posted
I'll a little saddened by the fact that there were a book's worth of threads for the Chronicles of Narnia, and there aren't any threads about MLK day today. I'm not extremely saddened, I just expected there to be one.
Well, here is one. I saw Glory Road on friday. I like a good sports movie, and while I don't trust Disney to make one because of how awful "Remember the Titans" was, I saw "Glory Road" on the strength of a preview. (In retrospect, I think I would have enjoyed the Greatest Game Ever Played.) Let me clarify, I saw Glory Road on the strength of one scene in the preview, and that scene is the one where the starting line-ups for Kentucky and Texas Western are announced, and on one side, you have five scared lanky black kids and on the other side, you have five scared lanky white kids and both sides are nervous for different reasons and the whole world is watching. That scene was pitch perfect and on the strength of that scene, I bought my ticket.
I think that in 20 years, someone is going to make a really good movie about the 1992 Dream Team that captures the essence of that story. Its as good as the space race, and even more "American" than miracle on ice. America likes a winner, and after losing to Russia in basketball, we changed our own rules and recruited 12 of the best players on the planet to right the order of the universe.
My thoughts: I think directors try to tell stories of black kids through music. I think it's a bit of a cheat, but as I like music from the 60s and 70s, I usually don't mind.
I think the same can be said here. The story is based on Texas Western's Don Haskin's decision to play five black starters in the final game of the NCAA tournament, and the subsequent victory of Texas Western. I'm not going to go into the factual inaccuracies of the story. There are some, and if someone were foisting this off as non-fictional history, I'd care, but it's a movie, and in a movie, even if its based on fact, all I care about is that its a good story.
Throughout the movie, Haskins is often quoted as saying that he doesn't see color, he sees talent and that he recruits these black kids because he wants to win. This is all portrayed as good, and I have my usual reservations about college athletics, but I'm not griping.
The standard Texas Western starting line-up had three black kids and two white kids, with liberal substitutions. When its clear that schools should only play one black kid at home, two on the road, and maybe three if you are behind.
*Spoilers*
After a slew of events show Haskins the political import of this game to the dignity of America, these kids, and basketball, he decides to rotate in his seven black kids for the whole game. This decision is orchestrated so well that it was only after the movie that I thought, well, maybe the fictional Haskins didn't put in his best line-up, isn't it possible, and since it is basketball- where nothing is sure- it could have very easily been the case that TW lost to a very good Kentucky team. Anyone who has seen any of Princeton's games or watch the 2004 Olympics to see US Basketball lose knows that victory is not guaranteed. Would it still have been considered a good story had TW lost the game? I think so. The climax of the movie wasn't the final score, it was the introduction of the starting line-up.
The most important switch is that at the end, Haskins did see color. He was not color-blind. He saw what the kids were going through, and decided to make a statement by deciding to play all black players for the entire game. __________
This takes me MLK day today. His famous speech is trotted out by world of white people and more than a few black people, about not judging a person by the color of his/her skin.
First off, the entire quote reads, "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
It's tricky business to judge a person by the content of their character. I'm not saying it's not possible. It requires thought and care, but I'ves seen this quote used in advocacy of judging people by their math scores, number of degrees, Grade Point Average, previous salary, ability to correctly use punctuation, and hell, and if we are going to use any of those, I don't see why we shouldn't use color of ones skin.
I think that a color-blind society is a laudable end, but a horrible means to reach that end. Until we figure how such a large swath white America became so morally polluted as to countenance pre-civil rights atrocities, I'd rather keep the distinction, so as not to spread that taint in the quality of that character.
If a color-blind society means that everyone turns into the quality of American white person who would live quietly pre-1964 America, then I'm not eager for cultural miscegenation.
If you wonder how a color blind society can be the effect of maintaining color distinctions, it's like wondering how a bomb so big can result from splitting an atom so small.
In a letter from a Birmingham Jail, King writes eloquently,
quote: First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fan in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.
