I Know But Do Not Feel

I was born in 1961 in the Garden State, only a few miles from New York City. My mother was born in Manhattan; my father was a first-generation American born in north Jersey.

For the first 7 years of my life I traveled in and around such places as Paterson (the town outside Manhattan most closely connected to 9/11), Newark, and Jersey City. Readers familiar with these cities know their racial composition well; I understood the idea of "projects" from travelling to my aunt's apartment in Jersey City and our forays around the Bronx (where my mother had been raised). Most of my father's extended family, after a deep and profound tragedy fell on the Gnades eight weeks before my birth, moved to New Hampshire soon after I was born; my immediate family would enjoy summer holidays in New Hampshire's Monadnock region until my father moved us all to that fine enclave 40 years ago this coming Wednesday.

I share all this as a prelude to a confession, and that confession is that while I intellectually understand the historical dimension of the election of Barack Obama to the White House -- he being an African-American -- his election did not feel historical in the least. Of course, I am talking as a 47-year-old white man raised mostly in snow-white southwestern New Hampshire. I am too young to have witnessed racial discrimination in any meaningful way, and I was raised, largely, in a culture and in a family at war with racism. I came of age, after all, in the 1960s and 1970s, where my cohort was trained by family and school, and even TV and Hollywood, not to see skin color as ontologically important. Perhaps my favorite childhood novels were Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn; I am glad to say that I was one of Twain's readers (he used to summer in my New Hampshire home town) who never once felt that he hated dear, sweet Jim, the runaway slave.

I recall the countless black figures I adored, and even imitated, as a child and teenager. On TV, who did not like Linc from "The Mod Squad"? Who didn't howl at the antics of Flip Wilson, Nipsy Russell, Redd Foxx, or Sammy Davis, Jr. (I loved Wilson, Foxx and Davis)? Who didn't love the tales of Bill Cosby's "Fat Albert" or Cosby's role on "I Spy?" What boy did not find Teresa Graves fantastically desirable on "Laugh-In" or the short-lived "Get Christy Love"?

I remember clearly claiming as a youngster that Sidney Poitier was my favorite actor, as he embodied (cinematically, at least) the sort of conviction and resolve that were quintessentially masculine and heroic.

And what child was not moved by the voice of Martin Luther King; who can forget the pall over the land, and in one's own living room, when that great man was killed?

My dad was an ardent boxing fan; I was weened, as were countless American boys, on Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Joe Frasier, and the sculpted Ken Norton (and this skinny boy thought Sugar Ray Leonard the very epitome of stealth and swiftness). Many of my playmates would scream out the names of favorite basketball players -- claiming to be their sudden incarnations on the playground -- as they nailed a shot from downtown. Lew Al Cinder (Kareem Abdul Jabbar), Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and a young Dr. J: these were the names young white boys were gleefully and proudly invoking as their patron saints. I wanted to play first base in Little League -- and I did -- because I wanted to be the Red Sox' George Scott; I wanted to be a centerfielder (and I was) because of Willie Mays; I wanted to be Willie Stargell because he could play both fields. I remember watching through tears when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's longstanding home run record; I sat with my father, who was also profoundly moved.

I recall having an Arthur Ashe tennis racket (I confess that I may have stolen it); I remember telling friends that I wanted to be the next Mercury Morris (and boy, am I glad to learn that not all dreams should come true). And though Pelé was Brazilian, he looked every bit as African as any white American boys could know, as they blithely invoked his name when attempting a bicycle kick on the backyard pitch.

As some of us found ourselves drawn toward the counter-culture, many of my cohort (myself included) adored the virtuosity of Jimi Hendrix, naming him, with all due air-guitar fanfare and much pot smoke-enshrouded authority, the "Greatest Guitarist in the World"; my sister wanted to be Diana Ross.

My generation has been raised as witnesses to black mayors, governors, senators, and Supreme Court justices. I've seen a black astronaut; I've seen a black secretary of state. I've seen Nelson Mandela hailed as president of the world; I've seen black bishops speak on truth and reconciliation. Many of us have read Hughes and Baldwin and Morrison and Walker; we're the grade-schoolers who huddled around TVs to watch "Roots."

