty beds: drought and sorrow. I see the small weeds, shooting through the walls, I see the movies filming with lights and smoke and tenacity just about the Ten Freeway.

Dingy, and dank, and the burrito is delicious.

Out of the gate, the trumpet is sounding the Charge.
I bite in and see all this for seconds, and it disappears--everything disappears into meat and beans and rice and rivers of dreams deferred and controlled and winding South through the city's organic landscape on trial for depravity.

So trivial, so lost!

Drifting down, drifting down, I am caught up in the current--going down Moses towards the bathing woman who will adopt and love me. A wife, a lover, a home, a finale.

Oh Caveat of Gambling against all those odds to see within!

1\5th to the Commonwealth, and the Rest to the Track!

In Southern California, and across the nation, there is a Christian radio station poignantly called "Air1 Radio." They are a radio-station run by the donations of customers (who probably feel that they can tithe to this corporation instead of their local church), and one that has brought up a point to me concerning Christian culture.
In 2004, I listened to this radio station with vigor, trying to be a good Christian boy. Sure, some of the songs got old, but I figured it would change, and it was not like it was the only radio station. However, by the end of that year, when I had realized that all the music was not very good, and that it all had the same homogenous faith in Jesus message (but faith is relative to the person, ye naysayers!), I stopped listening to this station. It got old, plain and simple. It got to be overbearing, bland, and downright silly. I took them out of my programmed radio stations, and have not listened to them much since.
What has happened though, is that, now, two years later, I can change to that station at any given time and, 9 times out of 10, hear one of the same songs I heard in 2004, as if there need not be new music since there is not a new bible, not a new message, not a new struggle--one faith under God. With songs that have been playing out their welcome for two years, with the same ideals being passed around, with the same voices being heard and new ideas not being acknowledged, the problem has pronounced itself:
There is stagnancy in the Christian church. The waves have stopped crashing against the sand, the undercurrent of thought has slowed to breaking.
Our faith is supposed to be living, it is supposed to be growing as we ask and seek and knock. The only reason Paul thanks God for the Thessalonians is because their faith was growing, not because their faith had grown and plateaued. It is true, yes, that faith does often plateau, but it is still supposed to be that we are to escape this mesa, and turn it back into a mountain.
But how are we to turn flat into angled when all life reflects society?
I guess it's time to call them out on this type of bullshit. No movement, no current, no waves, no truth.

Lost in the Rain in Juarez, and it's Eastertime, too.

There should be no need for bumperstickers of WWJD, no bracelets, nothing to pronounce your faith. No ticket stubs from new FoxFaith movies soon to be debuting. Christian faith is supposed to be the inside glowing out from every pore of your body, not an adornment on your body or on your car...

All those crosses, all those shirts, all those John 3:16 posters, all those amusements that loudly proclaim that "I have Jesus, and, if you did too, you could legitimately wear this kind-of-badass T-Shirt," all those things are just a ploy for the piety that the Bible calls us against. We're supposed to be humble like Jesus Christ, as Christians who are supposed to be Christ-like--humble even in the way we represent our faith. What starts as a whisper, often gains steam and becomes movement, but a shout often echoes off the canyons and dies away, much like a fad, much like The Passion of the Christ.

Syllogistic Reasoning for the Existence of God

If love is real, and if God is love*, then God is real.

*1 John 4:8

Success!

The first issue (of hopefully many) of We are all Serial Killers has been released for $5.99. Available through Lulu.com, the topics covered in this issue include politics and leftist theosophy (as well as premature ejaculation for all you lovers out there!)

The cover image is below!

I know the title is bleak, but it's true. If all sins are equal, then we have all committed murder: murder of people's dreams, murder of people's hearts, etc. We all kill though we are all called to love. We all are running from something (serial killers from the police, from our "dreams deferred"), and now you can no longer run from BUYING THE FIRST ISSUE!

A Certain Type of Madness

On the day that I write this essay, August 24, 2006, the United States of America is currently involved in a non-war: Operation Iraqi Freedom. We have been involved in this war for three and a half years and suddenly all the proponents are tiring. They were expecting a short war--since that is what operation insinuates: that whatever we doing under that euphemism will be quick, to the point, and we will have ejaculated, far removed and asleep by 2006.
But that has not been the case.

