On Goldsmith, Perloff and Race

I am hopelessly behind on many things. I teach and am currently attending yet another graduate school, this time to get my second Master’s degree – in English. This means that I am working or in class 14 hours some days and the days I do not spend in that way I spend my time grading or writing papers. So apparently there has been a whirlwind blowing up about Marjorie Perloff, Kenneth Goldsmith, and race that I am behind on. Having been out of the loop on this, I nonetheless had a few thoughts as I read Jen Hofer’s account as well as the portion of the transcript that she had published. I don't know that I have anything shockingly new to add to the conversation, but since when did that stop anyone, especially me, from commenting?

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I just read Marjorie Perloff’s statements about Michael Brown, made at an art festival ¬¬in Demark At that festival, in a Q&A, she talked about Michael Brown as “scary” and she started saying that we shouldn’t always equate victimhood with innocence. According to a transcript from Hofer and published in this online article, Perloff then went on to talk about victims of the holocaust as not so innocent and if you look into their backgrounds, many were (probably) really terrible people.

All this would be fine if the Michael Brown incident were isolated and not a product of persistent racism stemming not just from a history of slavery, or segregation and discrimination that were all part of our past, now that we are “post-racial,” and not part of persistent racism that occurs on a daily basis in the 1990s and 2000s in America. If there were not a report released on 14 US cities where only black Americans were killed by the police this year. The comments would be fine if what happened in WWII Germany had not been the result of persistent anti-Semitism for centuries and had reared its ugly head again in the recent decade(s) leading up to WWII. If these things were not a part of an ongoing pattern and were simply things that happened to a few morally ambiguous individuals.

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In both of these comments, Perloff comes off as sounding like Kenneth Goldsmith himself, being intentionally provocative while maintaining an Alfred E. Neuman-like “What, Me?” stance. While I admire much about Goldsmith’s work, I can also see the flaws in his approach and the “radical artifice” in his attitudes. I find much of Goldsmith’s work to be said with a wink designed to get people’s hackles up and there really are no limits, as he has shown by his use of “found materials,” repurposing non-poetic materials to his non-poetic (wink wink, nudge nudge) ends.

I think the thing that unites all of this work, Perloff’s statements that many perceive as racist, her continued advocacy of “white male” poets and a while male avant-garde, and Goldsmith’s appropriation of Michael Brown’s autopsy report is not necessarily an inherent racism, but moreover, the belief that the “canon” of literature can and should somehow be a-historical. That somehow it shouldn’t comment on our times, but should rise above the specific historical context is something that only a privileged few – mostly white men and some privileged white women – have the luxury to do. The rest of us are struggling with our historical moment as women and non-white males.

For many of us, we do not have the luxury of being a-historical, and frankly, neither did many of the best previous avant-gardists of any era. Andre Breton and Louis Aragon were deeply embroiled in the politics of their era. Tristan Tzara worked for the French Resistance and Robert Desnos died in a concentration camp. Breton was in Haiti as the Haitian revolution broke out and it has been suggested that his presence hastened that revolution. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera were involved in revolutionary politics and harbored Trotsky. Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece brought unapologetic attention to the politics around women’s bodies. There are countless examples of artists and poets in the avant-garde who did not hide behind their art, even if they were white males, but used their art, their free speech, to push their politics and the art was enriched by their politics, rather than being impoverished by it.

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Does being a victim of an atrocity erase any previous misdeeds? Does being a respected and at times revered literary theorist or poet insulate you from social criticism of your work and your comments? It seems to be that these two situations may be equivocal.

In Hofer's transcript, Perloff gives us the usual critique of the younger generation: “Back in my day, we didn’t do that.” Abe Simpson’s voice rings clearly in my head.

“When I went to school I was taught you say “Ah, this is good, but might he have not done this, or there could be more of that,” or you know, you attacked politely” when I went to school I was taught you say “Ah, this is good, but might he have not done this, or there could be more of that,” or you know, you attacked politely (Perloff qtd in Hofer). Perloff blames this on internet culture and incivility. And certainly there are uncivil things being said on the internet. But this emphasis on “being attacked politely” is also part of the assumption that academia should be a nice place where people don’t discuss things that they feel strongly about or that involve strong passions? Where does the line between outrage and incivility get drawn?

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I have not seen Kenneth Goldsmith’s piece, but I do know a lot about his work and his detached persona. That is not an inherent part of the avant-garde. He could have used the autopsy to bring attention to the injustice that is being done to African-Americans throughout the country. Baltimore, Ferguson, New York, Minneapolis, etc. etc. Perhaps that is what he intended to do in his “objective” hipster way. I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt on some of this. But Perloff is on dangerous ground not only with her comments about Michael Brown and of victimhood vs. innocence, but in her insistence that the work of anyone that is not white, privileged, and male is not worthy of her notice.

Duck Dynasty: Joke's On Us

I have heard recently it said on Facebook that the members of the “Duck Dynasty” were, in fact, not these rustic types living in the backwoods of Louisiana, but in fact, are clean shaven professional men, yuppies, who saw an opportunity to be on television and took it. Whether or not these yuppies are racist and homophobic is not known, but it would seem that the Duck Dynasty would be bigoted, and so these professionals, actors, decided to play to public perception.

Now, I have not heard anything that makes me think that I can confirm or deny these rumors with any certainty. But it did make me think of Andy Kaufman and the many characters he played, including his baffling performances on Saturday Night Live as well as his wrestling career in which he wrestled women, culminating in a very public feud with wrestler Jerry Lawler in which Andy Kaufman was (supposedly) injured and had threatened to sue Lawler. Now, 30 years later, there is a suspicion that Lawler was in on the joke and that it was a hoax – a very well-acted piece of performance art that neither party ever completely admitted to, but carried it into their public personas, never letting their guard down.

So all of this makes me wonder, what if the joke is on us? What if this is a hoax, a brilliant piece of performance art that doesn’t take sides, rather is to pull the wool over all of our eyes? Perhaps the portrayal of a racist, backwater family with pre-Civil War attitudes is supposed to show the polarization of our society, exploit it, and hold a mirror up to all of us. What if it is a parody of life in the United States, showing the disparity in lifestyles between the two societies we have become, one that holds stubbornly onto the old way of life, resisting social and technological progress and the other presenting itself as moving forward into the 21st century (or as Buzz Lightyear says, to infinity and beyond!)

If this is the intention of the Duck Dynasty, you might argue that it is about 10 years too late to the party. This is well-covered terrain. But there’s another layer involved as well—our willingness to watch and comment upon this type of reality program, to look at “those hillbillies” as a way to feel better about ourselves, whether it’s to watch them as circus freaks or to admire their willingness to endure a harsh way of life for their “values.” In other words, we are so used to viewing people in these kinds of terms, is our outrage perfunctory? Are we outraged because we are used to being outraged, and not out of a genuine kind of surprise any more? And if it is a hoax, then those “values” seem to amount to nothing more than money. If there is no real conviction behind it, is a legitimate hoax in the Kaufman-esque sense of the word, or is it just making a buck?

A&E is one of several channels that have come to specialize in this kind of programming and making a fortune on it. The actors on Seinfeld, when renegotiating their huge salary increases, justified them on the grounds that the network was making an enormous amount of money off of their talents, and so why shouldn’t they. Having been sensitized to stories of actors in the 1950s and 60s who did not receive residuals for their television shows, we bought into it. So why should we now expect that the so-called reality stars are not just in it for a share of the pie, rather than that they truly believe in every word they say. We are at once cynical about reality television, but we are also willing to believe the worst about some characters because it reinforces what we believe and provides us with an outlet and a scapegoat for our rage at the injustices we feel in our society, which are many at the moment.

I don’t know if Duck Dynasty is a hoax or not, but I am becoming more and more taken with the idea that we have all been fooled. Again.

My belated two cents on the whole Imus thing

Yeah I know--it took me a while to get to it.

Sometimes stupidity is just too overwhelming to even address. Sometimes I just get too angry to sit down and write. As my mother likes to say "so angry I can't see straight."

Let me get beyond the racism of nappy-haired and beyond the sexism of ho's for the moment, beyond the words themselves. What is truly sexist about this comment, in my eyes, is that it was uttered at all.

In what universe, for what reason, would you insult a team that just won the national championship? Why would it even occur to you? It's not like there were reports that they were running amok or causing trouble or rioting after their win (unlike many other sports teams and fans . . . . hmmmmm....) They won. They took their trophy. They went home to proud friends and family and classmates and behaved themselves with dignity.

Obviously these bitches needed to be taken down a peg.

Unlike male collegiate sports, women who play sports are not given special privileges in the classroom. These are not women skating by in easy classes, their professors being told by Vivian Stringer to pass these girls or else.

There's the old saw that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. This is exactly what women athletes are up against. They have to actually work hard and study and pass their courses AND be great athletes on top of it. There's not the kind of free ride, automobiles, cash and ho's that are provided to male students.

And yet, would Don Imus--or any pundit--have gone out of their way to make fun of a men's basketball team that had just won a national title? There are those who might say "sure, Imus is a racist and would have done it either way," but I highly doubt it.

The words used in the slur are beside the point to me. It's not that they don't hurt. But that they were uttered at all is the most grievious element.

On the other side, the coverage in the national media was fascinating and the way in which the white media's biases and anxieties came out and I would like to highlight just a couple of points:

1. Paula Zahn on CNN asking about why black people are allowed to make racial jokes and why white people aren't. Hmmmmm . . . a sticky wicket that one, isn't it? Were there a lot of African Americans running around Rutgers yelling "Yo go, you nappy-haired ho's." "We love our nappy-haired bitches."

2. Hannity -- is that the one?-- on Fox News saying to Reverend Sharpton "white America doesn't see what the big deal is. I mean, red states just don't understand the uproar over this." FOR REAL?? You don't understand why someone who just won a national sports title and should be really excited and celebrating would be upset at being called names? And don't f---ing speak for me. I'm white and it's this shit I don't get.

3. Anderson Cooper -- CNN -- the titles along the bottom tell me that this show is about the Imus Controversy and the Rutgers women's basketball team. Yet the two African American men on the show at the moment I get there are being asked by AC about young black men and why they wear their pants down around their knees. What does this have to do with these women??

Which is to say of course that the problem isn't entirely Imus. This situation became a lightning rod, an opportunity for "white America," the "red states" and the white media to air all of their anxiety about race at the feet of these women athletes. They have to stand in and speak for all African American youth. For all African American women. For all women. They will never be unhyphenated athletes. They can only be "black" and "female" and then athletes.