To start off, I will have to apologize to Sly & The Family Stone fans for thinking that this would be a post about one of the greatest bands to ever take the stage in rock music. This post is about words and society. I came across a story that was posted on MSNBC about a Chicago Public Schools teacher that filed a federal lawsuit against the district for the right to use the word "nigger" in his classroom as part of teaching Mark Twain's classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
As Chicago Public Schools' Lincoln Brown, the teacher in question, was teaching his 6th grade class at Murray Language Academy back in October, school principal George Mason walked in as he uttered the word "nigger" during his lecture and all hell seemingly broke loose. Brown took to the media after filing his lawsuit with his attorney and claimed that he is a victim of character assassination, denied he is a racist, and reiterated that he was only using the word in historical context as part of the lesson. Mason, on the other hand, contended that Brown used it in an abusive and inappropriate manner which is a violation of Chicago Public Schools policy. For the incident, Brown was suspended for 5 days by Chicago Public Schools and Child Protective Services for Illinois upheld the suspension when Brown tried to appeal.
I think the vast swath of us can remember The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from back in middle school. Set in the antebellum South, the titular character forms a friendship with Jim, a slave, who Finn helps escape to freedom. Twain used Southern Vernacular English in the text, which gave way to frequent use of the word "nigger". At the time, "nigger" was often used as Southern vernacular for the word "negro", and was not only used by whites, but by a vast amount of blacks as well. What is often noted, and at times ignored, is that Huckleberry Finn is indeed a satire, and one of the most scathing attacks on antebellum Southern life and attitudes, especially racism; not to mention, at the time that the novel was published in 1884, "nigger" was actually not seen as a pejorative racist term -- the word would not take on that meaning until the late 1890s to the early 1900s.
In the irony of all ironies, the word "nigger" became "nigga" with African American Vernacular English (which I think is a massive misnomer, because blacks, whites, Latinos, and even Asians all use this form of English) during the 1970s, after which it grew in use in various comics by black artists. "Nigga" is a vernacular corruption of "nigger". Just like "ain't" is a vernacular corruption of "isn't". Just like "chink" is a vernacular corruption of "China" and more specifically "Chinese". For the record, when I say "corruption" I merely mean it as "progressive distortion". Connotation is what makes something acceptable or not acceptable, but even then the clarity of what is "acceptable" is now becoming expanded and some what clouded. In fact, its increasingly being seen that "nigga" is not even used to just refer to blacks; Latinos picked up on the word referring to other Latinos that may not even be of black African descent.
"Nigga" has taken on the same movement that "bitch" has taken on since the feminist movement: a word of self-identifying empowerment. This is mainly in conjunction with the hip hop movement, in which the word started to explode in acceptance and usage throughout the 1980s, and today you will have to look high and low for a hip hop album that doesn't even have the word uttered once. While connotation still carries a lot of weight, as it should considering use of certain words will illustrate what attitudes someone holds, it actually foolish that we should insist that the word "nigger" should never be uttered in public and stricken from public conscience. To do that, we would have to do the same for "nigga", "bitch", "queer", and any other word that is now a term of empowerment and loose endearment and had previous use as a pejorative exercise of a superiority complex.
So what's the point of this post? I personally take no real issue with the word. As unpleasant as the word may be, for one, it is a part of the development of the English language and secondly it is an artifact, if you will, in the evolution of race relations. Because it is really a historical linguistic artifact, I would not be opposed to the word being used in a classroom for teaching purposes. Realistically, it cannot be expected that sixth graders, like the ones at Murray Language Academy, would be able to fully comprehend the development of a word that by that time in their educational and personal lives, has largely been ingrained in their minds that ever since the word was developed in the 16th century, it has always been a "bad word" even though for nearly the first 3 centuries of the word's existence in the English language, it wasn't seen as one. It is indeed the reason why that it takes significant care when using that word for teaching purposes as part of a lesson on historical race relations, which is often what books like Huckleberry Finn is used for at the middle school level in conjunction with teaching the historical development of the Great American Novel.
