The good-looking one, the one in need, the one that almost was
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Leonard Rogoff teaches English at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina.
I think that I have a prima facie duty to protect the animals against the violations of their rights on the part of scientists and the agricultural industry. It’s not charity. I’m not giving them something they don’t deserve. They do deserve my assistance. A charitable act is something over and above what duty requires. It’s meritorious but not obligatory. Well, assistance is not an act of charity, it is an act of duty.
“As a white person,” a student asks me, “are you uncomfortable teaching black literature to blacks?”
“Of course,” I answer. “Of course.”
Then the coup de grace. Al Wood, driving, one on one against Sampson. Sampson leaps to block as Al Wood pumps, slides under the basket and drops in a reverse lay up. When consciousness returns, Al Wood has 39 points, the Heels win by 13, and however fate would play its dirty game, the world is turned right side up. Naked people dance on Franklin Street.
As I trudge up the road from the bus stop, I pause to catch my breath as well as the view. Before me loom towering white cliffs; beneath are the lush fields and orchards of the moshav, and beyond them is the Sea of Galilee or the Kinneret, as it is called in Hebrew, “the violin.” The curving road is lined with small stone houses; I had been told that Elyah’s was the last hut, on the highest slope.