The case is that we are stuck in the mire, fighting for our own American freedom. Or at least that's what many supporters of the war--ahem, operation--have stated. We are fighting for all our liberties because these terrorists can take them away, we are fighting for Nationalist convictions.

A conviction that is often perceived as a religion.

It takes a nation, makes it sovereign, as a god, as an idol and compels its citizens to believe in its cause, be it strong as in the 1940's or weak as in our times. Nationalism is the true religion of a nation, making it to be supreme over all people, all laws, all decisions, all wills, all life.

The moment in our history when this type of National Sovereignty was the most evident was when, in 2001, the Patriot Act was passed which was, admittedly, a good move for the nation during a time of crisis, to keep the terrorists down via terrorism, but not a good move for the individual citizen since it collapsed many aspects of our rights for a period of time. At this point, Congress and the Senate had a lapse and forgot that each person matters just as much as national security--this was the reason why the Bill of Rights was created: to protect the individual rights before the state's protection, before the state’s rights.

When the Constitution was created, the emphasis because our Founding Fathers had come from backgrounds of monarchal oppression and saw how it destroyed the citizens and the individuals.

Nationalism does this same thing: it creates a godhead for everyone to worship, much like a metaphysical emperor. In that manner, then, nationalism is nothing but regressing back to the tyrannical days of the dictator and forgetting all we know about democracy.

In that vain, we come to religion. In Christianity, one of the underlying principles is the inerrancy of both the Bible and God--that both are without errors and holistically perfect--and nationalism and patriotism hold this same philosophy: that the government can do no wrong, that the nation can do no wrong, that everything done in Washington D.C. is completely God-bred and God-given.

What this point of view fails to realize is that the nation is nothing but a group of individuals comprised to think of the best for the soil and for its people, two different subjects. And since it is individuals coming together, there is always room for the human element, the human error, the accident.

Everything is for a reason, but an accident must create the purpose first.

Nationalists believe that the Nation, as in this group in Washington D.C., is without any sort of human error, any sort of fault--inerrant. As a result, religion must be removed from politics.

Now, it is obvious that secularity is an aspect of communism, but it is also one aspect that worked; without religion, there is no bias, no prejudice, no guilt about WWJD. Without religion in the government, there would be a furthering of stem-cell research and we would not begin to be surpassed by Singapore and China in this now-vital aspect of science.

There would be abortion, the allowance for the woman to say, "It's my vagina, let me make the decision."

But, even without religion, we would have ethics, and, apparently, ethics tells us that this is murder, that killing a second-trimester child is murder, that the child has no decision and therefore should not be allowed when in all reality, to flip the tables, a parent has no choice concerning whether or not their child will commit suicide. So should suicide be outlawed?

What if a woman wants to abort her baby at home with a wire coat-hangar and claim still-birth, Is that illegal? It's her vagina, her choice.

With a secular government, we would more and more be furthering the individual's rights because we would not be conscious of any sort of command by God in the Congress, which in and of itself, is absurd. God has no part in politics. He was on both sides of World War II, remember?

And if God is all about the individual, the personal relationships, should not politics be the same way, especially if it is constantly emulating God himself and sovereignty...? If God is all about the individual, why have we killed between 40 and 45,000 civilian Militiamen in Iraq?
In perspective, the only thing any sort of Middle Eastern terrorist has done recently (failed attacks and deserved shootings aside) is kill 3,000 in New York on September 11 of 2001, the most in any recent terrorist attack. 3,000 people and two collapsed buildings reminiscent of Henry Cameron's Dana Tower are the reason for the United States and its Affiliate companies killing in Iraq while only a meager 2,692 Americans have been killed. Therefore, taking the minimum of 40,000 Iraqis, we have a 37,000 death deficit. We have killed 37,000 more than anyone has in that region, 40,000 more than any Iraqi killed on "that fateful day." And, on top of that, almost 3,000 volunteers have died serving the country. The death tolls do not match up, and neither does the reason for being there:

No WMD's;

No act of God;

No Holy War;

No loss of freedom because of them.

