Word: fareek
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...Morehouse College, Roger Too White, reflected his disdain for all the campus talk about black separatism. But his old Morehouse friend and fraternity brother Wesley Dobbs Jordan is now the mayor of Atlanta. That connection explains why Roger is asked to represent Georgia Tech's All-American running back, Fareek ("the Cannon") Fannon...
...racial turmoil portrayed in Bonfire was up front and confrontational and stomping on the streets. Atlanta, as Wolfe portrays it, handles this problem a lot differently. Fareek is a fairly typical contemporary phenomenon, a loutish, sullen, spoiled athlete wearing diamond ear studs and, Roger observes, "a gold chain so chunky you could have used it to pull an Isuzu pickup out of a red clay ditch." Fareek is also a local Atlanta boy who climbed to fame from a poor black neighborhood. And he has now been accused, though not yet formally charged, of date rape by the daughter...
...novel starts to get really complicated, especially ethically. The proposal Roger White, at Mayor Jordan's behest, brings to Charlie boils down to this: get acquainted with the Cannon, talk over your shared experiences as Georgia Tech football stars, and then appear at a press conference to say that Fareek is a fine young man, charged with no crime, and that everybody should just simmer down...
...earth would Charlie do that? Roger explains: "Once you've met with Fareek, you decide whether or not to go ahead with the press conference. If you say yes, then you let us know, and immediately all pressure from PlannersBanc will cease. If you then do your part at the press conference, it will cease for good, and the bank will restructure the loans on the most generous terms imaginable...
Charlie understands what defending Fareek will do to his reputation: "Who could he look in the face after that? Who of all the people he had entertained at Turpmtine would ever come again? On the other hand, if he refused--then suppose he lost Turpmtine, lost everything he had, including his house on Blackland Road--was wiped out! demolished!--the result would be the same, wouldn't it! No one would come to visit him then, either...
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