Again, judging justice is as tricky a business as juding the content of one's character- possibly even trickier- but judging order is as easy as looking at the criminal record. I, too, lose patience with the white moderate, but I think, and King doesn't address this, that the problem of the white moderate is deep and the fact that there are so many of them in this democracy doesn't help.
Here is what I see, dignity in a free democracy depends upon the free exercise of individual thought and action within the space of a polity. The Athenian democracy, where we get the word and structure of democracy and American politics, we've imported the body of democracy and politics without resolving the commitments these structures entail. Athenians understood two realms. The political and the private realm.
The private realm tended to the necessities of biological life. There was order, and hierachy, a whole lot like Paul's version of the family in the bible. Young children were to obey old children, all children were to obey their parents, and wives were to obey husbands. Biological necessity dictated the needs of the home, the needs of the home, oikos, where we get the modern word economics, were to be fulfilled by women, children, and slaves. In Athens, these women, children, and slaves were not considered fully realized people, because were in sense all slaves, as Aristotle describes in the Politics, anyone who lacks status, individual inviobility, needs to engage in economic activity, or is restricted in their movement, is a slave. Even independent contractors and craftsmen were slaves in so much as their movement was restricted and they needed to engage in economic activity.
That's the private realm.
The public realm consisted of all of the men who were liberated from the bonds of their biological needs, were free to discuss, exchange, compete, and distinguish themselves among each other, in short, act like little career Congressmen. It was in this public activity, within choice and thought, and outside of necessity, that the mere animal species man-kind attained a robust humanity.
People in the private realm were shadows of the people in the public realm. To the extent that the people in the private realm toiled in commitment with the necessities of life, they weren't even people at all. The Athenian democracy had a special apathy for women, who were merely the breeders of future men.
Here is the problem, a few historical accidents, namely Rome through its sheer size and Christianity through its hierarchy, moved economics, the activity guided by attaining the necessities of life, out of the household and into the public sphere.
Economics, muscular and liberated from the house, turned the political realm, which is essentially fragile as many things that are beautiful are fragile, into the social(society derived from Latin and carrying the sense of Allies, isolated groups working in concert to achieve a specific goal), and everyone except the king attained some sense of slavery, Christianity positioned the old freedom that was known to Greek men as what is achieved in heaven.
Rules and necessity supplant freedom and choice. Behaving supplanted thinking, and science supplanted art. And people who resisted were lopped off as statistical abberations in the minds of the seventeenth and eighteen century philosophers. For the most part, science worked- as in it produced things- we didn't worry about the dignity of it, and science kept on trucking until we developed the ability to blow up the world. If economics was the starting point, the onslaught of the behavioral sciences seem to be the conclusion. ______
I think this is why so many stories concern royalty, or why the characters in Friends never seemed worried about their jobs, or why, in general, good stories which concern freedom, responsibility, plurality, and human dignity, the characters aren't burdened by biological necessities. Even with the basketball players in Glory Road, the story only really gets into focus once the players are situated in school, where the basic biological necessities are provided for them.
There are a ton of exceptions, even more so since I think that we have a muddled understanding of human dignity and labor. But there is something anti-democratic and anti-political about laboring and obeying for a living. (The problem, of course, being that we've become so confused in our sense of humanity that even if we became emancipated from the necessities of life, we'd probably just play computer games.)
*whew* Now I'm tired and riffing. I'll finish the story later if anyone cares.
**I'm sorry, I had every intention of saying something intelligent, you brought up numerous interesting points, but..nothing came.**
Posts: 1215 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Remember the Titans was too simple. Too black and white. Racial divisons, and the attending cultural divisions, can't and shouldn't be bridged merely by food, music, and sports.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think it did its job quite well. I should think it'd be hard to go to such depths in a movie and still have it be a decently engaging film.
