A friend has a cold, and asked me if I wanted her tickets for last night to a talk at the library. I said sure, because I knew it would make her happier to know the tickets weren’t going to go to waste, even though I don’t go out in the evenings much.
The talk was at the Parkway Central Library, the main branch of Philadelphia’s library system. I’ve been to author talks there before, and the audience tends to be older mostly White, and cheerful. Many of them seem to know one another. The only thing different about last night was that more of the groups of cheerful old people were Black.
No, wait, the other different thing was that I had to get a wristband, line up, and go through a long security line and have all my possessions scanned, including my watch. Usually the attendees just huddle in the basement hallway outside the big closed doors, chatting and waiting to force their way in for the closer seats. But last night’s talk was between people likely to be targets.
Behind me, while I sat knitting a sock and checking the Phillies score, a White woman with a cane and a Black woman without a cane chatted loudly, eventually exchanging names. In front of me, several people stood in the aisle and socialized with the people sitting down. They knew one another from various other public occasions. I did not know anyone, though I scanned for a friend I used to go to these things with, because it was just her kind of thing.
The talk was to be between Eddie Glaude, Jr., a well-known historian, professor, writer, and personality, and Cory Booker, an even better-known US Senator from New Jersey who used to be the mayor of Newark, and the subject was (of course) Glaude’s latest book, because these talks are almost always about someone’s latest book.
Very official-looking photographers strode up and down the aisles, zooming in on the audience.
Eventually, the library people stood up on the stage and gave an extensive introduction, another man gave an even more extensive personal introduction (they had given him two minutes, he said, and he took at least six), and the speakers came on stage. I noted that Booker weighed more than he used to when he was an eligible bachelor; he got married last November. I had glimpsed his 25-hour filibuster last year, which is mostly how I knew what he looked like. I gathered from what they said that both of them appear on television a lot, mostly MSNBC. I don’t have a television any more, and I cobble my news together from a variety of reputable sources.
They didn’t start right away, though. Instead, they introduced the composer who had created a work to accompany Glaude’s book, and the composer (who had flown from the other side of the country for the occasion) spoke for a bit, and then a pianist in a long gown came out and played the piece on an electronic grand piano sitting on the stage.
After that, the speakers bantered about the issue of race in America on the occasion of its upcoming 250th anniversary. It was very deep and thoughtful, and often moving, but you could tell that the historian was a teacher and the Senator was a politician, and that both of them frequently appear on MSNBC. At one point, Booker was arguing for hope, and Glaude said, with perfect timing, “You have to say that,” and everyone laughed.
They were clearly having a marvelous time, and they also clearly knew each other very, very well and were fond of one another. They kept going and going, Booker often reading Glaude passages from his own book and Glaude expanding and expounding. Booker mentioned he had been at a detention center in New Jersey earlier in the day, where the detainees are on a hunger strike and where the other New Jersey Senator had been pepper-sprayed the day before. I don’t think Booker got pepper-sprayed, at least he didn’t mention it.
The organizers started peering through the drapes and tapping their watches, because the library had officially closed already, but the two of them continued to talk. Finally, they wrapped up, and took a couple of questions that had been submitted earlier. Then we were released. Glaude was going to sign his books upstairs, but I headed out because I don’t stay out late any more.
The lady who lives in the bus shelter outside the library has not been in good shape lately; she has been talking out loud to herself and her blankets are covered with hand-lettered pamphlets, so I didn’t interrupt, just went around the corner to catch the other bus, which was coming sooner.
If you want to talk about race in America as it approaches its 250th anniversary, it’s not on MSNBC. It’s in that bus shelter, or it’s on the bus where I’m very often the only White person, because White people are scared of taking public transportation because they are scared of Black people for some reason. White people also don’t want to think about race in America, and they really, really don’t want to feel bad.
Glaude had some pretty pithy things to say about that topic. The audience enjoyed it tremendously when he did. It was a very pleasant evening, and I don’t think anyone left feeling bad. You can’t make people feel too bad, or they won’t buy your books or vote for you. Anyway, everyone there considered themselves to be the good guys, including, of course, me.