Election Thoughts + Teach Freshman Comp (week 10)
We have a BLACK president.
I keep having to repeat this to myself because honestly it wasn't something I ever imagined seeing in my lifetime. Or if I did see it, I imagined it would be a Republican (I had the same theory regarding a woman in the White House).
It took about 36 hours for the realization to set in, mostly because 1) well, it doesn't fit my view of America (maybe all the racists stayed home), and 2) because since Obama is not my own ideal candidate and represents a belief in the capitalist classist system that bankrupts people and pisses on the poor and working class, keeping wealth and access to opportunity (in particular education) unevenly distributed. . . Bascially, the election of a Democrat has not been something I have applauded in my adult life - and thus, mixed feelings.
However, after some sleep the mixedness of it was kind of strained out, allowing me to put the historical and social significance of Barack Hussein Obama's election one side and my own on-going political disappointment on the other.
I mean, I would have been surprised if Indiana went Democrat, but the fact that it went for Obama, a black man. . . Well, I went to school there for two years, albeit almost 20 years ago now, but back then it was certainly not a diverse place, or a place that felt remotely welcoming to or accepting of difference and people of color. So, it really blew my mind as I struggled with the cognitive dissonance vibrating in there.
Since yesterday I have been expounding on my theory that MTV is largely responsible for the possibility of Obama's election. Remember back in the day when MTV wouldn't play videos by black artists? (This is well-documented, look it up). However, once Michael Jackson's Thriller-based popularity sky-rocketed, MTV could not longer avoid it because there was money to be made in the crossover appeal of some black artists, which eventually opened the door for things like YO! MTV Raps, and the eventual absorption of hip-hop into the mainstream. The wider availability of cable TV brought this exposure to (an admittedly limited) aspect of black culture in places where people had limited to no exposure to blacks. I mean, look at it this way. . . It was not until after the pervasiveness of MTV starting in the late 80s and then the 90s that you had a widespread adopting of the ostensible accouterments of young black culture by young white people. This increasing adoption of these elements and the increasing (perhaps superficial) comfortability with black people and music that came from the daily 24-hour pumping of this stuff into households across America led to an environment in which a black man can be elected president. Whether the image being put out is considered negative or positive is beside the point, whether it was Ben Harper or N.W.A. it served to mainstream "blackness" as entertainment and make it palatable to a young white America that has reached voting age (let's say between 1998 and now).
Actually, Oprah might have something to do with this, too - what with her influence on a whole segment of white women in America - but I am less familiar with the arc of her appeal and success.
And yet (and here I am about to touch on the kind of topic that makes people I know accuse me of being jaded or not being able to simply enjoy a triumphant moment), I worry about the negative consequences of Obama's election on race relations. I mean, already I have seen/read more than one joke about "racism being over" - and while it is meant in humor, I worry that institutional sources of racism will become even more entrenched by virtue of the obfuscation of the everyday systemic and pervasive ways that racism manifests itself that may/will occur in the shadow of this achievement - as if, on its own this changes anything - rather than simply standing as a symbol of potential, eventual change for people of color who never got to finish college or go to Harvard Law School or get elected as senator.
And also, don't forget what happened in Arizona, Florida and most of all California! The anti-gay marriage propositions that passed reveal to us the varieties of deep-seating prejudice and institutional INJUSTICE that we still have to struggle against. It makes me sick. It makes no sense. It is just plain wrong and there is no rational argument against letting gay people marry, only arguments based on misplaced fear or absurd religious beliefs.
On Tuesday, there was an electric mix of anxiety and hope among all my friends, co-workers and colleagues. And I felt very much out of place amid all the hysteria. Part of the issue is that I have had so much going in my life lately that I am in my own head a lot of the time and the presidential election seemed to me to be something obnoxiously loud, but at a distance. Annoying, but there was nothing to be done about it except to wait for it to be over.