All this nationalism has created an American Government’s pet project to spread its influence into that region of the world so that they can wear Tommy Hilfiger jeans and eat McDonald's hamburgers.

Just a capitalistic need hindered by a heavily unbalanced death count. Death for profit! Death to Capitalism!

(But if not capitalism, then what? If not greed and business and white-collar crime and scandal, then what? Communism failed. Fascism failed. Dictatorial systems failed. All other systems have failed. We cannot completely revamp John Locke. Perhaps we could tone it down, and vamp up another New Deal with Socialistic Programs to help the poor since when the poor get money they have to spend it somewhere. And then, in turn, we will continue the capitalistic attack on this Earth but with better intentions. But I digress.)

So, then, it must be the American Government that has removed our liberties that we are fighting to keep. Ahhh, yes—you knew we would reach this point: The Patriot Act: the most controversial legislation passed since Roe v. Wade was gaveled. Free-range, warrant-free wiretaps and record searches all done in secrecy.

Searching and wiretapping and stalking because of the fear of subversion.

Removing our liberties because it is war time, which is nothing new... But removing our liberties during an Operation that is built around protecting our liberties?

Oh my how paradoxical it all becomes!

...But not paradoxical all at the same time since it wouldn’t be paradoxical if we acknowledged, openly, that we were fighting for entrepreneurial gain in the region. If we finally admitted that it were for OPEC or for Coca-Cola or for Burger King, I would finally be okay with this war.

But, like the beginning of the Civil War, our president has to hide behind false idioms and reasons because not every Northerner wanted to free the slaves. Not every American wants the country at war.

Why can't the President just state Operation Iraqi Freedom is for the abolition of slavery?
Oh, wait. That is why we brought down Saddam Hussein...or was it paternal vindication...or was it oil...or was it corporate...or was it terrorists...or was it...

These Next Few Years

Currently pursuing this life plan:

Bachelor's Degree in Philosophy with the emphasis in Religious Studies

MA in Theology

Make Children\Procreate

Doctorate in Theology.

Make Money.


The Christian Existentialist's dream is quickly becoming a reality.

Kierkegaard, you're gonna have a run for your money.

What new mystery is this?

First in a month

Here I sit,

at a computer that is brand new,

one which I barely know...

Off to college!

Had to get one!

Oh bullshit,

it's a computer I don't really need,

and I know that... paper would have

and always has

sufficed.

But then again,

I'm a horrible

or

ga

ni

zer

and so maybe this can help me

make that

grade

that everyone

has their butt-cheeks squeezed taut over.

I'm not sure, though,

maybe I should have waited a week to determine the workload,

taken a day off?

no, not this early in the semester,

although this is when it’d be the simplest.

Get a syllabus,

do the work,

fuck'em.

Use Mordecai

(Maybe he shoulda been named ICHIRO!!! since it's branded Japanese.)

and live.

Get to seminary,

make some cash money

anally raping people out of theirs

at a consumer electronics store...

And finally reading the Fucking Sound and the Fury

Oh Faulkner.

Faulkner it all indeed.

...and I shake the Dirt from my Sandals...

Here's an interesting article my friend sent me-- I didn't write it. The guy who did (and credit is definitely due) is at the bottom--Robert Jensen.

There's a link at the end of one of the paragraphs (this one:http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=217&row=2). Don't overlook it. It will shock you as well.

There is no freedom in war.


***

ZNet Commentary
Constraining history/controlling knowledge August 14, 2006
By Robert Jensen

One way to measure the fears of people in power is by the intensity of their quest for certainty and control over knowledge.

By that standard, the members of the Florida Legislature marked themselves as the folks most terrified of history in the United States when last month they took bold action to become the first state to outlaw historical interpretation in public schools. In other words, Florida has officially replaced the study of history with the imposition of dogma and effectively outlawed critical thinking.

Although U.S. students are typically taught a sanitized version of history in which the inherent superiority and benevolence of the United States is rarely challenged, the social and political changes unleashed in the 1960s have opened up some space for a more honest accounting of our past. But even these few small steps taken by some teachers toward collective critical self-reflection are too much for many Americans to bear.

So, as part of an education bill signed into law by Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida has declared that "American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed." That factual history, the law states, shall be viewed as "knowable, teachable and testable."

