Decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse

I have twice revised the opening part of the entry on the racial stomping attack in the Twin Cities. When I first posted it, I simply assumed, from the whole feel of the event and from its similarity to past racial attacks, that the victim and his family were white, and that was the way I wrote it. Then, based on a quote of the victim’s wife’s which a reader brought to my attention, and based on the absence of any reference to the victim’s race in the Star-Tribune story, I was no longer sure that the victim was white, so I altered the entry to reflect that uncertainty. This evening, however, Scott of Powerline lets us know, though almost as an afterthought, that the family is white:

The Star Tribune has no follow-up story in today’s paper or online tonight. Instead of more information on the story, the Star Tribune provides an editorial instructing us in the appropriate attitude to take in connection with this black gang assault on a white family…

On another point, I was unfair to the Powerline writers in the earlier versions of the entry, when I wrote that their treatment of the story was toneless and depressive; it was stronger than I gave them credit for. Also, they said that the only way for citizens to protect themselves from such attacks is to carry guns, which they can do in Minnesota as it has a concealed carry law.

- end of initial entry -

Adela G. writes:

I don’t know how much you disturbed the universe by using a phrase from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” for this entry on urban savagery but seeing it in this context made me feel quite faint.

LA replies:

The context of the Eliot quote was my repeated revisions, not the racial attack I was writing about.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 17, 2008 11:58 PM | Send