in an orphanage. He discovers at age 50nand under Pam’s influence diat he wasnthe son of a promiscuous and self-destructivenmiddle-class English girl and annitinerant Jew^ish sea cook. Since hisngrandmother was a Jewish convert tonChristianity who reverted to Judaismnafter the death of her son in World WarnI, he figures that he is Jewish. So he eventuallynleaves Pam and their illegitimatendaughter to move to Israel. Pam ultimatelyndecides to leave her bisexual girlnMend and follow her lover.nThe sickest part of this weird extravaganzanis the rearing of children. Wenlearn about the mother of the sailor,nwho drove her own mother to suicidenby her craiy promiscuity, then movednin with Dad for a while to torture him,nand finally killed herself. The sailor, asnmentioned, deserts his illegitimatendaughter. The bisexual at least staysnwith her kids, but she brings them up innan atmosphere of homosexual promiscuitynand open cheating on the Britishnwelfare state. The chMien in Lord of thenFlies had better supervision.nNo Shades of GraynRoy Wilkins with Tom Mathews:nStanding Fast: The Autobiographynof Ray Wilkins; Viking Press; NewnYork.nRoger Wilkins: A Man’s Life: AnnAutobiography; Simon & Schuster;nNew York.nby Keith Bowern1 he following story is the typicalnfare of television’s 60 Minutes. In thenAlgiers section of New Orleans, two blacknmen were separately shot by police innthe middle of the night. They had beennsuspected of being involved in the deathnof a New Orleans police ofiicer. Two fel-nKeith Bower is managing editor o/ThenHillsdale Review.n36inChronicles of CttltarenJiternal vigilance is the price of sanitynand normalcy. This sanity is capablenof producing cathartic visions of humannpride and weakness and tragedy, annOedipus, a Lord of the Flies When wencease to strive for the normal and thensane, however, we achieve neither freedomnnor self-fulfillment. Our visions arenno longer moving tragedies but degradingnfarces without meaning, without insight,nwithout beauty. Sophocles’ andnWilliam Gelding’s lives of probity andnsanity preserve the possibility of thennormal and the tragic in their worst imaginingsnof destruction and horror, likenthe father in Shadow of a Doubt UnclenCharlie and Alan Sillitoe’s Pam try tonmake immorality seem charming and almostnnormal, a spurious victory overnmarriage and hometown and normalnlife. Behind the smiling mask is a horrornthat is worse than any endured by Oedipusnor the children in Lord of the Fliesnbecause it degrades, it denatures. Anynskill that disguises or defends such degradationnis not art; it is blasphemy. Dnlow blacks swore affidavits that the suspectsnhad initiated fire on the investigatingnofficers. Later, both witnesses saidntheir testimony had been extracted bynforce. A black rookie officer corroboratedntheir retractions, saying that henhad remained silent and gone alongnwith the third-degree tactics in order tonwin the approval of his coUeagues. Thenprogram went on to imply that when ancop is killed some black will end up payingnfor it with blood. Now, either therenwas a brutal, transgression of the FifthnAmendment in Louisiana, or there’s anwhole lot of jivin’ goin’ on. Either way,nthe case says something about racism inncontemporary America. How far havenwe come when police can perpetratenracist violence in front of a black ofiicernwith an assumption that he won’t saynanything?nnnIn Roy Wilkins’s autobiography therenis ample recounting of such injustices;nthey are real, documented cases. One ofnthem, the hangings of three circus roustaboutsnby a mob in Duluth, Minnesota,nhits close to home. I’m from Minnesota,nyet I don’t know about racism: I can’tnimagine men swinging from lamp postsn60-odd years ago. Recendy in St. Louis Inwalked into a liquor store in what I laternfound out was one of those districts youndon’t go into late at night. The clerk (anwoman) told me to get my “white ass”nout quick after I’d been shortchangedntwo dollars and asked for an audit. I gotnoflf lightly, feeling as if I had somehownhelped to rectify in part some agelessndebt. My perspiration was probably likenthat of Roy Wilkins when he was detainednby crackers near Dundee, Mississippi, ornRoger Wilkins when rousted by policenduring the Detroit riots. In so manynways we are all alike.nBoth of the Wilkinses have spent timenin many of the places I have. The housenRoy Wilkins grew up in (on Galtier in St.nPaul) was idyllic compared to the “project”nI once rented in the Selby-Dalenslum. Roger lived for a time on FranklinnAvenue in Minneapolis. It is now annIndian ghetto. I lived there as a janitor,nslept with my bicycle, and kept threendeadbolts on the door. They grew upnknowing that there were many things anblack could never be, or so they werentaught. Roger’s lather disabused him at antender age of his notion of being a railroadnengineer. Roy remembers that samenincident in his autobiography. I nevernheard there was anything I couldn’t benin America. But there is one thing I can’tnbe, and I forget about it until I find myselfnin places like the St. Louis liquornstore. I’ll never be a brother.nKoth of these men lived about asncomfortably as a black can in America.nRoy admits it; Roger bewails his fate.nThere is an embarrassed sense of havingnlucked out. Roy is from an older generationnand prides himself on having madenthe right decisions and on making thenmost of his good upbringing. Roger isn