Thankfully, class on Tuesday went really well. We discussed an essay called "The Manliness of Men" in our continuing discussion of gender, and quickly decided it was a mess of an essay that was frustratingly vague, held on to assumptions it never explored, and seemed to be unsure of its own thesis. I took the opportunity to lecture on and discuss feminism with the class, as in the essay Harvey Mansfield indicts it as the source of threat to "manliness." When I asked the class if anyone considers themselves a feminist, no one raised their hand, and one young woman at the front scoffed at the very idea of it. And I could see another wanting to raise her hand, but feeling squelched by the indifference in the room. So, I asked if anyone could define "feminism" and the young woman who wanted to raise her hand busted out a book from her bag to read a definition from it - the book was entitled "Full Frontal Feminism" - I don't know anything about it, or if she just had it for a class, but she seemed pretty eager. This was the definition we worked with:
" feminism. - noun. the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men. 2. (sometimes initial capital letter) an organized movement for the attainment of such rights for women.
This allowed us to compare negative impressions of what feminism is/what it means to be 'a feminist' to the actual definition and why that impression might develop. Of course, most of the objections (esp. from the men in the class, but from some women as well) had to do with a misplaced defense against the effect on men (and their assumptions of entitlement), which kind of echoed the essay. You know, bullshit, about how increasing equality for women leaves men confused about "manliness" (whatever that means) and to abandonment of wives/families by men because they no longer have an established role determined by their gender. I would laugh if so many people didn't eat that bullshit for breakfast. The funny part is that these right-wing pundits and essayists who would trumpet this supposed threat to men and point to these supposed results (with no indication of any actual causation) are the same ones who go on and on about personal responsibility when it comes to race and class issues.
Anyway, what I tried to emphasize was that if they believed in the equality in social, political, and all other rights for women, and if advocating such is how feminism is defined, why couldn't they be feminists? The most satisfying part to me was when the young woman who scoffed at the beginning of class was complaining at the end of class about the limitations of language, because she wanted to separate out what she saw as the positive attributes of so-called manliness from something having to do only with men. . . "But the word 'man' is right in there. . ." She said. I happily pointed out that challenging the prejudicial nature of language that is skewed towards a patriarchal worldview, but that most of us take for granted as "right" and "natural" is one of the foremost precepts of feminism - because it is indicative of a sexist mindset endemic to our culture. . . fuck that, our world. "Maybe you are already a feminist, and you don't even know it!" I said to her, and I could see that I had planted a seed in her mind and that she was seriously considering the implications. Man (ha!), that felt great!
Thursday's Class went anything but smoothly, but it was fun. As their next formal assignment is to write a profile essay based on an interview of one of their classmates, I broke them up into pairs and then into different pairs so that they were not being interviewed by the same people they interviewed. As five students were absent, we had an odd number present and one of the students had to make do with interviewing me, and I had to shift my list around at the last minute, which did not quite work out as I envisioned - but whatever, we muddled through and the students seemed to have fun both asking questions and (even more so) being asked. I mean, who doesn't like to talk about themselves? My interview was funny because the student had a hard time accepting my assertion that I had no desire to be rich, and because I when he asked me about my goal to get a PhD, he struggled to get what I meant in terms of my desire to study and write about literature and identity.
For once, I got to leave class before my students, as I left them finishing up their interviews with five minutes left to class.
Tomorrow, I take the GRE Subject Test in Literature - which is going to be SO much fun. . . Ugh, these damn tests are such a worthless exercise. Furthermore, after bombing my GRE General test a couple of weeks ago amid a stressful week of funeral, family obligation and a wedding, I signed up to take it again next Saturday! Hooray! Two GRE exams in two weeks! And now I just got a call from my sister that she is at the E.R. with my mom who became sick very suddenly last night with vertigo, vomiting and sky-rocketing blood pressure, after I spent a good part of last Saturday in the E.R. with my uncle who was suffering from similar symptoms. There are no good times to have to be concerned about the health of your close family members, but there are certainly particularly bad ones. . . :(
I keep having to repeat this to myself because honestly it wasn't something I ever imagined seeing in my lifetime. Or if I did see it, I imagined it would be a Republican (I had the same theory regarding a woman in the White House).
