Monday, February 07, 2005
Words can do injustice.
Blogs shouldn't have introductions.
The current presidency is reshaping the way that I, and potentially other Americans--maybe a lot of them--view language. The art of the bromide isn't one that this president invented--his predecessors, Dem and GOP, have fired off their own caps, empty ammunition, a hollow pop. Elegance isn't a precondition, or a determiner of, a steaming Reagan-esque platitude...JFK was elegant, but it was because he was intelligent and well-read. I can't say either of the current president, but he knows what Reagan did: that delivery and non-verbal communication can override the substance of the communication itself. I don't know if there are many simpletons out there who buy this constant hammering at the dignified ideas of "freedom", "peace", &c. [The people who call into C-SPAN at midday, Fox N. and talk radio certainly seem to entertain such empty words' abilities to make reality rather than describe it.]
I'm contextualizing my frustration in the Teach for America documentary I watched last Thursday. It was a CNN doc to be sure--long intro sequences with dramatic music (news, after all, is fast, hard, and movielike--as x% of heterosexual males conceptualize sex) and embarrassingly lengthy commentaries from Aaron Brown, celebrity journalist.
I've gotta try to keep my focus here. First I'm soloing on the president's word poverty, then on cable news. I'm not supposed to be writing the great 'Merican album here.
No, I'm supposed to be addressing the vast diversity of our society--and condemning some of it. The TFA film showed me exactly what I wanted to know about--the sheer difficulty of the circumstances in low-opportunity schools in the USA. Kids who hold pencils like thin soda cans. Teenagers whose friends are shot to death less than a mile from school; they leave class and go to a shrine of roses and pictures lain on the broken, dirty concrete. World history books ten years old. An entire class talking and walking around while a short, young, white lass screams her unheeded lecture.
I shouldn't overdo this. Their situation doesn't need (or deserve) to be dramatized in order to be understood as demanding change. But as I left the film, I found myself wondering about something I heard at the GOP convention. Rod Paige, the Secretary of Education. Let me tell you, the guy's evaluation of No Child Left Behind--and the racial inequalities in education, etc.--were sparkling. And I know this shouldn't matter (and it's embarrassing to admit it to my assuredly dignified readers), but he is black. (And that knowledge played into my reception of his speech.)
Schwarzenegger made similarly upsetting comments. In his famous speech, he praised the nurses and teachers of California...stylishly neglecting to mention his sweeping cuts to public medicine programs and education. Don't you see? It doesn't matter what's real; it just matters what and how you communicate.
And on that walk down Westwood Blvd., I found myself thinking about social privilege. George Bush has never attended--has very likely never even visited--a down-in-the-dumps high school with prophylactics scattered throughout the grounds, 22 books per 172 students, and blue and red shirts. (You're right--it is ironic how the significance of two colors changes as you go from white to colored society.) And as long as George Bush hasn't been there--what goddam right does he have to comment on the situation?
That is the injustice of words. They can betray truth, especially when spoken to deserted minds. Look, I didn't go to a ghetto high school--and neither did you, reader. But I've done my reading. I've seen and worked at a city school. For what I lack in experience, I strive to make up in knowledge. This is a start--and only that.
But I consider it a patent wrong for those who lack experience and knowledge to speak of things as though they are ok.
Here are some words you should consider, boss. "I don't know."
The current presidency is reshaping the way that I, and potentially other Americans--maybe a lot of them--view language. The art of the bromide isn't one that this president invented--his predecessors, Dem and GOP, have fired off their own caps, empty ammunition, a hollow pop. Elegance isn't a precondition, or a determiner of, a steaming Reagan-esque platitude...JFK was elegant, but it was because he was intelligent and well-read. I can't say either of the current president, but he knows what Reagan did: that delivery and non-verbal communication can override the substance of the communication itself. I don't know if there are many simpletons out there who buy this constant hammering at the dignified ideas of "freedom", "peace", &c. [The people who call into C-SPAN at midday, Fox N. and talk radio certainly seem to entertain such empty words' abilities to make reality rather than describe it.]
I'm contextualizing my frustration in the Teach for America documentary I watched last Thursday. It was a CNN doc to be sure--long intro sequences with dramatic music (news, after all, is fast, hard, and movielike--as x% of heterosexual males conceptualize sex) and embarrassingly lengthy commentaries from Aaron Brown, celebrity journalist.
I've gotta try to keep my focus here. First I'm soloing on the president's word poverty, then on cable news. I'm not supposed to be writing the great 'Merican album here.
