The latest of these has just opened in Greensboro, on the 50th anniversary of the confrontation over a “sit-in” by African-American college students at the Woolworth luncheonette in that city. The International Civil Rights Center and Museum is, it so happens, located in the former Woolworth building.

The New York Times has a review. The museum’s website may be found at sitinmovement.org.

I suppose it’s also high time to concede that the reaction to Trent Lott’s remarks of December 2002 were a bit over the top. Poor Strom was confined to a wheelchair, and the centenarian had only another six months to live, as it turned out. Lott was just trying to humor him….

Wednesday’s column focuses upon Barack Obama. “Barack Obama, elegant and professorially articulate, was an invitation to sophistication that America simply could not bring itself to turn down…. Mr. Obama won the presidency by achieving a symbiotic bond with the American people: He would labor not to show himself, and Americans would labor not to see him…. Mr. Obama always knew that his greatest appeal was not as a leader but as a cultural symbol. He always wore the bargainer’s mask—winning the loyalty and gratitude of whites by flattering them with his racial trust: I will presume that you are not a racist if you will not hold my race against me.”

According to Steele, then white American liberals are forever engaged in an elaborate negotiation in which they seek forgiveness from African-Americans.  I’d be happy to concede that there are indeed liberals to be found who are consumed by “liberal guilt.”

As a corrective, however, a commentary on the 2008 election by Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics bears rereading. Trende emphasizes the pivotal place occupied by “Jacksonian Democrats” — “Culturally conservative, hawkish, and populist whites located throughout the South and Border states. They began breaking away from Democrats in the 1950s and 1960s – their reaction to the Party’s embrace of unions, blacks and liberals is a story is so well known there’s no need to rehash it here…. The party’s grip among Jacksonians had weakened since Clinton left the stage, but they abandoned Obama completely…. This movement is why Obama received 53% of the vote, instead of the 60% or so we might expect given the voters’ attitude toward Bush’s Presidency.” Nevertheless, Shelby Steele insists that Obama’s skin color helped him politicallly….

Sarasohn finds that “Disney used the culture of New Orleans to avoid a mistake made by a lot of entertainment for kids: Simply coloring a character brown and calling it diversity…. The important thing is that you could not have plunked Belle or Snow White down in Tiana’s movie. This is her unique story.”

Furthermore, Tiana “marries the prince, but the wedding isn’t the fulfillment of her destiny. After they are married, she and the prince buy an abandoned building with money she saved in coffee cans. They open a restaurant, and they run it together. They are business partners as well as husband and wife…. The Disney fantasy wedding denigrated the real deal: a strong, collaborative, long-lasting marriage. With ‘The Princess and the Frog,’ I can’t believe how right Disney got it, after getting it wrong for so many years, through the lives of so many girls.”

Controversy has been engendered largely because of the lead character, who comes across in some respects as heroic, or perhaps angelic — but who in some respects may reinforce racial stereotypes, in large part because of her girth.

One reviewer described the film as shot through with “brazenly racist clichés….  a sociological horror show.” But, the author of the novel upon which the film is based objects. “With Michelle, Sasha and Malia and Obama in the White House and in the post-‘Cosby Show’ era, people can’t say these are the only images out there…. Black people are able to say ‘Precious’ represents some of our children, but some of our children go to Yale.”

I’m sure all of his selections would be worthwhile reads. However, while McWhorter is affiliated with Columbia University and The New Republic, he is also a fellow at the Manhattan Institute — and this affiliation is betrayed in his selections. Themes include: political correctness is out of hand, affirmative action deserves close scrutiny, welfare reform was a success.

A reader has posted a sardonic comment: “I can’t believe John McWhorter left out Charles Murray’s ‘THE BELL CURVE’. Well, at least he recommended Thomas Sowell. Black neo-cons are a funny bunch!”