Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Amazing

Amanda Jones, the 109-year-old daughter of a former slave, votes for Barack Obama.

I spend a fair amount of my time reading, thinking, and writing about slavery, but I will admit, it sometimes seems a remote topic. I know it isn't — "slavery" did not necessarily end in 1865 and no matter what the pundits say, we are by no means a "post-racial" nation. My privilege allows me to think of slavery in a vague "back in the day" sort of way, and I am grateful to be jolted out of that complacency by stories like this one. And this one, and this one, though they don't give me the warm fuzzies.

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