It took about 36 hours for the realization to set in, mostly because 1) well, it doesn't fit my view of America (maybe all the racists stayed home), and 2) because since Obama is not my own ideal candidate and represents a belief in the capitalist classist system that bankrupts people and pisses on the poor and working class, keeping wealth and access to opportunity (in particular education) unevenly distributed. . . Bascially, the election of a Democrat has not been something I have applauded in my adult life - and thus, mixed feelings.
However, after some sleep the mixedness of it was kind of strained out, allowing me to put the historical and social significance of Barack Hussein Obama's election one side and my own on-going political disappointment on the other.
I mean, I would have been surprised if Indiana went Democrat, but the fact that it went for Obama, a black man. . . Well, I went to school there for two years, albeit almost 20 years ago now, but back then it was certainly not a diverse place, or a place that felt remotely welcoming to or accepting of difference and people of color. So, it really blew my mind as I struggled with the cognitive dissonance vibrating in there.
Since yesterday I have been expounding on my theory that MTV is largely responsible for the possibility of Obama's election. Remember back in the day when MTV wouldn't play videos by black artists? (This is well-documented, look it up). However, once Michael Jackson's Thriller-based popularity sky-rocketed, MTV could not longer avoid it because there was money to be made in the crossover appeal of some black artists, which eventually opened the door for things like YO! MTV Raps, and the eventual absorption of hip-hop into the mainstream. The wider availability of cable TV brought this exposure to (an admittedly limited) aspect of black culture in places where people had limited to no exposure to blacks. I mean, look at it this way. . . It was not until after the pervasiveness of MTV starting in the late 80s and then the 90s that you had a widespread adopting of the ostensible accouterments of young black culture by young white people. This increasing adoption of these elements and the increasing (perhaps superficial) comfortability with black people and music that came from the daily 24-hour pumping of this stuff into households across America led to an environment in which a black man can be elected president. Whether the image being put out is considered negative or positive is beside the point, whether it was Ben Harper or N.W.A. it served to mainstream "blackness" as entertainment and make it palatable to a young white America that has reached voting age (let's say between 1998 and now).
Actually, Oprah might have something to do with this, too - what with her influence on a whole segment of white women in America - but I am less familiar with the arc of her appeal and success.
And yet (and here I am about to touch on the kind of topic that makes people I know accuse me of being jaded or not being able to simply enjoy a triumphant moment), I worry about the negative consequences of Obama's election on race relations. I mean, already I have seen/read more than one joke about "racism being over" - and while it is meant in humor, I worry that institutional sources of racism will become even more entrenched by virtue of the obfuscation of the everyday systemic and pervasive ways that racism manifests itself that may/will occur in the shadow of this achievement - as if, on its own this changes anything - rather than simply standing as a symbol of potential, eventual change for people of color who never got to finish college or go to Harvard Law School or get elected as senator.
And also, don't forget what happened in Arizona, Florida and most of all California! The anti-gay marriage propositions that passed reveal to us the varieties of deep-seating prejudice and institutional INJUSTICE that we still have to struggle against. It makes me sick. It makes no sense. It is just plain wrong and there is no rational argument against letting gay people marry, only arguments based on misplaced fear or absurd religious beliefs.
On Tuesday, there was an electric mix of anxiety and hope among all my friends, co-workers and colleagues. And I felt very much out of place amid all the hysteria. Part of the issue is that I have had so much going in my life lately that I am in my own head a lot of the time and the presidential election seemed to me to be something obnoxiously loud, but at a distance. Annoying, but there was nothing to be done about it except to wait for it to be over.
