Overjoyed, is how Peggy felt, generally, to see this glorious melting pot, melting, together, as one. But there was a moment which puzzled her:
Everyone different, everyone getting along, everyone feeling free to be who they are but everyone also-you could just kind of see it-feeling free to be different from who they are, too. Everyone selling their wares, not just material ones but spiritual ones. There was a really loud kind of rap group, and I asked who it was because I didn’t get its composition-young black and Hispanic men, a middle-aged white woman. Singers from a local church, I was told.
A rap group—and yet. And yet. Not just the young black and Hispanic men, but a middle-aged white woman. This, now, this… this, Peggy Noonan does not “get.” She does not get its, how shall we say it… “composition.” Yes. We’ll say its… “composition.” What? Why? How? Aha—singers, from a local church. United by Jesus. Together as Americans, even in the loud rap. This has allowed Peggy to draw the conclusion, you see, that everyone is “feeling free to be different from who they are.” Like who? Well, for example, to pick randomly: this white woman, with the rap. She is white. And yet she raps? It is all confusing, and yet, she is free to be different, from who she really is—a white woman, in this great land that Ronald Reagan once ruled with a modest hand.
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i hate how much i love hamilton nolan’s writing on gawker.