Posts: 1215 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
You state it as a given that Remember the Titans was awful, but I think you would be in a vanishingly small minority in that view.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:You state it as a given that Remember the Titans was awful, but I think you would be in a vanishingly small minority in that view.
So if my view were in the majority, would it be true?
I don't know if anyone can state as a fact that any movie was great or awful. I'm just saying what I see, I'm not God, I don't speak from facts. National Treasure was as intriguing a character film as I've seen in two years. And the Da Vinci code was a horribly small book to be recieving such acclaim. Some people think that one is a rehash of the other, I think that artistically, they are on other sides of the planet.
posted
I saw Glory Road yesterday, and I liked it.
I also found out that my dad went to school with the Director, and that the lead basketball player on the team, Bobby, only went to Texas Western because my great uncle, who was his high school basketball coach in Michigan, got him a scholarship to Texas Western.
Neat little tie in to the movie for me.
I liked it better than Remember the Titans, but that might just be because I like to watch basketball more than football.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:It's tricky business to judge a person by the content of their character. I'm not saying it's not possible. It requires thought and care, but I'ves seen this quote used in advocacy of judging people by their math scores, number of degrees, Grade Point Average, previous salary, ability to correctly use punctuation, and hell, and if we are going to use any of those, I don't see why we shouldn't use color of ones skin.
Because people earn their GPA, their math scores, their mastery of grammar. These reflect personal application of one concentration and efforts. Skin color is merely a biological trait. Its like judging people for being blonde. If anything, the only judgement one could make of skin color is in comparision to perhaps the social influence of economic background or the traditional mindset of a racially-specific community. But since those judgements of race fall apart in a diverse environment, the actual color of skin doesn't affect an individual's personality.
On the matter of "color blind," I wonder if perhaps that should not be the emphasis, but rather we as a society and individuals should focus on eliminating the judgements made. There's a difference between noticing color and coming to an assumption, and just noticing color.
My mother and I were having a conversation about my black boyfriend when she said "You're just like your father, you're both completely colorblind." I didn't say anything but I thought she was wrong. My dad is color-blind. I am not. I see the difference between mine and my boyfriend's skin color. I make no judgement based on it, it is merely an observation. I notice how one person might have pretty freckles or another has a funny birthmark on their arm, etc.
I just don't like that word, "color-blind." It seems to invoke ideas of moving into a word where people "live quietly" and walk around "actively ignoring" distinctions in race or hair color or personal style or social class. Its not the refusal to notice these things, but the refusal to make a judgment which should be noted.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Shanna: [QUOTE]I just don't like that word, "color-blind." It seems to invoke ideas of moving into a word where people "live quietly" and walk around "actively ignoring" distinctions in race or hair color or personal style or social class. Its not the refusal to notice these things, but the refusal to make a judgment which should be noted.
quote:Because people earn their GPA, their math scores, their mastery of grammar. These reflect personal application of one concentration and efforts.
Sometimes they reflect personal application, and other times, they reflect grades, scores, and grammar, which are often independent of the quality of ones character.
quote:If anything, the only judgement one could make of skin color is in comparision to perhaps the social influence of economic background or the traditional mindset of a racially-specific community. But since those judgements of race fall apart in a diverse environment, the actual color of skin doesn't affect an individual's personality.
Fall apart is a big phrase.
For the record, I think people should judge, judge well. And part of judging well means suspending judgement.
____________
Judging by skin-color is most similar in kind as judging by the religion one is born into, not necessarily the religion one chooses, but the religion one is born into.
The religion one is born into is going to leave a residue in how one conducts him/herself regarding ones family and ones community. Ones skin color is going to affect how one conducts himself regarding ones family and ones community.
These effects are many and varied, even within the US, and can't be generalized with any sort of percision, and tracing them is harder than mapping the genome and possibly not even worth it.
I advocate going to root of the problem. Conservative white men. Clear them up, then see if most of the deleterious effects don't kind of fix themself in the bargain.