Thankfully, class on Tuesday went really well. We discussed an essay called "The Manliness of Men" in our continuing discussion of gender, and quickly decided it was a mess of an essay that was frustratingly vague, held on to assumptions it never explored, and seemed to be unsure of its own thesis. I took the opportunity to lecture on and discuss feminism with the class, as in the essay Harvey Mansfield indicts it as the source of threat to "manliness." When I asked the class if anyone considers themselves a feminist, no one raised their hand, and one young woman at the front scoffed at the very idea of it. And I could see another wanting to raise her hand, but feeling squelched by the indifference in the room. So, I asked if anyone could define "feminism" and the young woman who wanted to raise her hand busted out a book from her bag to read a definition from it - the book was entitled "Full Frontal Feminism" - I don't know anything about it, or if she just had it for a class, but she seemed pretty eager. This was the definition we worked with:
" feminism. - noun. the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men. 2. (sometimes initial capital letter) an organized movement for the attainment of such rights for women.
This allowed us to compare negative impressions of what feminism is/what it means to be 'a feminist' to the actual definition and why that impression might develop. Of course, most of the objections (esp. from the men in the class, but from some women as well) had to do with a misplaced defense against the effect on men (and their assumptions of entitlement), which kind of echoed the essay. You know, bullshit, about how increasing equality for women leaves men confused about "manliness" (whatever that means) and to abandonment of wives/families by men because they no longer have an established role determined by their gender. I would laugh if so many people didn't eat that bullshit for breakfast. The funny part is that these right-wing pundits and essayists who would trumpet this supposed threat to men and point to these supposed results (with no indication of any actual causation) are the same ones who go on and on about personal responsibility when it comes to race and class issues.
Anyway, what I tried to emphasize was that if they believed in the equality in social, political, and all other rights for women, and if advocating such is how feminism is defined, why couldn't they be feminists? The most satisfying part to me was when the young woman who scoffed at the beginning of class was complaining at the end of class about the limitations of language, because she wanted to separate out what she saw as the positive attributes of so-called manliness from something having to do only with men. . . "But the word 'man' is right in there. . ." She said. I happily pointed out that challenging the prejudicial nature of language that is skewed towards a patriarchal worldview, but that most of us take for granted as "right" and "natural" is one of the foremost precepts of feminism - because it is indicative of a sexist mindset endemic to our culture. . . fuck that, our world. "Maybe you are already a feminist, and you don't even know it!" I said to her, and I could see that I had planted a seed in her mind and that she was seriously considering the implications. Man (ha!), that felt great!
Thursday's Class went anything but smoothly, but it was fun. As their next formal assignment is to write a profile essay based on an interview of one of their classmates, I broke them up into pairs and then into different pairs so that they were not being interviewed by the same people they interviewed. As five students were absent, we had an odd number present and one of the students had to make do with interviewing me, and I had to shift my list around at the last minute, which did not quite work out as I envisioned - but whatever, we muddled through and the students seemed to have fun both asking questions and (even more so) being asked. I mean, who doesn't like to talk about themselves? My interview was funny because the student had a hard time accepting my assertion that I had no desire to be rich, and because I when he asked me about my goal to get a PhD, he struggled to get what I meant in terms of my desire to study and write about literature and identity.
For once, I got to leave class before my students, as I left them finishing up their interviews with five minutes left to class.
Tomorrow, I take the GRE Subject Test in Literature - which is going to be SO much fun. . . Ugh, these damn tests are such a worthless exercise. Furthermore, after bombing my GRE General test a couple of weeks ago amid a stressful week of funeral, family obligation and a wedding, I signed up to take it again next Saturday! Hooray! Two GRE exams in two weeks! And now I just got a call from my sister that she is at the E.R. with my mom who became sick very suddenly last night with vertigo, vomiting and sky-rocketing blood pressure, after I spent a good part of last Saturday in the E.R. with my uncle who was suffering from similar symptoms. There are no good times to have to be concerned about the health of your close family members, but there are certainly particularly bad ones. . . :(