What I am Worth Must be significant because I've just received my first anti-gay comment! Yay! It is relatively well written for a bit of hate speech, and invites me to die of AIDS from taking it up the ass in toilets. Two points spring to mind: one, I'm the one who does the fucking up the ass, and two, the toilet scene is soooo '80s.
All the Streets are crammed with things/Eager to be held/I know what hands are for..
Could I make every post start with a Smith's lyric quote? You bet! I wonder if anyone's done a serious textual analysis of Morrissey's lyrics...
Anyway..
I had quite a moment in class today. Have you ever had one of those moments? Where a red haze descends over your eyes, your brain suddenly fills with a silvery fog, and the blood rushes to your hands and face? I did, and it was spawned by the racist trash that was spewing out of my student's mouths. Something to the effect that even though American history is littered with the bones and mass graves of the down-trodden and the exploited, that the survivors should just "get over it", quit whining about the past, and get on with their lives.
Naturally, this was upsetting.
I then began to think about that sort of reflexive reaction many Americans have to talking seriously about race, history and hegemony. Does this reaction stem from a refusal to countenance that "they" might be the "bad guys" of history? Or is it a consequence of fatigue stemming from a continual wave of readings and alternative viewpoints that are simply not presented in American high schools? Do these students even possess the critical faculties necessary to process what is being presented to them?
I tried to put myself in their shoes and imagine what my reaction would be if I was presented with evidence that my country/society/family are, quite frankly, evil murderous bastards. Would I respond in the same fashion? With denial, and a nonchalance that chills the heart to the bone? I would like to think not...
It must stem from the fact that there is no such thing as American culture either. They have nothing in their lives and history that would enable them to empathise/understand anyone who presents a history of oppression to them and demands that they take it seriously. My students are so used to thinking of themselves, their society and culture as the norm, that they cannot but take all others as the
Other.
It surely does not help that they must see me as just another minority person bitching about some past inequality. My subject position is definitely not neutral in this respect, but does that mean that my critiques of hegemony are indelibly coloured by their perception of me? What sorts of strategies (additional) do I need to bring to bear?
My first instinct is to say to hell with them, damn the bad evaluations, full steam ahead! I wonder though, if the conviction that many of them must be feeling when presented with these alternative voices/histories needs to be gently fed and nurtured...Why should I be the one to do that? To be the patient one, holding their hand and nursing them through their neuroses?
I can only say how sorry I feel for them sometimes. I look at them and realise that they have no sense of culture or belonging, of history or extended family..but that sympathy is dulled time and again, when I hear what comes out their mouths - with no hesitation or shame!
And they wonder why the world resents them...
I had intended to post about the concept of the "Public" and how them blogosphere is positioned in relation to that, but I may save it for another day