I really think that a careful intellectual and moral study of the American revolution can fix most of the race, gender, and education problems in America. All of the infelicities cropping up now were attendant then, and I think they were there in more managable forms.
These are speculations. I have a few more years of Greece and Rome to do before I get started on the American Revolution, but I think that's the biggun.
_______
There is a wonderful sermon by Robert South about Adam, and Adam's perfect perceptibility before the fall. For Adam, perceiving and judging were the same.
quote:He came into the world a philosopher, which sufficiently appeared by his writing the nature of things upon their names; he could view essences in themselves, and read forms without the comment of their respective properties; he could see consequents yet dormant in their principles, and effects yet unborn and in the womb of their causes; his understanding could almost pierce into future contingents; his conjectures improving even to prophecy, or the certainties of prediction; till his fall, it was ignorant of nothing but sin, or at least it rested in the notion, without the smart of the experiment. Could any difficulty have been proposed, the resolution would have been as early as the proposal; it could not have had time to settle into doubt. Like a better Archimedes, the issue of all his inquiries was a eureka, a eureka, the offspring of his brain without the sweat of his brow. Study was not then a duty, night-watchings were needless, the light of reason wanted not the assistance of a candle. This is the doom of fallen man, to labor in the fire, to seek truth in profundo, to exhaust his time and impair his health, and perhaps to spin out his days and himself into one pitiful, controverted conclusion. There was then no poring, no struggling with memory, no straining for invention; his faculties were quick and expedite, they answered without knocking, they were ready upon the first summons.
quote:The religion one is born into is going to leave a residue in how one conducts him/herself regarding ones family and ones community. Ones skin color is going to affect how one conducts himself regarding ones family and ones community.
With the religion example, if you're "born" Catholic you're being raised by Catholic parents. The effect, regardless of personal belief will be aparent.
But what about instances of race where a person is not raised by parents who are the same color as them. This represents a minority, but a growing minority. Then factor in interracial parents and their biracial children.
And while I agree that "conservative white men (and women)" might represent the strictest of racial judgmental people as they stick firmly to the not-racially diverse world they were raied in...I see the second biggest problem as the little racist paranoias in the world. Ever seen the movie "Crash"? I liked it because it showed good and bad people, who regardless of character, had their own racist fears hovering just below the surface. I don't consider myself racist but I get nervous when I see a black man dressed in the "ghetto" baggy jeans and side-turned cap walking towards me on the street. We might get to the point where we can all say "I'm not racist" but I don't think that honestly that will ever be the REAL case for a long time.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:And while I agree that "conservative white men (and women)" might represent the strictest of racial judgmental people as they stick firmly to the not-racially diverse world they were raied in...
I doubt that. I think white men are probably oblivious, the same way they kind of were oblivious as to how the house got clean and the kids fed. It's the casual obliviousness I see in Bush when he speaks. I don't think we should go after white men because they are the most racially judgmental, I think we should go after them because they have the power to control the means of violence and culture.
In this democracy, they have the numbers and power, are the demos, everyone else is a shadow. ______ Kayla,
It's not about poverty. Its about degradation.
Race and poverty degrade in different ways, but its all degradation. The great white American myth conflates money and human dignity, and puts economic strength or facility as the highest public virtue.
Black people, poor people, and women know that there is a distinction between economic empowerment and dignity. Gang memebers even know this better than anyone.