Mine is the generation to first hear (as we all did in high school in the late 1970s and college in the early 1980s) the power of rap; we are, really, the first hip-hop generation.

In short, I am a child of arguably the first generation taught, from birth, to be blind of color. We're the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird children; we're the siblings of Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Arsenio Hall, and yes, Barack Obama.

Hence, it was not an emotionally charged moment for me to witness Barack Obama's ascendancy to the White House. I am not saying it was anti-climactic, but merely non-climactic. It was not at all unexpected: many of us are incredibly used to seeing African-Americans in positions attained by excellence and dignity. An African-American president almost feels like it has been done before: the idea, followed by the reality, is not particularly surprising.

Maybe I would feel differently if Barack Obama's story was not what it is. His is not even remotely typical of the American black experience; there is nary a hint of his life's narrative wherein we hear of his being oppressed and trammeled for his race. Perhaps had he been a true descendant of African-American slaves; perhaps if his story began with his maternal and paternal great-grandparents being branded by hot irons in the deep cotton south; perhaps if his struggle was from roots planted in the deepest pain of American segregation; perhaps had he finished college at Howard University, I might have felt differently the night of November 4, 2008. I cannot know.

But I do know that I can recognize what his achievement -- which is also the country's achievement -- means to many of my older fellow citizens who can still feel the pain of racism in America. I also know that it is foolish of me to believe my northern exposure to race is identical with my southern and black peers'; Condoleezza Rice knows first-hand the pain of race in a way I cannot, though we are nearly the same age, separated by only 7 years. In the end, I find that I can intellectually appreciate what Barack Obama's story means to many of my fellow citizens, but I cannot find within me any emotional comparison to the relief and gratitude they are so clearly experiencing. I have to remind myself that Barack Obama is a "person of color"; to me, and my several peers to whom I've spoken about this, the election of Barack Obama to the White House feels utterly familiar. A black man? Who really noticed?

In a very real way, I am a composite of a human being: I am Twain's Jim; I am Flip and Linc and Jimi and Michael and Magic; I am Tiger (I think of him EVERY time I tee up, which is probably a big mistake); I am Willie Mays and Langston Hughes and Martin Luther King and Arthur Ashe and Carl Lewis and Sidney Poitier and Alice Walker and Kunta Kinte. I hurdled as Edwin Moses or O.J. Simpson over the hedge in my neighbor's yard; I threw to home as Reggie Smith. I am a mix, a mongrel, a pure American mutt.

Barack Obama. His story is history. But it is not just his, and when you truly know your own, none of it is really much of a surprise.

Peace.

BG

I Witness: McCain's 'Last' Town Hall Meeting

Yes. I was there. The message IS the medium, the proof in the picture: my self-portrait in front of Peterborough, NH's lovely town hall moments before John McCain would speak from its steps proves that I was crazy enough to endure rather cold weather for more than two hours just so I could witness what is possibly the end of a man's bid for the White House.

But permit me to backtrack a moment.

When my wife and I chose at the last minute (practically) to attend the John McCain rally in gorgeous Peterborough, NH (where Thornton Wilder wrote "Our Town"), I decided, like a fool, to travel lightly: no cameras, no gear. If any of you have been to a major political event involving tight security and Secret Service, you know what I mean; and any of you who have worked in the press and have been "handled" by the campaign operatives know what I mean by "handling." Besides, I have brought my photo gear to work such events "outside" the press handlers' reach, and even then I have been hassled. Traveling without any potential hindrances sure made sense as I stood in my house planning my strategy.

