The Latest: Complex shades of ‘Race’; ‘Spirit’ soars

Sites of Race

David Theo Goldberg and Susan Searls Giroux

Polity Press; 208 pages

Now that Barack Obama is president, with all the compromises and limits that that job entails, it’s easy to forget the exhilaration we felt when the 2008 voting results trickled in. The key words during that election year, and even for a time after, were, “Yes we can,” and “we” hardly felt like an exclusive group. Rather, it evoked a euphoric movement that steam rolled any details of politics: We, the people, had overpowered history and put the first nonwhite leader in the White House.

“Sites of Race,” a new book by David Theo Goldberg and Susan Searls Giroux, looks back on that half-decade-old exultation and asks what, exactly, we did. After the last few years of Sanford, Ferguson, Staten Island, Donald Sterling, SAE and even Al Sharpton calling an emergency meeting over Oscar nominations, can anyone pretend that America has put race behind it? If it’s true, as the saying goes, that the first step to solving a problem is to acknowledge it, then our society appears perilously stuck on step one.

Then again, maybe all of us haven’t reached that step. “Sites of Race,” which consists of a series of dialogues between Giroux and UC Irvine professor Goldberg, posits that racism remains a constant presence in American culture (and abroad), and that part of the problem, ironically, is that so many of us swear by its defeat. At one point, Goldberg, who serves as interview subject for Giroux, suggests a slogan to encapsulate our modern dilemma: “Race is dead. Long live racism.”

At the dawn of the 21st century, Goldberg sees widespread signs of prejudice: in Tea Party rhetoric, in the birther movement, in Trayvon Martin’s death and George Zimmerman’s acquittal. It’s true that Jim Crow laws have vanished from the books, and that overtly racist acts lead to harsh reprisal — consider the events in Oklahoma this month. As students read “To Kill a Mockingbird,” as workplaces close for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we send a loud, collective message that bigotry is taboo.

But when do we know it’s bigotry? In Goldberg’s estimation, our modern sensitivity toward race is intertwined with what he terms the “privatization of racism” — the belief (or hope) that abhorrent acts are isolated events rather than products of deeply entrenched social structures. We’re not racist, in other words, even if a few members of “us” definitely are. And in cases where skin color is not explicitly evoked, can we say with certainty that race played a part?

At its best, “Sites of Race” addresses these issues in clear and compelling terms. At its worst, it feels overly dense and elliptical, and some sentences (“Comparativism, like the synchronic, may enable a deep dive into the specificities of locally bound racist expression and racial formulation”) almost require a flow chart to comprehend. The more specific Giroux and Goldberg make their observations, as in the insightful last chapter on Obama, the stronger their prose is.

Our challenge today, Goldberg writes at the end, is learning “how to live without race while living with it, and to live with race while living without it.” I’d like to say that we do that impressively often. Not long ago, I attended the wedding of a mixed-race couple and sat at a large table filled with differently colored faces, all laughing and toasting together. See! the mind wants to shout. We do all get along! And our condemnation of incidents such as the SAE video shows that, even if we harbor the potential for intolerance, we’ve largely learned to suppress it.

But even if we have, we haven’t suppressed the past — or done away with the boundaries that perpetuate inequality in education, hiring and so much else. Maybe it’s fitting, then, that the cover of “Sites of Race” features a pair of faceless boxers, one black and one white, duking it out. The old battles continue, even if, given a paintbrush, we would never complete either of those figures with the face of a beloved friend.

—Michael Miller

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Spirit

Henri Laborde

Self-released; 16-tracks

Loss of a loved one can be difficult, and there are different ways people cope, some more proactive than others. Some take time from their busy schedules, take up a new hobby or, in some cases, turn to substance abuse.

In April 2014, Huntington Beach musician and songwriter Henri Laborde lost his wife of two years, Janet Marie Avallone, to cancer, and his way of getting over the loss was to do what he does best: record an album dedicated to her.

“Spirit” is a 16-track self-released CD consisting of songs about his wife and her struggle with cancer, as well as other family members and friends he has lost throughout the years.

The album starts with “Roses and Kisses,” a simple song written by Laborde for his wife that he sang to her in the mornings, according to the liner notes. The lyrics “Love is made of beautiful dreams, and roses and kisses” are repeated several times before Laborde sings the last line, “Love is made of beautiful dreams, and roses and kisses / for you.”

“The Fairy Tale” touches on Avallone’s battle with cancer, however, Laborde disguises it in an unusual way. The song is mainly about two lovers enjoying their day before they are interrupted by spiders, a metaphor for cancer.

The song closes with touching lyrics — one lover dies and the other’s wounds will never heal, but they know they will be reunited in heaven.

On a lighter note, “One in a Million” is another song Laborde wrote for Avallone appreciating the fact that he has her in his life. It almost sounds like one of Randy Newman’s simpler and cheerful pieces, with Laborde’s uplifting lyrics accompanied by catchy instrumentation.

Laborde pays homage to his parents in “To Mom” and “Papa.” “To Mom” is about how his mother cared and sacrificed herself for him. “Papa” is more of a story about how Laborde’s father was able to leave their home country of Algeria before a conflict began and was able to start a new life in the United States. About a quarter of “Papa,” is sung in French; I wish he had sung the whole song in the language of love.

The overall production is good, not great. Laborde experiments with drum machine beats on “Share the Love” that don’t gel with the song, and most of the vocals are somewhat stiff. But none of that matters when you’re writing an album honoring those who you love and miss. Laborde put his soul into this project, and that’s what counts.

—Anthony Clark Carpio