Sure, poverty and degradation are often co-extensive, and nobody doubts that rich people have an easier time lifting their head up, but the problem with black communities is that they aren't going to assimillate to a white America's screwed up sense of morality and priority. And they have latched on to a screwed up one of their own. It's not money, it's morality and priorities that divide America, and create the pernicious indignities.
posted
Yeah, they have government power but I think you're giving them too much credit. That kind of politics really doesn't have an effect on most people's day to day lives. Presidents and Senators and Congressmen make laws, but whether those laws and precedents make a difference is dependent on the actions of the American people. The laws are reflection of changing times, always just a few years behind movements made by the American people. They make laws affirming the rights of racial minorities and women because groups of Americans take the first step. For a law to exist and have any real effect, the seed must begin in organized groups of average citizens.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Kwea, I've never, in person, met a man who actually had any idea how any of those things ever got done. And God forbid you ask one of them to watch their own children for an afternoon. I've heard about them, but I've never actually met one. It's a good day if my husband can tell you how old our son is and actually be right. If he could tell you the name of the pediatrician, I'd fall over.
And I wasn't even born in 1964 (the time I believe he's talking about.) I mean, come on, was there a man in 1964 who had any idea about how the children got fed or house got clean? (Please, give me all your anecdotal stories to prove me wrong.) People are oblivious to what's happening around them. White men aren't more guilty of this than anyone else. White men, however, are in power, therefore, their lack of awareness has consequences for lots of others.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:That kind of politics really doesn't have an effect on most people's day to day lives.
There are a whole lot of teachers and people in jail who will disagree.
quote:And I wasn't even born in 1964 (the time I believe he's talking about.)
You are right. I had in mind the fifties, but sixty-four is fine. *laughs* Somehow, fathers were credited with knowing best, even when they didn't have to know much.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I thought about seeing Remember the Titans until I saw a preview in which a guy said something like, "In Greek mythology, the Titans were even greater than the gods." Sheesh. Someone needs Classical Civ 101.
Posts: 1068 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:I don't think we should go after white men because they are the most racially judgmental, I think we should go after them because they have the power to control the means of violence and culture.
What you fail to consider is that it is not "white men" with the power. It is some white men, pretty much none of whom are here in this discussion.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:And I wasn't even born in 1964 (the time I believe he's talking about.) I mean, come on, was there a man in 1964 who had any idea about how the children got fed or house got clean? (Please, give me all your anecdotal stories to prove me wrong.)
I'll give you an anecdote. My grandfather did all the cooking at my grandparent's house. Seriously, even though my grandmother didn't work. I grew up on a lot of his cooking and my mother and aunts tell me it was the same when they were kids.
He also did a lot around the house and was the type of involved father anyone would respect. He certainly was an involved grandfather.
I'm not denying that their case was probably unusual but men like him did exist.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:It is some white men, pretty much none of whom are here in this discussion.
My net is pretty big. I blame the whole heaping lot of them, but the blame is with them isn't necessary, it's like blaming Aristotle for having slaves, time, chance, history, and religion have conditioned white men, and America by extension, to be morally disappointing.
I mean, somehow Bill Bradley escaped it, but I don't know too many people who escape it who will deny its existence. (It being the moral corruption in white America)
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:It is some white men, pretty much none of whom are here in this discussion.
My net is pretty big. I blame whole heaping lot of them, but the blame is with them necessary, it's like blaming Aristotle for having slaves, time, chance, history, and religion have conditioned white men, and America by extension, to be morally disappointing.
That's a great way to make sure nothing ever gets solved.
I wonder if I was just conditioned to say that.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
But since you don't know my cultural narrative, nor the cultural narrative of most white men, you're really not qualified to make generalizations like that.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Or, more accurately, if you insist on making generalizations like that you will find your message to be inappropriate to 90% of the white men you meet, leaving yourself absolutely no chance of effecting positive change through or with them.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: My net is pretty big. I blame the whole heaping lot of them, but the blame is with them isn't necessary, it's like blaming Aristotle for having slaves, time, chance, history, and religion have conditioned white men, and America by extension, to be morally disappointing.
I mean, somehow Bill Bradley escaped it, but I don't know too many people who escape it who will deny its existence. (It being the moral corruption in white America)
If this is line of reasoning is valid, then why isn't it valid to simply extend the blame to all of humanity? After all, every single slaveowner on Earth was human and humans are responsible for every oppressive law ever written. If you can extend the actions of some people who happened to be white men to cover every single white man, then why not just make it a blanket statement about humanity?
