Sad for Liberals

The NYTimes Business section today has a profile of the head of Brown University, Ruth Simmons--Doing It Right Matters .

I found this very sad:

"As an African-American, I was patronized pretty consistently by professors, so to finally have someone say to me, 'You know I think you are very smart but what you just said is dumb'... nobody had ever been honest with me before."

This might tie to David Brook's column today (Remaking the Epic of America) in which he sees a trend of popular sports movies with the gruff, tough coach and the working class team fighting against their adversary. Contrary to the 60's, the movies celebrate authority but like the 60's, they embrace equality--minorities and women. Uniformly the coaches are honest with their players. Perhaps that's one reason for their popularity.