No, I'm supposed to be addressing the vast diversity of our society--and condemning some of it. The TFA film showed me exactly what I wanted to know about--the sheer difficulty of the circumstances in low-opportunity schools in the USA. Kids who hold pencils like thin soda cans. Teenagers whose friends are shot to death less than a mile from school; they leave class and go to a shrine of roses and pictures lain on the broken, dirty concrete. World history books ten years old. An entire class talking and walking around while a short, young, white lass screams her unheeded lecture.
I shouldn't overdo this. Their situation doesn't need (or deserve) to be dramatized in order to be understood as demanding change. But as I left the film, I found myself wondering about something I heard at the GOP convention. Rod Paige, the Secretary of Education. Let me tell you, the guy's evaluation of No Child Left Behind--and the racial inequalities in education, etc.--were sparkling. And I know this shouldn't matter (and it's embarrassing to admit it to my assuredly dignified readers), but he is black. (And that knowledge played into my reception of his speech.)
Schwarzenegger made similarly upsetting comments. In his famous speech, he praised the nurses and teachers of California...stylishly neglecting to mention his sweeping cuts to public medicine programs and education. Don't you see? It doesn't matter what's real; it just matters what and how you communicate.
And on that walk down Westwood Blvd., I found myself thinking about social privilege. George Bush has never attended--has very likely never even visited--a down-in-the-dumps high school with prophylactics scattered throughout the grounds, 22 books per 172 students, and blue and red shirts. (You're right--it is ironic how the significance of two colors changes as you go from white to colored society.) And as long as George Bush hasn't been there--what goddam right does he have to comment on the situation?
That is the injustice of words. They can betray truth, especially when spoken to deserted minds. Look, I didn't go to a ghetto high school--and neither did you, reader. But I've done my reading. I've seen and worked at a city school. For what I lack in experience, I strive to make up in knowledge. This is a start--and only that.
But I consider it a patent wrong for those who lack experience and knowledge to speak of things as though they are ok.
Here are some words you should consider, boss. "I don't know."
Comments:
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Bobster says that the "responsibility lies more on the listener than it does on the speaker." Interesting point and one I've certainly considered before. To a certain degree, I probably agree. But only to a degree.
Getting back to Saqib's original blog, I'm inclined to believe that the "simpletons who are buying [Bush's] rhetoric" include a lot of very, very uneducated people who are the type of people who attended the low-income schools that Saqib mentions. Of course they're listening and they like what they hear; Bush says he won't leave their child behind! That means that their children will get a better education than they themselves got, right? Unfortunately, no, it doesn't. It just means that they're children will take more standardized tests and their children's teachers will spend more time trying to teach them strategies to succeed on standardized tests even when their skills are two or three years below grade-level and at least that far behind their upper-class peers.
Education is the foundation of our society and if we keep the majority of our society blindfolded, we'll certainly continue to have George W. Bushes in office.
Of course I know there are a great deal of well-educated Bush-supporters who aren't really listening to him. And I also know that there are many less-educated people who absolutely despise Bush and hold him accountable for the poor state of their lives. (One question in my mind is whether some of these people are even legal citizens who have the right to vote.)
So, while I would agree that the responsibility lies with the listener, I would also suggest that a large part of the responsibility lies with the educated listener. it is his and her role to proactively move to create positive change and help the under-educated residents of the inner-city or of rural areas understand the true state of our nation's affairs.
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Getting back to Saqib's original blog, I'm inclined to believe that the "simpletons who are buying [Bush's] rhetoric" include a lot of very, very uneducated people who are the type of people who attended the low-income schools that Saqib mentions. Of course they're listening and they like what they hear; Bush says he won't leave their child behind! That means that their children will get a better education than they themselves got, right? Unfortunately, no, it doesn't. It just means that they're children will take more standardized tests and their children's teachers will spend more time trying to teach them strategies to succeed on standardized tests even when their skills are two or three years below grade-level and at least that far behind their upper-class peers.
Education is the foundation of our society and if we keep the majority of our society blindfolded, we'll certainly continue to have George W. Bushes in office.
Of course I know there are a great deal of well-educated Bush-supporters who aren't really listening to him. And I also know that there are many less-educated people who absolutely despise Bush and hold him accountable for the poor state of their lives. (One question in my mind is whether some of these people are even legal citizens who have the right to vote.)
So, while I would agree that the responsibility lies with the listener, I would also suggest that a large part of the responsibility lies with the educated listener. it is his and her role to proactively move to create positive change and help the under-educated residents of the inner-city or of rural areas understand the true state of our nation's affairs.
# posted by 
: 3/05/2005 04:04:00 PM
: 3/05/2005 04:04:00 PM << Home
