PrintJanuary 5, 2007
The Heedless People Who Didn't Care About Michael Oher
Heedlessness has a history in the United States, one that has seen it migrate across social lines. Back in the 1920s rich writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald used to write novels about the heedless rich. They went on their heedless way, these rich WASPs like Tom and Daisy Buchanan, wrecking the lives of poorer folk like auto mechanic Mr. Wilson and his wife Myrtle, who had no margin at all for personal heedlessness.Nothing ever touched them. Someone else always took the fall, perhaps the too-eager, too-Jewish Jay Gatsby, né Gatz. It was their money, their old money,that freed the WASPs from accountability.The WASPs, for their sins, had the misfortune of having their heedlessness memorialized in bestselling novels, dozens of them. Today, of course, things are very different. Few WASPs would think of heedlessness today, not for a moment. Your old-stock New England WASP has become careful and prudent. And your lower-class white...(Read Full Article)