As for the lawsuit in question that spurred this post, it is coming to a fight of "he said, he said". We'll probably never know what truly happened until the case goes to trial and ostensibly students that were present in the class will get called to testify. Yet at the same time though, political correctness has to give way to an unabashed critical look at our history. We'll never have a good understanding of how this society functions unless we take a look at the historical construction of our society, no matter how plush or painful it may be.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Why I don't celebrate Black History Month -- Even Though I'm Black
We're getting in the middle of Black History Month, and once again we are treated to different visages of cultural ass-kissing -- yes, ass-kissing -- from various sources of the mainstream media. Of course, there's going to be some white conservatives out there that's going to circulate the infamous quotations of Morgan Freeman in his 60 Minutes interview from a few years back when he dispelled his support for Black History Month.
There's two reasons why I don't really like Black History Month: for one, I resent that it fosters the belief that we should only give a damn about black history only one month or a few weeks out of the entire year. In fact, I resent that same idea for all various demographic divisions that humanity has concocted for I am a strong believer that historical awareness should have no boundaries in length of time. History is a beautiful thing and it necessary to be consistently and constantly aware of it so that we have a greater understanding of the present and enhanced perspective as to what we think or hope for in the future.
The second part is the ass-kissing and I'm going to limit this part to this diatribe to only Black History Month even though it could be universally applied to any "Insert Demographic Here" History/Awareness/Only-Give-A-Damn-About-It-Right-Now Month. We're going to see numerous specials, numerous commercials, and schools are going to make numerous announcements in commemoration of black history, and then it's mostly quiet for an entire year afterward. What makes me more of upset that it is largely regurgitation only exploring household names with a little bit of a curtly nod to the less celebrated. We often talk of tirelessly of the work that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X during Civil Rights Movement, but even during this month, we don't hear much of the work and sacrifice that W.E.B. du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Ralph Abernathy, James Baldwin, Clyde Kennard, James Meredith, Medgar Evers, Claudette Colvin, and others did during those turbulent years. You'll hear of Langston Hughes, a fine author in his own right, but why wait until college to hear about Ralph Ellison and August Wilson?
I understand the awareness which is mainly the purpose that Black History Month serves, and while that is a fair assessment, I still believe that the history of our people, both here in the United States and abroad, is worth way more than just 28 days (or 29 days in a leap year) of conscious groveling that will all but cease on the first of March.
There's two reasons why I don't really like Black History Month: for one, I resent that it fosters the belief that we should only give a damn about black history only one month or a few weeks out of the entire year. In fact, I resent that same idea for all various demographic divisions that humanity has concocted for I am a strong believer that historical awareness should have no boundaries in length of time. History is a beautiful thing and it necessary to be consistently and constantly aware of it so that we have a greater understanding of the present and enhanced perspective as to what we think or hope for in the future.
The second part is the ass-kissing and I'm going to limit this part to this diatribe to only Black History Month even though it could be universally applied to any "Insert Demographic Here" History/Awareness/Only-Give-A-Damn-About-It-Right-Now Month. We're going to see numerous specials, numerous commercials, and schools are going to make numerous announcements in commemoration of black history, and then it's mostly quiet for an entire year afterward. What makes me more of upset that it is largely regurgitation only exploring household names with a little bit of a curtly nod to the less celebrated. We often talk of tirelessly of the work that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X during Civil Rights Movement, but even during this month, we don't hear much of the work and sacrifice that W.E.B. du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Ralph Abernathy, James Baldwin, Clyde Kennard, James Meredith, Medgar Evers, Claudette Colvin, and others did during those turbulent years. You'll hear of Langston Hughes, a fine author in his own right, but why wait until college to hear about Ralph Ellison and August Wilson?
I understand the awareness which is mainly the purpose that Black History Month serves, and while that is a fair assessment, I still believe that the history of our people, both here in the United States and abroad, is worth way more than just 28 days (or 29 days in a leap year) of conscious groveling that will all but cease on the first of March.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
How Antipathy Has Fueled - and Will Doom - the Republican Party
I attended a political lecture given by William Galston tonight here at the University of Houston. Dr. Galston is a former public policy advisor to former President Bill Clinton and a noted progressive.
In one of his responses in the question-and-answering session after the lecture, he mentioned about the feelings of public antipathy, especially amongst the blue collar sector, that now harbor a resentment towards government and social programs. Moreover, he also noted that in the past half century, Americans have went from "trusting government too much" to "not trusting government at all". He later answered another question after the question-and-answering session about the Tea Party, noting that the Tea Party movement was largely fueled by antipathy and antipathy can go a long way in carrying a political message.
Throughout history it has been proven that antipathy fueled movements may last as long as desired but don't really yield the results desired. The two most recent antipathy movements -- the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street -- are largely still ongoing in spirit, yet neither movement had a concrete agenda that could lead to significant, implemented change. Considering this post is about the Republican Party, I'll make a comment on the Tea Party: yes, I'm well aware that they talked about being anti-tax, anti-social programs, robust fiscal restraint, and anti-government -- but the Tea Party has yet to accomplish anything relatively significant, except to become the most vocal sect of a political party since the Dixiecrats of the mid 20th century.
Three antipathy movements are fueling Republican discourse at the moment: the relationship between government and the economy, which runs Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich's engines; the relationship between government and society, which powers Rick Santorum's campaign; and an overall disgust with the government, which pushes Ron Paul along. What these movements are causing is deep rifts within the GOP. Granted, I'm well aware that all four candidates have somewhat put out plans to "get America back on track". The only issue is that while all four candidates have plans that undoubtedly address what is pissing people off at the moment, none of them are adequately sustainable.
Because of these antipathy movements, all four candidates are guilty of fostering unrealistic viewpoints of how the current issues facing the United States can be and should be resolved. In addition, all four candidates are dangerously guilty of promoting what they can and their policies can actually do about it.
Here's the reality: technological advancement, coupled with globalization, has increased competition for labor. Wages have stagnated because there's more people competing for jobs -- this time on a global scale. Wealth, increasingly, is transitioning from property to financial capital. Health care is expensive because of how medicine is practiced. The fiscal woes facing various states and governments is less about spending and more about inadequate revenue. The tax system has issues not because people are paying too much in taxes but because the current tax code keeps getting structured to shrink the paying tax base. American values are not on the decline; Americans are becoming more aware that if someone's personal choice does not affect them directly, then their rights shouldn't be infringed on. There's no such thing as a war against religion, but a realization that government is to be religiously neutral.
However, all four candidates are playing on antipathy felt by their constituencies. That should be expected and that is indeed part of -- for a lack of a better word -- "good" campaigning. As a consequence, especially with Ron Paul appealing to younger voters and voters that generally lean to the center-left, the Republican Party has diversified and within that diversification, each bloc of voters is pissed about something different and the aims of every bloc of voters are not universal.
Of course, the idea is that the unifying goal should be to vote President Obama out of office -- the underbelly of that is whatever candidate that wins the nomination will be clueless as to how to properly address and properly accept this new Republican diversity. If you need evidence: there's a reason why the Republican Party didn't accept Romney's moderate position and forced the former Massachusetts governor to project himself as a conservative; there's a reason why the Republican Party rejected the Internet-based and youth movement fueled by Paul's candidacy; and there's a reason why the GOP is still desperate to find the next Reagan, even entertaining candidates that have had ethics issues (Gingrich) and was embarrassed in their last election (Santorum in 2006). As much as the Republican Party and their supporters do not want to admit it -- there's actually more to getting the incumbent out of office. You should have seen that lesson learned with George Bush in 2004 for the Democrats.
So of course, the antipathy streak will continue on in the Republican Party, considering that the schism is inevitable and that schism will end up giving Obama a second term. It will eventually doom the Republican Party. In truth, it dooms any aspiration that the political party has -- either sooner or later.
In one of his responses in the question-and-answering session after the lecture, he mentioned about the feelings of public antipathy, especially amongst the blue collar sector, that now harbor a resentment towards government and social programs. Moreover, he also noted that in the past half century, Americans have went from "trusting government too much" to "not trusting government at all". He later answered another question after the question-and-answering session about the Tea Party, noting that the Tea Party movement was largely fueled by antipathy and antipathy can go a long way in carrying a political message.
Throughout history it has been proven that antipathy fueled movements may last as long as desired but don't really yield the results desired. The two most recent antipathy movements -- the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street -- are largely still ongoing in spirit, yet neither movement had a concrete agenda that could lead to significant, implemented change. Considering this post is about the Republican Party, I'll make a comment on the Tea Party: yes, I'm well aware that they talked about being anti-tax, anti-social programs, robust fiscal restraint, and anti-government -- but the Tea Party has yet to accomplish anything relatively significant, except to become the most vocal sect of a political party since the Dixiecrats of the mid 20th century.
Three antipathy movements are fueling Republican discourse at the moment: the relationship between government and the economy, which runs Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich's engines; the relationship between government and society, which powers Rick Santorum's campaign; and an overall disgust with the government, which pushes Ron Paul along. What these movements are causing is deep rifts within the GOP. Granted, I'm well aware that all four candidates have somewhat put out plans to "get America back on track". The only issue is that while all four candidates have plans that undoubtedly address what is pissing people off at the moment, none of them are adequately sustainable.
Because of these antipathy movements, all four candidates are guilty of fostering unrealistic viewpoints of how the current issues facing the United States can be and should be resolved. In addition, all four candidates are dangerously guilty of promoting what they can and their policies can actually do about it.
Here's the reality: technological advancement, coupled with globalization, has increased competition for labor. Wages have stagnated because there's more people competing for jobs -- this time on a global scale. Wealth, increasingly, is transitioning from property to financial capital. Health care is expensive because of how medicine is practiced. The fiscal woes facing various states and governments is less about spending and more about inadequate revenue. The tax system has issues not because people are paying too much in taxes but because the current tax code keeps getting structured to shrink the paying tax base. American values are not on the decline; Americans are becoming more aware that if someone's personal choice does not affect them directly, then their rights shouldn't be infringed on. There's no such thing as a war against religion, but a realization that government is to be religiously neutral.
However, all four candidates are playing on antipathy felt by their constituencies. That should be expected and that is indeed part of -- for a lack of a better word -- "good" campaigning. As a consequence, especially with Ron Paul appealing to younger voters and voters that generally lean to the center-left, the Republican Party has diversified and within that diversification, each bloc of voters is pissed about something different and the aims of every bloc of voters are not universal.
Of course, the idea is that the unifying goal should be to vote President Obama out of office -- the underbelly of that is whatever candidate that wins the nomination will be clueless as to how to properly address and properly accept this new Republican diversity. If you need evidence: there's a reason why the Republican Party didn't accept Romney's moderate position and forced the former Massachusetts governor to project himself as a conservative; there's a reason why the Republican Party rejected the Internet-based and youth movement fueled by Paul's candidacy; and there's a reason why the GOP is still desperate to find the next Reagan, even entertaining candidates that have had ethics issues (Gingrich) and was embarrassed in their last election (Santorum in 2006). As much as the Republican Party and their supporters do not want to admit it -- there's actually more to getting the incumbent out of office. You should have seen that lesson learned with George Bush in 2004 for the Democrats.
So of course, the antipathy streak will continue on in the Republican Party, considering that the schism is inevitable and that schism will end up giving Obama a second term. It will eventually doom the Republican Party. In truth, it dooms any aspiration that the political party has -- either sooner or later.
The End of American Unilateralism
There's two emerging forces taking shape in the United States today -- one is a force that recognizes that American unilateralism can lead to disastrous consequences; that recognizes government and policy should aim for realism, not idealism; and that there is a definitive line between sound patriotism and irrational, idealistic, and illogical nationalism. The other force is rooted in a deep insecurity held by the current generation of this country, with visions of the United States being on the decline with elevated unemployment, stagnating wages, a dysfunctional government, and countries such as China, India, and Brazil emerging as influential world economies along with being even bigger players on the foreign policy scene.
I read Fareed Zakaria's (who is emerging as my favorite political writer of all time) Washington Post column, which is in the form of an open letter to Mitt Romney, in response to his quip that Barack Obama believes that "...this century is the post-American century". Zakaria appropriately derided the GOP front runner's sentiments, criticizing it as narrow-minded fodder and stressing that the reality is that the "age of American unipolarity -- which began with the collapse of the Soviet Union -- is over." This is true. Zakaria's book takes the position that the United States should not necessarily feel threatened, but more or less should embrace the emerging success of the aforementioned countries.
The irony of the nationalist-fueled campaigns that the Republican Party candidates have waged is that they constantly invoke the historical foundations of American values, yet at the same time will deny that not even the United States is immune to what history has proven time and time again -- that unilateralism and unipolarity is not perpetual. It's a lesson that Spain learned in the 17th and 18th centuries, that France learned after Waterloo, and what Britain learned after the two World Wars. Not to mention the American system, which for years upon years was touted as the socioeconomic model that everyone should follow, was soon embraced by China (slightly), India (somewhat), and Brazil, amongst others, and its no surprise why those countries are where they are now.
Yet, at the same time, there's something else at play when it comes to the decline of American unilateralism and unipolarity -- the perpetual case of insecurity that, in truth, is displayed but not often discussed in the way that it actually needs to be discussed. Ideally, a nation's foreign policy would to be coordinate the interests of their own country into mutually beneficial and peaceful international relationships. I stress ideally. With unilateralism and unipolarity, this is not the case. The European imperialist drive from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century is a perfect example of this. Britain built an empire over two centuries that proved to be unsustainable in just a short decade plus after the conclusion of World War II. Napoleon's unipolar drive for France only lasted a little more than a decade. We all know what happened to Spain. In short, having a foreign policy that aims to do more or less anything and everything to make sure that the pendulum perpetually swings into your nation's favor is almost always going to do more long term harm than good. The insecurity that fuels the idea that a country needs to do anything and everything to maintain their position at the top of the mountain is driven by nationalist pride. Throughout the course of history that course of action has proven to eventually catch up with the country sooner or later.
Despite not being their biggest fan, I recognize that President Obama, along with Representative Paul, have somewhat a grip on this new reality. In my mind, there is nothing wrong with bringing an end to the "you're either with us or against us" mentality that is a stalwart for neoconservative thinking. It did not do any favors for the United States before and it certainly won't do any favors for the United States now or in the future.
I read Fareed Zakaria's (who is emerging as my favorite political writer of all time) Washington Post column, which is in the form of an open letter to Mitt Romney, in response to his quip that Barack Obama believes that "...this century is the post-American century". Zakaria appropriately derided the GOP front runner's sentiments, criticizing it as narrow-minded fodder and stressing that the reality is that the "age of American unipolarity -- which began with the collapse of the Soviet Union -- is over." This is true. Zakaria's book takes the position that the United States should not necessarily feel threatened, but more or less should embrace the emerging success of the aforementioned countries.
The irony of the nationalist-fueled campaigns that the Republican Party candidates have waged is that they constantly invoke the historical foundations of American values, yet at the same time will deny that not even the United States is immune to what history has proven time and time again -- that unilateralism and unipolarity is not perpetual. It's a lesson that Spain learned in the 17th and 18th centuries, that France learned after Waterloo, and what Britain learned after the two World Wars. Not to mention the American system, which for years upon years was touted as the socioeconomic model that everyone should follow, was soon embraced by China (slightly), India (somewhat), and Brazil, amongst others, and its no surprise why those countries are where they are now.
Yet, at the same time, there's something else at play when it comes to the decline of American unilateralism and unipolarity -- the perpetual case of insecurity that, in truth, is displayed but not often discussed in the way that it actually needs to be discussed. Ideally, a nation's foreign policy would to be coordinate the interests of their own country into mutually beneficial and peaceful international relationships. I stress ideally. With unilateralism and unipolarity, this is not the case. The European imperialist drive from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century is a perfect example of this. Britain built an empire over two centuries that proved to be unsustainable in just a short decade plus after the conclusion of World War II. Napoleon's unipolar drive for France only lasted a little more than a decade. We all know what happened to Spain. In short, having a foreign policy that aims to do more or less anything and everything to make sure that the pendulum perpetually swings into your nation's favor is almost always going to do more long term harm than good. The insecurity that fuels the idea that a country needs to do anything and everything to maintain their position at the top of the mountain is driven by nationalist pride. Throughout the course of history that course of action has proven to eventually catch up with the country sooner or later.
Despite not being their biggest fan, I recognize that President Obama, along with Representative Paul, have somewhat a grip on this new reality. In my mind, there is nothing wrong with bringing an end to the "you're either with us or against us" mentality that is a stalwart for neoconservative thinking. It did not do any favors for the United States before and it certainly won't do any favors for the United States now or in the future.
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