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Over here we have Will Shetterly calling Obama and some other successful black politicians "house negroes" on Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog, using the artifice of "I think this is what Malcolm X would have called them" to do it. Also he asks what the local policy is on using the N word, because apparently Malcolm X would not be content with just having the word "negro" put in his mouth by a white person.
And over here Rose Lemberg talks about being interviewed about her magazine Stone Telling, and then receiving creepy othering followup questions in comments that turn out to secretly come from one of the interviewers. Shweta Narayan has some further discussion here and here.
Comments
I mean, good heavens.
I mean.
I feel slightly uncomfortable when I say, "I think Grandpa would have liked this." When I am talking about my own grandfather and, say, a turkey sandwich.
And I forget who it was that said you know you've made God in your image when He hates all the same people you do.
Even when they are not divine, making major historical figures into one's sock puppets is just not on.
Well said.
*copies down*
Love, c.
BOTH of those are just incredible. When people speak of an overweening sense of entitlement for oneself, there ya go. You'd be embarrassed for them, but they have no sense of embarrassment so it's wasted effort.
*the BB thing wasn't about anti-racism, though, it was about defending China's regime in Tibet. He does know how to pick 'em.
If he's drawing on that material to call out white people for racism, or to discuss tactics, I haven't seen it; to be fair, I'm not reading his blog, only his comments on other people's blogs and journals. ("Freedom of speech is a moral absolute" is not a tactical assertion; "if we try to control speech, the rules will be used against us" would be.)
Also, "the Klan hated my father" is not an argument for a particular act or position today, even if it sounds like one. Credentials, at best, prove good will; they don't prove correctness.
The man is a festering mess.
Edited at 2010-10-26 06:33 pm (UTC)
I speak as one of those myself. I and my sster were fairly lucky in that our parents did their best to keep us out of active participation when we were young and helpless. But it's taken me four decades to even begin to repair my participatory will.
*upon consideration, I believe it would offend me, because I think it's harmfully incorrect, but it wouldn't make my head explode.
Edited at 2010-10-26 07:02 pm (UTC)
Directly said so in so many words to him recently[1] (before MoonFail), seemed to have an effect, and now we're back at this.
Done done done.
[1] In an epically long back and forth at nellorat's journal.
http://www.newsok.com/texas-author-un-i
Sigh.
On the other hand, Andy Miller is evidently an asshat and a skeeve, and there's definitely a point where "one's culture of birth affects one's life" runs into "this is skeevy and you are a skeeve."
(Also, Will? No.)
(More specifically to what I said, it's really bad journalistic behavior, ethically, to obfuscate your name and then ask questions in another identity. )
That used to mollify me, but really - it's not *how* he argues online that's the problem. It's what he's expressing. So his offline behavior doesn't reassure me at all.
And suddenly I'm seeing Sh*tt*rly as Mr Dick from David Copperfield.
It is, as I've argued before, necromancy and comes from an unwillingness to accept people with all of their wrinkles and complications. It comes from a desire to make history into a comforter under which we so sweetly slumber in our ideology of choice.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is AWESOME.