'Scuse me while I whip this out
In a post earlier this week on Bill Parcells, Larry Bird, and the Whole Big Race Thing, I observed that I think
it's funny that affirmed non-liberal Patton also acknowledged the potential third-rail-ness of the question by [jokingly] prefacing his first comment with "well, not to sound illiberal..."Has Political Correctness turned us all into a nation of pussies, or is merely an epiphenomenon of something else? Last night I was watching a bowdlerized "Blazing Saddles" with every "n**ger" cut out. It wasn't the same movie. Can you even imagine a film like Blazing Saddles getting made today?
Patton latter responds
"we're all just a bit too thin-skinned, which has led us to a place where normal discourse, particularly in politics, but also in art, sport, and other areas, is either neutered to the point of uselessness or poisoned to the point of, well, moveon.org, DU, Ann Coulter, KOS, or a whole bunch of other shrieking nitwits. Picture a ballpark vendor: "Umbrage! Get your umbrage here!"
When I was a serious academic historian, I did a lot of work in African-American history, particularly on the images of black maleness in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as captured in folk ballads and popular song. Characters such as Stagger Lee (later memorialized in the 1956 Billy Price hit of the same name) represented a subtheme of African-American masculinity, an alternate road to renown and greatness separate from the mainstream of American culture. These songs acknowledged that the traditional avenues of the American Dream (land ownership, equality before the law, etc. etc.) were closed off to a great many people in the aftermath of Reconstruction, and instead recounted tales of resistance (to use the Marxian term) in the form of unfettered badassery. Mediating between stories of real criminals, sometimes Robin Hoods but often not, and artificial figures emulating them, the badman ballads of the 1885-1920 era presented homegrown figures to celebrate (and loathe) for people stung by the reversals of Reconstruction and the failed promises of deliverance its end represented. Stagger Lee and his latter-day decendents such as the Black Panthers, Iceberg Slim, Sweet Sweetback, gangsta rappers, and Dee-bo from the movie "Friday" represent an important ongoing theme in American cultural history that has never been fully addressed, much less studied.
But I digress. The reason I stopped working on this stuff was it was becoming too difficult to be a good historian, that is, progress along tangled lines of inquiry with an open mind, without worrying too much about political bullcrap or whether this white boy from Ohio is even allowed to speak about issues of African-American male identity, even 140 years ago. Between the tacit understanding that no serious historian would spend time analyzing the sex scenes in "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" (a character who was named, by the way, at the age of 12 for the sweetness of his sweetback by a prostitute) for how they addressed and reinterpreted continuing themes in American cultural history, and the very overt understanding that if I were ever to present my work in conference I'd better be ready to eat a mountain of crap, I lost my taste for it. Moreover, I got sick walking on eggshells, trying very carefully not to be insensitive to all and sundry in the course of working out what all of it means.
The reason I bring all this up is to argue that, despite Dinesh D'Souza's fatuous argument, "The End of Racism" has not yet come. The major issues are sewn up, the big issues are settled, and racism has gone underground where it's harder to fight, but it's not dead. The battles now are so subtle, so intangible, that it's possible (easy, common as dirt) to go way to far to the other side and see racism where none could possibly exist. The word "niggardly," anyone?
It's very difficult to speak in a nuanced fashion about race, and even harder to evoke a nuanced response-- that is, "have a discussion". Why is it only getting harder?
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Most of the -isms of the
Most of the -isms of the cultural war have faded to irrelevancy as we have in fact become a more diverse society. [Diversity. I dislike that word due to hideous overuse.] The old divisions of race/color or sex or sexual preference or national origin or class continue to weaken. Unfortunately I expect a crop of new reasons to mistrust or even hate our fellow citizens are under manic cultivation. Just the way us humans is.
A joke: It's Friday and two Protestants, a Catholic, a Jew, a Muslim and a Buddhist want to eat lunch. Where do they go?
Wait. This is real. I just described myself and and my co-workers and and we work for one of the most reflexively conservative of all American public institutions.
The answer is nowhere for today's a federal holiday. Gotcha.
I have been wondering if we
I have been wondering if we have not been doubly cursed by the end of history. On the one hand, Americans believed that the problems of the Cold War era were solved in 1989. On the other people who were left out of the 1989 solution have only become more radical.
We have so very much in
We have so very much in common, it would seem. Must bookmark this site.
Jeff, if you too like
Jeff, if you too like cupcakes, sunsets, Moxie, improbable deep-fried foods especially on sticks, long walks on the beach, and the pleas of your enemies as you smite them without mercy, then we're tight.
I invented improbable deep
I invented improbable deep-fried foods on a stick. Remember deep-fried Pixie Stix? That was me.
But what I meant was, I've taught lit at a private university, and I had a very interesting time with Beloved and the idea of Black aesthetics. Too interesting for some, in fact.
Ah, identity politics. I'm getting a pantrise just thinking about them.
Jeff, it's funny. My entire
Jeff, it's funny. My entire professional interest in history has to do with identity politics in a way. That is, I'm interested in how people identify themselves as citizens, community members, etc. I've done some work on the genesis of American patriotism and the rise of American citizenship, the aforementioned stuff on black culture, and some work on early women's rights advocates. In each case, I'm most interested in how people identify themselves and ground themselves in their surroundings, and also the ways in which people "other" those who are not like them. "Othering" is a terrible word, sorry.
But for all that handwavery and theoretical crapitude, I CANNOT STAND to be around other historians who study what I study. I like to think of myself as a pretty together guy who engages in serious scholarship of a high caliber, but who has to be creative in using evidence and tying together narrative threads given the airiness of what I study. The rest of these jerks just seem to be circle-jerking each other over the Hott New Theory, each iteration of which makes me gag.
Identity politics. Pantrise? Pantload.
J,
J,
Tell the story about gay bath houses.
In a nutshell, that's why I cannot pursue a PhD. The cliques in academics are rigid and extraordinarily territorial, and I just don't want to play. It's not enough to, you know, like something and write about it. You have to write about it the proper way, and it sets my teeth on edge. Oh, and as a special reward that resonates with the communists who run many of these programs, you can be broke when you've finished.
Graduate study of history beat every bit of creativity and arresting writing from me.