Florida's lawmakers are not only prescribing a specific view of U.S. history that must be taught (my favorite among the specific commands in the law is the one about instructing students on "the nature and importance of free enterprise to the United States economy"), but are trying to legislate out of existence any ideas to the contrary. They are not just saying that their history is the best history, but that it is beyond interpretation. In fact, the law attempts to suppress discussion of the very idea that history is interpretation.

The fundamental fallacy of the law is in the underlying assumption that "factual" and "constructed" are mutually exclusive in the study of history. There certainly are many facts about history that are widely, and sometimes even unanimously, agreed upon. But how we arrange those facts into a narrative to describe and explain history is clearly a construction, an interpretation. That's the task of historians -- to assess factual assertions about the past, weave them together in a coherent narrative, and construct an explanation of how and why things happened.

For example, it's a fact that Europeans began coming in significant numbers to North America in the 17th century. Were they peaceful settlers or aggressive invaders? That's interpretation, a construction of the facts into a narrative with an argument for one particular way to understand those facts.

It's also a fact that once those Europeans came, the indigenous people died in large numbers. Was that an act of genocide? Whatever one's answer, it will be an interpretation, a construction of the facts to support or reject that conclusion.

In contemporary history, has U.S. intervention in the Middle East been aimed at supporting democracy or controlling the region's crucial energy resources? Would anyone in a free society want students to be taught that there is only one way to construct an answer to that question?

Speaking of contemporary history, what about the fact that before the 2000 presidential election, Florida's Republican secretary of state removed 57,700 names from the voter rolls, supposedly because they were convicted felons and not eligible to vote. It's a fact that at least 90 percent were not criminals -- but were African American. It's a fact that black people vote overwhelmingly Democratic. What conclusion will historians construct from those facts about how and why that happened?http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=217&row=2

In other words, history is always constructed, no matter how much Florida's elected representatives might resist the notion. The real question is: How effectively can one defend one's construction? If Florida legislators felt the need to write a law to eliminate the possibility of that question even being asked, perhaps it says something about their faith in their own view and ability to defend it.

One of the bedrock claims of the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment -- two movements that, to date, have not been repealed by the Florida Legislature -- is that no interpretation or theory is beyond challenge. The evidence and logic on which all knowledge claims are based must be transparent, open to examination. We must be able to understand and critique the basis for any particular construction of knowledge, which requires that we understand how knowledge is constructed.

Except in Florida.

But as tempting as it is to ridicule, we should not spend too much time poking fun at this one state, because the law represents a yearning one can find across the United States. Americans look out at a wider world in which more and more people reject the idea of the United States as always right, always better, always moral. As the gap between how Americans see themselves and how the world sees us grows, the instinct for many is to eliminate intellectual challenges at home: "We can't control what the rest of the world thinks, but we can make sure our kids aren't exposed to such nonsense."

The irony is that such a law is precisely what one would expect in a totalitarian society, where governments claim the right to declare certain things to be true, no matter what the debates over evidence and interpretation. The preferred adjective in the United States for this is "Stalinist," a system to which U.S. policymakers were opposed during the Cold War. At least, that's what I learned in history class.

People assume that these kinds of buffoonish actions are rooted in the arrogance and ignorance of Americans, and there certainly are excesses of both in the United States.

But the Florida law -- and the more widespread political mindset it reflects -- also has its roots in fear. A track record of relatively successful domination around the world seems to have produced in Americans a fear of any lessening of that dominance. Although U.S. military power is unparalleled in world history, we can't completely dictate the shape of the world or the course of events. Rather than examining the complexity of the world and expanding the scope of one's inquiry, the instinct of some is to narrow the inquiry and assert as much control as possible to avoid difficult and potentially painful challenges to orthodoxy.

Is history "knowable, teachable and testable"? Certainly people can work hard to know -- to develop interpretations of processes and events in history and to understand competing interpretations. We can teach about those views. And students can be tested on their understanding of conflicting constructions of history.

But the real test is whether Americans can come to terms with not only the grand triumphs but also the profound failures of our history. At stake in that test is not just a grade in a class, but our collective future.

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center http://thirdcoastactivist.org/. He is the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (both from City Lights Books). He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu .