8.17.2017
There is nothing beautiful in this
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| Former Battle of Liberty Place monument, New Orleans |
Just because a work of public art has existed does not mean it has the right to continue to exist. When art enters the public sphere as a representative of some sort of public will, it’s not just a work of art in museum storage that can depend on institutional context to maintain its existence. It is properly subjected to public scrutiny and public discussion. It may be subject to removal. When the authorities fail to act, it is understandable that people take matters into their own hands.
The official placement of historical statues in public places is never just a neutral recounting of history. It always amounts to an endorsement, soft-voiced or full-throated. Many many more things have happened that we might want to remember than we actually commemorate with monuments. But certain images get chosen as particularly significant. The choice of these monuments organizes public space, public memory, and public emotion. They create expectations about public consensus.
The history of the monuments themselves is, more often than not, that of a particularly ideologically racist moment in the history of a nation founded in racist beliefs: a moment in which the white people in power decided to make a public statement of support for those who fought to continue to have the right to enslave other humans, to dehumanize them and treat them as property. Which is to say: to publicly send the message to the descendants of those who were enslaved that their towns, cities, and states remember fondly a time when they were still enslaved, remember proudly those who fought to preserve that state of affairs, remember heroics on the battlefield in the service of a glorious lost cause.
In other words, these monuments say this: if you are African American, this public space is not for you. It says: this place celebrates horrible crimes against your ancestors. It cheers your continued subjugation.
THERE IS NOTHING BEAUTIFUL IN THIS.
The out-and-out, unabashed racists are clear about why they want these monuments preserved. But if you are white and you are expressing concern about history, about tradition, about aesthetics, if you are saying “this is not what these statues mean to me,” if you are saying “aren’t there more important things to be focusing on?” here’s the thing: You don’t get to decide.
You don’t get to decide.
That is what is really at stake here, and that is why it is so hard. Losing history is easy; we let history drift away all the time. But the history of the Confederacy, in particular, is in no danger of being lost. It’s the investments of the present that people, and I mean white people, and I include liberals, are scared to lose: demons of the present and not (only) the past. History is not being lost. What’s being lost (for whites) is an imaginary consensus around it. What’s being lost is the feeling of easy ownership of the public sphere, the sense that you can debate this question or not within yourself, but regardless, you can go on undisturbed in the confidence that whatever you decide, or whatever it means to you—is what it means.
4.12.2009
Amazon censors glbtq books
Amazon rank: Amazon sales rank has been stripped from books deemed too gay, even where not sexually explicit, as part of an "adult" policy to keep them out of bestseller lists. Yet hetero porn (the deathless Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds) survives.
4.01.2009
Too much caffeine + seclusion + agitation + nuclear missiles = ?
This is not what I want to read about nuclear missile installations (whatever day it is):
According to wire reports, the remote facility temporarily moved to Defense Condition (Defcon) 3 in the pre-dawn hours, but quickly backed down from that posture. An airman at the installation who asked not to be identified blamed the mishap on "way too much caffeine" consumed by occupants inside the secluded underground control room. The airman said the facility's lead engineer became agitated and inconsolable after watching an Internet broadcast of Sunday night's hard-hitting 60 Minutes expose' on the Conficker worm entitled, "The Internet is Infected."
According to wire reports, the remote facility temporarily moved to Defense Condition (Defcon) 3 in the pre-dawn hours, but quickly backed down from that posture. An airman at the installation who asked not to be identified blamed the mishap on "way too much caffeine" consumed by occupants inside the secluded underground control room. The airman said the facility's lead engineer became agitated and inconsolable after watching an Internet broadcast of Sunday night's hard-hitting 60 Minutes expose' on the Conficker worm entitled, "The Internet is Infected."
2.10.2009
Indulgences?
OK, that's all I have to say.
1.25.2009
Vice splice
I hereby ordain that film critics should start using this new term I made up for the way the camera in movies about the twentieth century emphasizes shots of people smoking in a place it's no longer legal (like an airplane or an office cubicle), or drinking or smoking while pregnant. (In case it's not obvious: after not seeing a movie in a theater in a very long time,* I recently saw Revolutionary Road and Frost/Nixon.) Dazed and Confused may have done it first and definitely most flamboyantly....
*Speaking of things not done in a very long time, I am trying to revive this blog. We'll see if it works.
*Speaking of things not done in a very long time, I am trying to revive this blog. We'll see if it works.
More good news for coffee drinkers
12.31.2008
Roland Burris makes bid to swap dignity for chance to become future trivia question
That about says it. Though I'm impressed with the Clintonesque, lawyerly, "depends on what the meaning of is is" logic of why it's fine to accept the nomination.
12.24.2008
ABCs of the financial crisis
I am making an ABC book of the financial crisis and I need some help determining which is the best word for each letter of the alphabet. Anyone have an opinion on which A is the best?
AAA (credit rating)
AFFINITY FRAUD (what Madoff engaged in by cheating mainly Jews)
AID
AIG
ASIA
AUTO INDUSTRY (or AUTOMAKERS)
OR, anyone have any other suggestions?
AAA (credit rating)
AFFINITY FRAUD (what Madoff engaged in by cheating mainly Jews)
AID
AIG
ASIA
AUTO INDUSTRY (or AUTOMAKERS)
OR, anyone have any other suggestions?
