Emmett Till

I had never heard of Emmett Till until I read a book called "Wolf Whistle" when I was at Penn State. The author (Lewis Nordan) paid a visit to our class, and read excerpts. One of the most disturbing things about this is that the lynchers, from what I remember, chained or tied an air conditioner around this boy's neck, and threw him in a river. In the book, obviously making fun of white America, the conversation between two racists pokes fun, something to the effect, "That boy tried to swim across the river with a fan around his neck." Talk about sick humor. Still, I laughed when I read it. It seems like sick irony that somebody would even dare to suggest such a thing. (I'm not talking about the author of the story--rather, how something like murder could get swept under the rug for so long--and rationalized in this way.)

How sad. Just google "Emmett Till." I think it's shocking.

One thing that pisses me off is that Lewis Nordan signed my book, and my fucking dog chewed it. The dog did meet uncertain death, my husband accidentally ran her over. Should I say, the dog ran under the tire. It was winter, and the ground was solid. We couldn't dig a hole, so my husband gave her a "Lord of the Rings" burial, and sent her down a river too. However, she didn't have a fan around her neck.