the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was 'Oh no, not again'
I see we are once again in RaceFail territory thanks to some writer in SPN fandom (is it just me or does that fandom generate more drama than the rest of TV fandom put together?).
Protip: ALWAYS ASSUME that members of any group of human beings you might be talking or writing about are in your audience. Not because you should be censoring yourself in public while giving free rein to bigotry in private, but because the same reification of "difference" that leads you to assume that your audience is composed entirely of people just like you is what prompts your weird portrayals of people not like you as "rapidly jabbering" in their unintelligible language or resembling large pet animals or whatever. Most of these failed apologies seem to boil down to "Oh no, I didn't realize you would read this." Well, why didn't you?
Not that there aren't plenty of white people who can see for themselves how shocking it is to exploit a Haitian tragedy as the backdrop for a white-on-white romance, or call out racist language when they see it. Just like there are plenty of men who can see and call out sexism and misogyny without needing to be prompting. Etc. But I'm struck by the relationship between fandom racefail and this:Ms. [Katherine] Mangu-Ward had an extra cup of Stumptown and revisited that online university education Wal-Mart is offering its drones, which had earlier excited her so much that she expressed a desire to live at Wal-Mart. She is delighted to hear that diploma vendor American Public University was willing to "go the extra mile" by customizing programs for Wal-Mart -- which "includes giving course credit for on-the-job time and training."
Mangu-Ward shows some awareness that there's a "question of whether there will be more than one employer interested in those Wal-Mart degrees." But it seems not to have crossed her mind that Wal-Mart's arrangement is designed to push workers who may, once upon a time, have expected free job training into spending thousands of dollars to improve their chances at promotion (or even at keeping their jobs). They might as well call it Company Store University.
So Mangu-Ward is bullish: "The company brings dramatic change to every industry that they touch," she says, "and higher ed will be no exception." And that's good, because colleges have gotten too arty-farty for her tastes anyway:If we're going to push every 18-year-old in the country into some kind of higher education, most people will likely be better off in a programs that involves logistics and linoleum, rather than ivy and the Iliad. And, in contrast to an associate's degree in Japanese studies from Northern Virginia Community College, we know there is at least one employer interested in a Wal-Mart-subsidized logistics sheepskin: Wal-Mart.
Mangu-Ward knows whereof she speaks, having attended Yale, where she no doubt majored in Food Handling.
Roy Edroso's beautifully dry last line sums it all up: Mangu-Ward sees no problem in arguing that Wal-Mart workers have no business reading the Iliad, or in getting a liberal arts education, while blithely claiming the benefits of just such an education herself. (Does anyone seriously think that she would ever have chosen to major in linoleum rather than the political science and philosophy she now derides?) If she had any inkling that her audience at the Atlantic might include Wal-Mart workers, she might have thought more carefully about the elitism of that position. But, of course, she's an Ivy League graduate writing for other Ivy League graduates, so it's terribly clever and subversive to dis Homer and Japan (dude, who would major in Japanese Studies? It's not like Japan is real, or important in any way!) and talk up linoleum, the mopping of which (for college credit, provided you pay the $24,000 discount price for a bachelor's degree) is, presumably, all those Wal-Mart workers (whoever they are!) are good for. Don't aspire to read Great Books, you plebes. We wouldn't want the labor market for stupid inconsequential blogging to be flooded with poor people and immigrants.
Needless to say, Ms. Mangu-Ward is a libertarian.
ETA: I didn't do a very good job of articulating the connection I'm trying to draw above, but I think I maybe did a better job of it in the reply i just posted to schemingreader's comment?:...So the reason I posted is not to be yet another person condemning the story, or self-righteously staking out my anti-racist ground, but because I'd just read the other post about Wal-Mart and the similarity between the two situations struck me. I don't think I did a good job of articulating it in my post, but there's something about the cluelessness, the privileged obliviousness, of both writers as they high-handedly dispose of some less fortunate group of people (devastated Haitians, indentured Wal-Mart workers) to suit the story they want to tell (handsome white men fucking, libertarian dreams of siccing unscrupulous corporations on higher ed. -- a well-known refuge of Jews [or radical Islamists, depending on who's critiquing -- ed.] and Communists).
I maintain that the solipsism that enabled whatsername to write a story without it ever occurring to her that some of her readers would likely be Haitian is the same solipsism that enabled her to write THAT story without noticing the myriad things that were wrong with it. Same with whatsername at the Atlantic: Wal-Mart workers aren't really people, they're just a theory. It's like Roman Polanski saying "Everyone wants to fuck young girls!". . . no, Roman Polanski, not EVERYONE wants to fuck young girls. Some people, for example, ARE young girls. It's about having a definition of "everyone" that mysteriously overlooks everyone who isn't exactly like oneself.