But I was a fool for leaving my cameras home. Peterborough, after all, is essentially my home turf. I lived in that fine village for five years; my wife and I, though we live less than 10 miles away, run most of our errands there. It is the local hub. So what was I thinking when I jumped into an incredible queue without my cameras when there was so much pure political theater going on out on Grove Street (though there is a Main Street, Grove Street FEELS more like Peterborough's main street)? Obama supporters were set on the east side of Grove; they chanted and shouted and sang and, at times, harangued. Giant puppets paraded down the street; McCain supporters mostly stationed on the west side of Grove waved signs and sang "God bless America!" and did their own bit of preaching. Besides both teams chanting in unison "USA!", which was nice, some of both parties' representatives taunted each other; the badinage was quite humorous and delightful, at least to me. But I am getting ahead of myself for, you see, a friend of my wife's was queued up with my sweet bride; hearing my lament that I was stuck using my cell phone camera to record what was going on, she handed me (thanks Lauren!) her Nikon point-and-shoot (I am a Canon guy so Nikons are utterly backward). Assured that I had a spot saved in line, I took off with a dinky camera and did my best.

What sort of things did I see? [Images are not chronological; click on each one for larger view.]

Well, there was the frightening:

And the surreal:

(Apparently this moving parody of a red demon GOP elephant steered by the diminutive George W. Bush set atop its head and leading a disfigured John McCain was intended to make an effective point.)

And then there was the REALLY surreal:

There was a surprising visit by an old icon:

(Uncle Sam shouted -- you can guess which side he was on -- such inspirations as "No friends of Paris† in the White House!")

There was the predictable (it amazes me that a friend of mine, a self-described Marxist, would choose to pick a fight with this guy as I took this shot):

There was also the rather wordy (though this poor photographer nixed the punch line, which read "Keep the change").

And there was just the plain-Jane sort of stuff (cell phone picture):

But in the end, what I saw was really a slice of America, united in its division, divided in its unity: E Pluribus Unum all topsy-turvy.

______________________

You may be wondering what an award-winning photographer came up with for an image of Sen. John McCain. Well, I don't mind boasting: I got an incredible shot. It combines everything great about my talents with a borrowed camera; it shows you my deft skills as I handle even an unfamiliar camera while being jostled by cheering, jumping fans of John McCain. This IS the quintessential image, sharp, clear, precise, professional. It's clearly fit for a national journal's cover. In fact, it is so good it might even be prophetic.

Besides, what would you expect of a guy who has been "nothing but a hack" for all things McCain? Judge for yourself:

(Only seconds after taking this image, I did shake Mr. McCain's left hand with my own left hand. A secret leftist's handshake, you know.)

OK. So the image is itself part of the surreal, the fantastical, the ephemeral. But at least I've left a surprise for Lauren when she downloads her images (uh, sorry Lauren).

Peace.

†For the uninitiated, that would be "Paris Hilton."

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

A Fossil Not At All Facile

Nathan Cervo, a noted literary critic, poet, man-of-letters and English professor (now retired), is a friend of mine. We are not close friends, I admit, but we are close enough to have a great deal of affection for one another.

I spoke with Mr. Cervo yesterday about his recent letter to the editor published in the local newspaper. As a result of that conversation, he granted me permission to reprint that letter here. So, I do.

Please note that Mr. Cervo is well-known for his diction. Believe it or not, this is Nathan Cervo using simpler words.

C. S. Lewis once described himself as a dinosaur. Mr. Cervo, who is quite old, brings us a senior and scholarly view on the current state of affairs; his critics, no doubt, would like to retire him to the tar pits. Here's his letter:

'As an epitome, or compendium, of the New America, there can be little doubt that Barack Obama will become our next president. He represents a demotic force that has been germinating in the soil of American liberalism from the establishment of the "novus ordo seclorum" (the new order of the ages; see the back of a dollar bill); that is, of secularism. It is triumphant secularism that is more openly manifesting itself in such expressions of freedom as the destruction of the family despotically headed by a male and its gradual supersession by same-sex marriage and a galaxy of one-night stands replete with drugs.

Secularism tolerates any gelded form of religion, mindful that statism is superior to all constructs of piety. The state is sovereign. (Did not Jesus, the first liberal prophet, say, "The truth shall make you free" and "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath"?)

