A reader writes:
Without getting into the Harris-Sullivan debate, a short comment on a more critical issue that's come up: Church hats. Your correspondent in "Tip of the Hat" writes:
"Yes, your faith is a lot like the church lady and her hat. Both of you are being very disingenuous when you claim to your questioners that you have no idea where they come from. The providence of that hat is no deep mystery. It was bought in a shop. It was acquired for reasons of vanity and adornment and to make the owner feel better than others."
He - and you can tell it's a he, can't you? and a squinchy-hearted dried-up little peckerwood, at that - he obviously knows very little about church ladies, hats, performance art or women. Do the hats have to do with vanity and adornment and pride and maybe a bit of oneupsmanship? You bet they do. And they are magnificent. Check out the book "Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats". These women are queens. And they know it. If you can't see God in this beauty, this dignity, this humanity, this art, you're dead.