W. Ralph Eubanks is faculty fellow and writer-in-residence at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of A Place Like Mississippi: A Journey Through a Real and Imagined Literary Landscape as well as two other works of nonfiction, Ever Is a Long Time and The House at the End of the Road.
What is lost in translation can be recovered if one begins to understand the nuances and significance of what has been placed on the margins.
Race is an absurdity. Yet as a means of defining and separating people, it retains its power.