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Or, more accurately, if you insist on making generalizations like that you will find your message to be inappropriate to 90% of the white men you meet, leaving yourself absolutely no chance of effecting positive change through or with them.
I'm done with catering to them. This a Copernican revolution, I betting the next twenty years, the best years of my life, and if I do my job, they will have to revolve around me.
quote: If this is line of reasoning is valid, then why isn't it valid to simply extend the blame to all of humanity? After all, every single slaveowner on Earth was human and humans are responsible for every oppressive law ever written. If you can extend the actions of some people who happened to be white men to cover every single white man, then why not just make it a blanket statement about humanity?
Ours is a uniquely western problem, and a problem with western conceptions of freedom, religion, and democracy.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'm done with catering to them. This a Copernican revolution, I betting the next twenty years, the best years of my life, and if I do my job, they will have to revolve around me.
I see. Honest discussion and accurate assessment is "catering." OK.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Irami, everytime you post you dig yourself a deeper hole. Your initial post was interesting but your desire to generalize is unraveling it pretty quickly. Generalization are lazy and show a disinterest at identifying the real roots of an argument. Making blanket statements about "Western Culture" can be helpful when comparing with ideals/morals/perspective in "Eastern Culture." But when looking at a problem in a country in the Western Hemisphere, you have to be willing to indentify smaller groups. Every proponent has an opponent, and so forth, so you need more than "Western Culture" to identify the multiple perspectives necessary ot really discover the root of the issue.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Irami - Blaming oblivious white men gets you nowhere, it just makes you seem ignorant.
And MLK day having ended, I'd like to bring up his many infidelities involving prostitutes. Just because it makes me feel morally superior. Moral corruption in white america indeed. Its everywhere.
Posts: 1156 | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
The biggest obstacle to black people getting ahead in life is other black people like you, Irami. Bleh.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'll a little saddened by the fact that there were a book's worth of threads for the Chronicles of Narnia, and there aren't any threads about MLK day today. I'm not extremely saddened, I just expected there to be one.
But that's what we've got you for, Irami. To remind whitey how bad he is, and to oh-so-delicately express disdain and disappointment in everyone but yourself.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
As a white male, I believe that I should apologize to my race for failing to even notice that Irami Osei-Frimpong could be black...
Sorry guys. Really...
I hope this doesn't this mean that I have to turn in my membership card and relinquish my omnipotent powers...
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: I'll a little saddened by the fact that there were a book's worth of threads for the Chronicles of Narnia, and there aren't any threads about MLK day today. I'm not extremely saddened, I just expected there to be one.
C.S. Lewis has affected the life of my mind more profoundly than Martin Luther King, Jr.
Not to denigrate MLK's efforts-- certainly, he was an honorable man, and essential in establishing political racial equality in America.
But C.S. Lewis' Narnia has made me more of who I am than all of MLK's writings combined. I spend time thinking and studying about Narnia because I find the stories compelling, endlessly valuable, deep, and affecting. Narnia, because it is presented as a story (rather than a lesson) means different things at different points in my life.
MLK's rationalizations are inherent in my nature. I don't spend much time thinking how right it is that people be judged on the content of their character-- I mean, DUH. What kind of dude (to use Irami's terminology) would I be not to know that?
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:But C.S. Lewis' Narnia has made me more of who I am than all of MLK's writings combined. I spend time thinking and studying about Narnia because I find the stories compelling, endlessly valuable, deep, and affecting. Narnia, because it is presented as a story (rather than a lesson) means different things at different points in my life.
I don't know if that's true. Its a reasonable assumption that you are correct, especially considering that you are in the best position to do the assuming. The thing is, King's influence has shaped American culture, institutions, and individuals in such subtle and pervasive ways that I don't know if its possible to estimate his influence on any one random American. In a way, I think the same can be said about the Kennedy boys.