Protip: ALWAYS ASSUME that members of any group of human beings you might be talking or writing about are in your audience. Not because you should be censoring yourself in public while giving free rein to bigotry in private, but because the same reification of "difference" that leads you to assume that your audience is composed entirely of people just like you is what prompts your weird portrayals of people not like you as "rapidly jabbering" in their unintelligible language or resembling large pet animals or whatever. Most of these failed apologies seem to boil down to "Oh no, I didn't realize you would read this." Well, why didn't you?
Not that there aren't plenty of white people who can see for themselves how shocking it is to exploit a Haitian tragedy as the backdrop for a white-on-white romance, or call out racist language when they see it. Just like there are plenty of men who can see and call out sexism and misogyny without needing to be prompting. Etc. But I'm struck by the relationship between fandom racefail and this:Ms. [Katherine] Mangu-Ward had an extra cup of Stumptown and revisited that online university education Wal-Mart is offering its drones, which had earlier excited her so much that she expressed a desire to live at Wal-Mart. She is delighted to hear that diploma vendor American Public University was willing to "go the extra mile" by customizing programs for Wal-Mart -- which "includes giving course credit for on-the-job time and training."
Mangu-Ward shows some awareness that there's a "question of whether there will be more than one employer interested in those Wal-Mart degrees." But it seems not to have crossed her mind that Wal-Mart's arrangement is designed to push workers who may, once upon a time, have expected free job training into spending thousands of dollars to improve their chances at promotion (or even at keeping their jobs). They might as well call it Company Store University.
So Mangu-Ward is bullish: "The company brings dramatic change to every industry that they touch," she says, "and higher ed will be no exception." And that's good, because colleges have gotten too arty-farty for her tastes anyway:If we're going to push every 18-year-old in the country into some kind of higher education, most people will likely be better off in a programs that involves logistics and linoleum, rather than ivy and the Iliad. And, in contrast to an associate's degree in Japanese studies from Northern Virginia Community College, we know there is at least one employer interested in a Wal-Mart-subsidized logistics sheepskin: Wal-Mart.
Mangu-Ward knows whereof she speaks, having attended Yale, where she no doubt majored in Food Handling.
Roy Edroso's beautifully dry last line sums it all up: Mangu-Ward sees no problem in arguing that Wal-Mart workers have no business reading the Iliad, or in getting a liberal arts education, while blithely claiming the benefits of just such an education herself. (Does anyone seriously think that she would ever have chosen to major in linoleum rather than the political science and philosophy she now derides?) If she had any inkling that her audience at the Atlantic might include Wal-Mart workers, she might have thought more carefully about the elitism of that position. But, of course, she's an Ivy League graduate writing for other Ivy League graduates, so it's terribly clever and subversive to dis Homer and Japan (dude, who would major in Japanese Studies? It's not like Japan is real, or important in any way!) and talk up linoleum, the mopping of which (for college credit, provided you pay the $24,000 discount price for a bachelor's degree) is, presumably, all those Wal-Mart workers (whoever they are!) are good for. Don't aspire to read Great Books, you plebes. We wouldn't want the labor market for stupid inconsequential blogging to be flooded with poor people and immigrants.
Needless to say, Ms. Mangu-Ward is a libertarian.
ETA: I didn't do a very good job of articulating the connection I'm trying to draw above, but I think I maybe did a better job of it in the reply i just posted to schemingreader's comment?:...So the reason I posted is not to be yet another person condemning the story, or self-righteously staking out my anti-racist ground, but because I'd just read the other post about Wal-Mart and the similarity between the two situations struck me. I don't think I did a good job of articulating it in my post, but there's something about the cluelessness, the privileged obliviousness, of both writers as they high-handedly dispose of some less fortunate group of people (devastated Haitians, indentured Wal-Mart workers) to suit the story they want to tell (handsome white men fucking, libertarian dreams of siccing unscrupulous corporations on higher ed. -- a well-known refuge of Jews [or radical Islamists, depending on who's critiquing -- ed.] and Communists).
I maintain that the solipsism that enabled whatsername to write a story without it ever occurring to her that some of her readers would likely be Haitian is the same solipsism that enabled her to write THAT story without noticing the myriad things that were wrong with it. Same with whatsername at the Atlantic: Wal-Mart workers aren't really people, they're just a theory. It's like Roman Polanski saying "Everyone wants to fuck young girls!". . . no, Roman Polanski, not EVERYONE wants to fuck young girls. Some people, for example, ARE young girls. It's about having a definition of "everyone" that mysteriously overlooks everyone who isn't exactly like oneself.