Letters to the Editor
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I am -
also profoundly depressed by Joans post. I found myself thinking this post might be either too short, or too long,
for Joan to win back the Salonistas. It's too long because already, for some people, the thrill is gone, the honeymoon
is over, even Joans's fans are starting to ask tough questions. It's too short because the "conversation about Joan" we all keep promising to have has barely begun, and it would take longer than November to hash out how much
Joan's role in Salon should mean to her. But Joans post had
to be troubling to anyone who cares about race relations, American politics or the campaign. Now there are new and longer excerpts from Joan's other postings, and Joan will also post again monday morning. Clearly the Joan story isn't going away. My goal in this post is to try not to treat Joan the way Joan seems to treat the idea of America; to not utterly damn Joan because some of (a lot of? I'm not sure) what Joan has said is disturbing and wrong. I am grateful to Joan for posting so much. I enjoyed her thoughtful conversation with herself. But the whole idea that Joan has been attacked over "soundbites," and if we saw her entire posts, in context, we'd feel differently, now seems ludicrous. The long posts Joan posts only confirm what was in her snippets (and the longer excerpts out today are even more troubling) and it could be especially deadly for Joan but that's not why I am posting - I profoundly would like to get in contact with AJCalhoun and Tom Payne and if you read this -
please contact: "schwarzfilmdo@aol.com.