I'm not Christian, but the most influential book in my life is most probably the bible, just because that book as informed in a powerful way the American institutions, culture, and people.
quote:But that's what we've got you for, Irami. To remind whitey how bad he is, and to oh-so-delicately express disdain and disappointment in everyone but yourself.
No charge.
quote:The biggest obstacle to black people getting ahead in life is other black people like you, Irami. Bleh.
The biggest obstacle to black people getting ahead in life is that Condoleeza Rice, Alan Keyes, and Ken Lay are considered ahead. The biggest obstacle to black people getting ahead is that the reason that those people are considered "ahead" has nothing to do with the quality of their character. The Walton family are American icons because of thrift and the efficient production of goods. If that's what getting ahead means, then you all can have it. The biggest obstacle to black people getting ahead is that the people who decide what "ahead" means think that "7 Habits of Highly Effective People," and the "Purpose Driven Life," are moral guides.
I will accept that people like me are a minor obstacle to black people getting enormously rich, but only because too many ways to attaining that kind of wealth are wicked, or at the least, involve adopting wicked priorities.
I do have a huge fear of Black Americans turning to JC Watts for moral insight and character development.
posted
That's awesome! The Congressional Black Caucus wouldn't let then Rep. Watts join presumably because he was a Republican. He beats the hell out of the Al Sharptons and Jessie Jacksons. And you don't like him why?
Posts: 1156 | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:The Congressional Black Caucus wouldn't let then Rep. Watts join presumably because he was a Republican.
You are writing a fascinating version of history. Watts refused to join the congressional black caucus, calling them and other civil rights leaders race hustling poverty pimps.
quote:The Caucus is officially non-partisan, but in practice it has been almost exclusively composed of Democrats, and tends to function as a lobbying group with the wider Congressional Democratic Party. Only three black Republicans have been elected to Congress since the Caucus was founded: Senator Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts and Representatives Gary Franks of Connecticut and J.C. Watts, Jr. of Oklahoma, who refused to join.
The caucus is non-partisan, and as soon as a black republican gets elected to congress, that person will recieve a letter of invitation. ___________
My problem with JC Watts is that he understands winning and strategy as the highest goods.
___________
I have my issues with Jesse Jackson, and even bigger issues with Jesse Jackson Jr., and outside of one outstanding speech at the DNC, I think Sharpton is a jive-turkey.
On a positive note, I think that Julian Bond is great.
posted
You can reject a color-blind society, but please know that this seems to necessarily entail having a racist society. You can't complain about the existence of racism, but then demand that color be an important feature through which we can categorize ourselves. This is a contradiction, stemming from human nature.
After all, can you name ANY important feature that we use to divide ourselves up that is not simultaneously used to discriminate? When some feature defines us, we use that feature to jump to conclusions about others. I think this is pretty much without exception.
So, we face a choice: Do we accept a degree of racism, or do we attempt to eliminate skin color's status as a key feature that determines our identity? I don't think there is any having it both ways, no matter how much we'd want to.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Do we accept a degree of racism, or do we attempt to eliminate skin color's status as a key feature that determines our identity?
That's a false dichotomy, and you are positing to alternatives as mutually exclusive when they can be complementary.
We accept a degree of racism in an effort two elimate skin color's status as a key feature that determines our identity.
The issues at stake here are deeper than skin color. They go right to the content of ones character, and if we don't fix those character issues, any changes would be akin to treating the symptoms instead of the disease.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
So, the system corrupts--everybody: Black, White, Male, Female, Hetro, Homo, Young, Old etc. I think the systemic (and because systemic, also evolving) power relationships corrupt both the Top and the Bottom Dog(s), whomever they happen to be.
Our current expressions of fundamentalism (Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Capitalist, Socialist, Terrorist) seem to find their niches here, trying to 'fight the Power'.