Under management as intense as any project by the KGB, Obama echoes Karl Marx in private conferences and, probably believing socialism to be an epiphany of belated Christian romanticism, publicly avows himself a disciple of Jesus Christ. Like a modern Diogenes, holding a lantern before him, Obama searches at noon for an honest man. Unfortunately, he does this in the cesspool of Chicago politics.

Basically, Obama is the mock Sir Galahad of the liberals, whose strength is as the strength of ten because he and his rhetoric are callow; that is, are a perfect mirror of the majority of American voters, who have been liberalized out of their wits down through the ages by the creeping infamy of public education, whose cachet is that the only true religion is sociology.'

In posting Mr. Cervo's comments here, I seek to give voice to an elder statesman of letters, so to speak. I do not in any way intend to promote Mr. Cervo's ideas as identical with my own, nor do I claim to agree with them. I am simply giving an older generation another place to give voice, to be heard. No doubt Mr. Cervo's opinion is at least singularly expressed, though in fact it could be totally unique to him: no one else of his generation may think his way at all. Regardless. I have opened my blog to the thoughts of someone I respect profoundly for his stalwart defense of humanity's mind, soul, and heart. He has long been a true defender of civilization ... and the Cross.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Dershowitz On Spitzer: No Big Deal

Alan Dershowitz, the well-known Harvard Law School professor, offered his profound insight into the cause of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's (NY-D) very recent downfall: It's America's fault.

I happened to catch Mr. Dershowitz's comments this afternoon on MSNBC. He was interviewed by phone not 90 minutes (it was probably within the hour) after the New York Times broke the story of Spitzer's involvement with a high-society prostitution ring. In Huffington Post blogger Sam Stein's piece posted late today, we find a video link of Dershowitz's MSNBC appearance; Stein quotes Dershowitz saying that Spitzer's fall from grace is "a uniquely American story:"

"I feel terrible for Eliot and his family ... But I feel that this was a story that we have to put in perspective. Big deal. Married man goes to prostitute. In Europe, this wouldn't even make the back pages of the newspaper."

Amazing, no? America is to blame for Gov. Spitzer's political and moral decline, or so avers Mr. Dershowitz. After all, if America could only get over its moral archaisms; if it would just show the moral maturity of France or Italy, Spitzer would not be losing all his political capital in what is really, in the proper scheme of things, no "big deal."

In short, Spitzer is a victim.

To be honest, I am grateful Spitzer is not being accused of cannibalism, for surely the American outcry would be just as embarrassing. Everybody knows eating one's neighbors is not newsworthy among certain tribes in Papua New Guinea.

Consider it another victory for European moral hegemony. And to think America is considered imperialistic, imposing its standards on the world.


©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Is Knowledge Midwife To Ignorance?

How Can It Be?

In Patricia Cohen's interesting New York Times article, "Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?", writer Susan Jacoby ponders America's apparent penchant for anti-intellectualism or, perhaps more accurately, its antipathy toward knowledge. When dealing with such a topic as this, where hard-as-nails knowledge is concerned, we can expect to find some mention of Christian fundamentalism, and our expectations are indeed met. But how Christian fundamentalists have succeeded in convincing "nearly two-thirds" of the country to give equal weight to creationism is not something we can expect to explore in this sort of discussion. That omission is, sadly, something most of us could have also predicted.

Besides Ms. Jacoby's probably accurate but overstated charge against fundamentalism, she avers that the "failing educational system" is to blame (one wonders if Ms. Jacoby connects that deterioration with the largely liberal, largely Democratic teachers' unions), as are various progressive political goals in the restructuring of university academic policies in the post-civil rights era.

