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birdwatcherCHICAGO TRIBUNE -- The request, made several months ago to Mayor Richard Daley's office by Bellow's longtime friend and University of Chicago colleague Richard Stern, was sent along to Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th.)
The request was promptly denied, Stern said.
Although Preckwinkle declined to comment for this article Thursday, Stern said he received a letter from the alderman saying she had heard remarks from Bellow she considered racist and because of those comments would not agree to name something after the author.
Stern and other friends of Bellow said he wasn't a racist. His thoughts and feelings about race and ethnicity were more complex, they argued Thursday.
He feared the racial changes in his Hyde Park neighborhood, once filled with European immigrants and now predominantly African-American, Stern said. Он оказался прав! Он оказался прав!
It isn't the first time that Bellow's thoughts on race got him into trouble.
In an interview with the New York Times Magazine in 1988, Bellow was quoted as having said: "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans? I'd be glad to read them."
Примечание: фашистский летчик, именем которого названа улица рядом с моим домом - Итало Бальбо. From July 1 - August 12, 1933 he led a flight of 24 flying boats on a round-trip flight from Rome to the Century of Progress in Chicago, Illinois. In honor of this feat, Mussolini donated a column from Ostia to the city of Chicago; it can still be seen along the Lakefront Trail, a little south of Soldier Field. Chicago renamed Seventh Street "Balbo Drive" and staged a parade in his honor.
The request was promptly denied, Stern said.
Although Preckwinkle declined to comment for this article Thursday, Stern said he received a letter from the alderman saying she had heard remarks from Bellow she considered racist and because of those comments would not agree to name something after the author.
Stern and other friends of Bellow said he wasn't a racist. His thoughts and feelings about race and ethnicity were more complex, they argued Thursday.
He feared the racial changes in his Hyde Park neighborhood, once filled with European immigrants and now predominantly African-American, Stern said. Он оказался прав! Он оказался прав!
It isn't the first time that Bellow's thoughts on race got him into trouble.
In an interview with the New York Times Magazine in 1988, Bellow was quoted as having said: "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans? I'd be glad to read them."
Примечание: фашистский летчик, именем которого названа улица рядом с моим домом - Итало Бальбо. From July 1 - August 12, 1933 he led a flight of 24 flying boats on a round-trip flight from Rome to the Century of Progress in Chicago, Illinois. In honor of this feat, Mussolini donated a column from Ostia to the city of Chicago; it can still be seen along the Lakefront Trail, a little south of Soldier Field. Chicago renamed Seventh Street "Balbo Drive" and staged a parade in his honor.
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Date: 2007-10-05 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-05 09:46 pm (UTC)