It’s been an interesting week for me. I spent most evenings watching “Black Magic,” a documentary on the history of black players in basketball. The documentary is 4 hours long and worth every minute. I watched in segments because I didn’t have 4 hours in a row. I’ve been studying history all my life, with a focus on African-American (and Women’s) studies. Yet this is a story I did not know. Everyone knows how baseball became integrated. No one discusses how basketball became integrated (or football, for that matter). I learned a lot, and enjoyed it all. It juxtaposed with an essay by Jerald Walker that I read the same week in the Best American Essays 2007. Walker wrote (and I’m paraphrasing … Read entire article »