Rabbit is Racist

Rabbit is Rich is the third of John Updike’s “Rabbit” series of novels. It is preceded by Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux, and followed by Rabbit at Rest and Rabbit Remembered.

I’ve read the first two, am nearly finished with the third, and intend to continue through the series. The titular “Rabbit” is Harry Angstrom, so nicknamed in high school as a star basketball player. Those years turn out to have been the high point of his life, and the novels, published at about ten year intervals, chronicle the rest of his ordinary, everyman existence.

The books are quite good. The second and third in the series, in fact, won Pulitzers. Each is written in the present tense, which is a little odd at first, but you get used to it. Some of the overall story is quite moving, as in a meeting between Rabbit and a former lover some twenty years after their fling.

But this isn’t really a review. I want to comment on what I see as the casual racism in the series, which is most noticeable in Rabbit is Rich, when Harry is in his complacent, financially secure middle years. While no characters (most of them white) are klan members or anything that extreme, there is an unmistakable bigotry, a sort of benign intolerance, that is quite bothersome. A character will invoke a slur or stereotype, but no one stops to interject, “That is so racist!”

True, the N-bombs, anti-Semitic bombs, and homophobic bombs are not in abundance. But they are frequent enough. Since they are so casually part of the narrative, they hit like a slap.

It’s that casualness that is so galling. Presumably Updike is just painting a portrait as he sees it, but he never condemns the sewage that spills from some of his characters’ lips.

There is, of course, much more to Rabbit is Rich and the others than what I’m here calling casual racism. I love a good sentence, and they are plentiful. There are also parts – in Rabbit is Rich, especially – that made me laugh out loud. I must admit that it’s tempting to ignore the stereotypes and slurs as outdated reflections of their times, which they are. But I cannot overlook them, not without comment.

(In spite of what I have written here, I do recommend these novels. If you decide to read them, I strongly recommend looking at the entire series as a whole, and reading them all).

Project 2025

Project 2025’s defining document is more than 900 pages of ruthless, self-justifying policy objectives. The media usually calls it a “blueprint” for a second Trump term. It is really a blueprint for minority rule.

Bearing the arrogant title Mandate for Leadership, this long, dense document has no executive summary or précis, no bulleted main points. This is by design, because there is much to hide.

“If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on Day One of the next conservative Administration,” its authors state on the Project 2025 website. “This is the goal of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project."

Their defining document identifies “four broad fronts that will decide America’s future.” I quote:

1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.
2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.
3. Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.
4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”

The hypocrisy is stunning.

The so-called “mandate for leadership” is no mandate. These people and their ideas are broadly unpopular. They are devoted to money and power. They are devoted to white male minority rule. They are committed to getting what they want by any means necessary. They are unalterably opposed to anything that stands in their way. They are prepared for a bloodbath.

In a fair election they will lose, but the wild card remains: there is nothing they will not stoop to. They will cheat and call it winning. If that fails, they will unleash the minions, as we saw on January 6, 2021. Only this time, it will be far worse.

Follow this link to learn more about Project 2025.

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A Helluva Book

As part of an ongoing project to downsize our cluttered abode, I recently confronted several over-stuffed bookcases with the determination to get rid of at least a few armloads of books. It would require some tough decisions. I’d have to admit that I hadn’t looked at certain titles in years – had even lost interest in them – and would likely never open them again. Not easy admissions for me to make.

I’ve confronted this before, and with a similar determination. And I’ve followed through. I almost always regret it.

This time, as the gotta go pile grew, I came across a copy of Flags Of Our Fathers. I’d forgotten I had it, but do have a recollection of my late father (d. 2016) giving it to me some years back.

I opened it to the flyleaf to see whether he’d inscribed it, as he often used to do. No – but I did find an envelope. Inside it was a brief, undated letter from him that I’d totally forgotten about.

My dad was too young to have served in World War II, yet thought of himself part of the so-called “greatest generation.” He loved Flags Of Our Fathers – and considered it, as he wrote to me, a helluva book.

“It has a meaning for every one of us, I think,” he said. “Not just for war veterans. But for all of us. I want you to have it because of a number of things. First because that time is an important part of me...”

My immediate reaction: skepticism, quite frankly. I don’t know much about Flags Of Our Fathers. It has something to do with Iwo Jima, and that iconic flag-raising picture. I suspect a faux patriotic pulse; that it’s faintly (or not so faintly) jingoistic and rabidly macho, beckoning to an America that never was.

Whatever triumphs resulted from the sacrifice of these flagraisers, and the hundreds of thousands they symbolize, is threatened by the same elitist malignancies that caused World War Two, and today is poised to topple what passes for our democracy.

Or maybe I’m being too harsh. Wouldn’t be the first time.

That brief letter ends with, “I love you, son. Dad.”

He had me with hello.