The prejudices are going underground. Like the poems and prayers of pagan faiths forced by barbarous Christians into hiding, they will be contorted into palatable shapes and warped into superstitions that regardless of courage will seep between the cracks in our "scientific" culture. Such things do not pass away by edict. The civil battle frames public discussion and the legal fabric of rights and obligations, but it cannot persuade the hidden demons that dwell in hearts and minds. For proof of this, examine the public enthusiasm for Obama against the bizarre backdrop of private, unfounded fears. The legitimacy of the Obama presidency suffers none of the material evidence against it that was obvious as regards the Bush administration. Nevertheless, it is Obama not Bush that conjures up the bogey men of rumor and lies. With bigotry still hiding in their cuffs and seams, "good" people easily believe crazy things and do so largely informed by cultural tolerance that makes them blind to the elementary racism that effects them. They "know", and even "believe" in equality but--like lingering pagan rituals co-opted by the new Christian plurality--the old world view holds on (in shadows) and poisons their perceptions and their communion wine.
"This journal is not a mere literary diversion. The further I progress, reducing to order what my past life suggests, and the more I persist in the rigor of composition--of the chapters, of the sentences, of the book itself--the more do I feel myself hardening in my will to utilize, for virtuous ends, my former hardships. I feel their power." --Jean Genet
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