My favorite quote:

"If the Vice President of the U.S. can have a meal in my house when he is in Ghana," said Gbedemah, who had entertained Vice President Nixon during his tour of Africa last spring, "then I cannot understand why I must receive this treatment at a roadside restaurant in America."

(and no, he was not the Finance Minister of Ghana that keeps sending you strange emails)

"an exceptional and isolated incident."

*stares at US Government flatly*

This is at least the third time i've been directed to this article in the last few weeks. Why is that?
Does this matter more right now than it did two years ago or fifty?

It matters a great deal.

For one thing, it gives matteo a chance to jump up and down and do his I-hate-Amurrika routine.

i was asking seriously.
Was it just recently rediscovered or has it been on a blog of note, whatever that is--
i just wanna know why it matters now, because if it's seriously because "Obama is a black man," i'd like to know why and who's to blame.

Specklet: yeah, that was a good one, too. I remember reading something by Vaclav Havel where he made a great, great point -- about the Soviet bloc, of course, not segregation -- he wrote that, in the end, a weakened tyrannical system is finally brought down by shame, and the sheer impossibility of propping the old ways up again, because they're crumbling down.

This idea of shaming a tyranny into dissolving really resonates with me. Joe Blow would have had no recourse against that HoJo in Delaware, but they didn't know the guy had -- in more ways than one -- juice, and called the State Dept., and the President himself had to apologize for those racist fucks at the diner counter. It's a little story but it's very powerful to me. And it happened less than 7 years before the Civil Rights Act was signed into law. 7 years must have felt like eternity back then, but in the end it's a very short time to finish off centuries of oppression.

This is at least the third time i've been directed to this article in the last few weeks.

seriously? I was actually looking for something else in TIME'S archives earlier and I found it, where did you find it? it's a really cool little story I wasn't aware of.

Jason: "is against segregation" = "hates America".

Seriously. i couldn't tell you right now from where or how, i'm only up and on because i'm waiting for something. Maybe check the blue page?
i go periodically and run through pages just to skim and mark links i want to get to later when i'm in the mood, so there's a good chance of that.
Plus i think it's someone's birthday, so, maybe go say hi anyway.

Tell ya what, i'll go scan through the blog where i mark them and see if it pops up, but i doubt it. If i did see it there, it wasn't the first time.

Nope, sorry, but i did find this and a lot of cool stuff i never do end up getting back to. Hmm, if the blue db goes down or those links expire, the day i'm trapped (but with comp and wifi) will suck all the more. Otherwise i'll have lots of stuff to read from freaks to fungus and back again, and a few movies to watch.

For one thing, it gives matteo a chance to jump up and down and do his I-hate-Amurrika routine.

Way to be glibly dismissive there, dude. I think if you go take a look at matteo's MetaFilter posting history (posts, not comments, mind you) you'll find that he's perhaps not quite the venom-spewing America-hater you've made him out to be. If he has a routine at all, I think it's more I-hate-American-exceptionalism than anything else.

This is an interesting story that I wouldn't otherwise have seen. Thanks, matteo.