Though I admit that Ms. Jacoby may enlarge upon her thesis in her book, The Age of American Unreason, one suspects she ignores the utilitarian ethos that permeates the American dream. Utilitarianism is, in part, the personal pursuit of happiness as defined by each American; knowledge is useful insofar as it advances any person's particular pursuit. That "American Idol" finalist and successful country music singer Kellie Pickler deserves to be chided (by Ms. Cohen) for not knowing of the existence of Hungary, may indeed signify something, but surely it is not a sign that Ms. Pickler has been debilitated by her ignorance of European geography. Ms. Pickler's seemingly doing quite fine, and while she is not prone to writing books, she is no doubt au courant in those knowledge schemes that give her expertise in her field. To the frustration of many an intellectual, pragmatism often trumps idealism.

What seems to be lacking in Ms. Cohen's article is any query as to why knowledge -- however it is defined -- should matter. How DOES knowing of the existence of Hungary help anyone who will never travel to that fair land? What purpose does knowledge serve? Surely Ms. Pickler is an expert in her field; she might even be a country music genius. Does she really need to score well in a Trivial Pursuit match against her financially less-successful peers? What is the purpose of learning? Do we learn for knowledge's own sake -- or for our own edification -- or is learning tied to praxis, to what we will DO with our lives?

I bet Ms. Cohen and Ms. Jacoby both have some compelling reasons why knowledge matters, but we are not permitted access to those reasons here. Perhaps they believe knowledge prevents one from being deceived; perhaps knowledge is a great defensive weapon against the zeitgeist. Perhaps.

What is also lacking in this discussion is any apparent exploration of the elevation of expertise -- call it the apotheosis of expert witnesses, if you will -- that pervades intellectual life in America. One repercussion of this pervasive habit is the signal it sends: I don't need to know "it" -- some bit of knowledge -- because someone else does. Nary a day goes by, I am sure, when debates on a loading dock, or around a coffee kiosk, or on a sports bus, do not include some assertion made by an eager interlocutor who substantiates a bold claim by referring to "they say" or "everybody knows" or "I read somewhere," or some similar appeal to an external locus of control. Implicit in these statements is not just the self-interest in appearing right; what is also implied is that some other thing is all-knowing, authoritative, binding ... and right. Sadly, this other thing takes many a modern form: a panel or commission, an encyclopedia or news agency, a think-tank or the Internet, or a poll or survey or "peer-reviewed study." Why is this sad, you may ask? Because it reveals the deep disconnect modernity and prosperity have created: there is a divide between memory and knowledge stored. Once memory and knowledge were practically synonymous. But now, knowledge can be stored elsewhere, like in the brain of an expert, the opinions of a panel, or the servers of a search engine. One need not apply oneself as vigorously as in years past, since so much can be recalled with a few typed words.

One could say, then, that America's ignorance, if it is indeed so ignorant, is not the result of ignorance; America's ignorance is the result of its knowledge. After all, it is knowledge that has given us the edge over nature; it is the learned person who has given us all sorts of ways to live without needing to know how we do what we do. How many people understand the keyboard beneath their fingers, the screen before their eyes? Why memorize poetry when poetry can be this morning's digital wallpaper? All such things are given us by knowledge; it is the advances of the age that have allowed us to live unfettered by the annoying need to know. Finally, ignorance is bliss -- given to us by what we know. (It's all a twist on T.S. Eliot's line from "Choruses from 'The Rock'": All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance...)

Lastly, we forget that the appeal to expertise -- which is what journalists and pundits and researchers and politicians do all the time -- is also the fallacy of appealing to authority. Surely not a few Americans are cynical and hip enough to know this fallacy intimately; surely too, the American pedagogical ideal of "questioning authority," an ideal that might even be foundational to postmodern liberalism, has unwittingly led to the broader disinterest in knowledge (and left children confused as schools parade authorities through every corridor). In other words, those allegedly declining schools to which Ms. Jacoby refers have given Americans -- especially young ones -- permission to be their own authorities ... on everything. (See Raphael Demos' quote here.) How we who are products of American pedagogy choose to exercise that authority is by definition personal and private, for it is all about our utilitarian pursuit of happiness.

Who's to say dumb is not happy?

Peace.

BG


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