Socio-economic ecology is not (yet) Moral ecology...although I believe the current mariage of technology/communications/capitalism certainly is co-evolving towards some such hellish realization.
In my view, fatally, Moral Ecologies propose extinction as a VIABLE option. i.e. in a religious context the 'viability' of martyrdom vs. death through apostasy etc.
In Sociopolitical ecologies hybridization is the only viable solution. To put it banally--if everyone is dead, no-one can buy anything etc. The world of Benetton. The world in Microsoft.
The way a sociopolitical environment deals with the tensions of the conflicting behaviours is to try and generate its own 'natural law'. The environmental movement is a good example of this. But so are the Christian Right movements (not the extreme ones like Pat Robertson). They grease the skids, they get everything moving, again. Stoicism would be another expression...
So what do you do when nothing is beautiful anymore?
Posts: 575 | Registered: Jan 2002
| IP: Logged |
I don't understand most of your post. I think it's unintelligible, but I appreciate the spirit. I think Dennis Kucinich once said something similar about politically charged rap music.
quote:So what do you do when nothing is beautiful anymore?
I don't know if that's a danger. I think the danger comes when beauty is not publically acknowledged anymore, because beauty is fragile and fleeting, and we are a public that likes things secure and stable.
Beauty occurs in manners contingent and delicate, and we like things necessary and hardy.
Making a case that appeals to beauty takes a sort of political courage that is rare. It's a whole lot easier to make a case resting on economy. That's why courage was so well-appreciated in the Athenian Democracy. Its also the reason why Profiles In Courage by JFK is an outstanding book.
There is an analogous situation involving little girls playing dumb. There was a time when being a smart little girl, apprehending all the world's inadequacies, caused consternation in the family and at school. It took a rare and special kind of courage for a bright girl to speak her bright thoughts. The result was that girls were conditioned to start acting dumb, but I think, and this is the big crime, that if you play dumb long enough, it sticks.
The same can be said about beauty. I think it takes a rare kind of courage for a politican to defend the NEA or even non-vocational education-- there was a thread that starlisa made about a Israeli politican who had the insolence to say that we should take care not to kill too many innocent Palestinians, this politian appealed to morality as opposed to results and was getting flack over it.
Again, the danger isn't beauty going away, it's that the more muscular forces of economy, science, and technology start holding sway making beauty unfashionable, private, and eventually confused and forgotten.
posted
What to do? Blame it on corrupt rich white hetero american men. It's what all the cool kids are doing nowadays.
Is anyone going to bring up the homophobia displayed by King and his movement? Discrimination of ALL kinds is EVERYWHERE. There will always be an "other" to repress, be afraid of, and ignore. No one is omnicient, therefore as people go through life, there will be things that suprise and and at first appal them. What's important is to recognize THAT for what it is--blind instinct. Humans have them. Luckily (?), we also can think (?) and reason (?). All bitter and sarcastic question marks aside, that's what allows me to look beyond, for example, my firm beleif that recreational drug use is very very wrong, and notice that some users are amazing, smart people that I would have dismissed on first notice because of prejudice.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:They go right to the content of ones character, and if we don't fix those character issues, any changes would be akin to treating the symptoms instead of the disease.
Yes, but if we really want to treat the disease, discussing racism is a waste of time. It's certainly something far deeper than anything ever created by white males. We'd need to discuss character instead, as well as how we come to judgements about character.
And if everyone could become wiser about their character judgements, it might be possible to solve the disease. Do you really think this is possible though? I'm not certain we can eliminate the human tendency to misjudge and overgeneralize.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:And if everyone could become wiser about their character judgements, it might be possible to solve the disease. Do you really think this is possible though?
yep.
quote:I'm not certain we can eliminate the human tendency to misjudge and overgeneralize.
Yeah, mistakes will be made. I'm over it. The only person who was above making mistakes was Adam, according to the South sermon I excerpted.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
