Google honors a conservative today: Zora Neale Hurston.Well, Hurston was against Brown v. Board of Education, so I guess they have something in common at that.
It's nice to see them celebrating a black person who isn't insane. But it's sad that politics is all that can animate them to do so. In one of the supporting documents for Miller's case, John McWhorter writes:
Hurston’s modern fan base doesn’t know quite what to do with all this. “I think we are better off if we think of Zora Neale Hurston as an artist, period—rather than as the artist/politician most black writers have been required to be,” [Alice] Walker writes... Sure -- but if Hurston had been more inclined to sing about what happens to a raisin in the sun, one suspects that Walker would have had no trouble celebrating her as an “artist/politician.”Really? I guess McWhorter so judges because he figures everyone else must be like him, counting artists like captured checkers for their cause. But we haven't all been made into Zhdanovites yet.
UPDATE. Commenter D. Johnston dipped into the support docs and found "in a nutshell, McWhorter's case is based around the fact that Hurston didn't believe that black people should take credit for things other, unrelated black people did. See? She rejected identity politics!" Supporting a policy is a political decision, emotions and behavior are not. I don't think being self-sufficient is any guarantee of how you'll vote. I've spent my whole life working in the private sector, yet I'm far more liberal than anyone on wingnut welfare.
So I went over and read those links, because...well, I was curious. When conservatives try and claim historical figures for their own, it's usually masturbation, and the fun part is watching the rhetorical tricks they come up with trying to call it art. In a nutshell, McWhorter's case is based around the fact that Hurston didn't believe that black people should take credit for things other, unrelated black people did. See? She rejected identity politics!
ReplyDeletePerhaps I'm the only person who sees some irony in claiming that a woman was conservative for not taking ex post facto credit, in a conservative column that's taking ex post facto credit. Then again, this is not a group widely known for their self-awareness.
Self-awareness is a commie plot, ya hippie.
ReplyDelete~
Self- awareness takes all the mystery out of fapping..
ReplyDeleteMcWhorter, who is a far more interesting thinker than Miller -- but is still idiotically wrong here -- starts with the assertion that she's every bit a Clarence Thomas conservative, only to then first gut his own assertion by showing how she hated Jim Crow and thought that Anglo-Saxons were racist (but liked Booker T. Washington, at least a preacher in a story she wrote did! And was self-reliant! Which is so different than Richard Wright (who didn't care much for Hurston's writing), who probably hated Washington yet also thought Jim Crow was wrong, hated white racism and was self-reliant to an equally impressive degree)) and then digressed into the fact that she wasn't a churchgoer, eventually rejected Christianity for a creole Voodoo and, in the end, was a complicated person who was a great writer. That alone puts her leagues beyond an asshole like Thomas, who isn't in any way a thinker and is so filled with obvious self-loathing and invective, he seeks to pull up the ladder behind him.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, I don't know where the gotcha is here, but it's telling how quickly and resolutely she's become a beacon for those who need their politics vindicated by artists, while loathing the arts overall for being too liberal.
I'll bet that they could make a conservative out of Malcolm X if they tried.
ReplyDeleteIn a nutshell, McWhorter's case is based around the fact that Hurston didn't believe that black people should take credit for things other, unrelated black people did. See? She rejected identity politics!
ReplyDeleteIt's also a repudiation of the Usurper's "Yes we can!"
Don't you mean refudiation?
ReplyDeleteOver at Big Dead Breitbart I expressed the view that their constant rewriting of history is a playground response and stems from them wanting to belong to the "cool kids' and this stemmed from the barrenness of their worthless ideology. Of course I was blocked, because freedom. It is just like the Mormons and their post-living baptisms
ReplyDeleteOT, but alicuratti will take note: McMegan's book is nigh. I enjoyed this part:
ReplyDelete"McArdle argues that America is unique in its willingness to let people
and companies fail, but also in its determination to let them pick up
after the fall."
That's a nice way of putting it. I look forward to the insights from "turnaround experts" and "bankruptcy judges."
Someone needs to introduce our McMegan to the term "undischargeable debt.:
ReplyDeleteWell, the fact that the debt is undischargable only speaks to America's thoughtful and downright moving determination to "let" people pick up after financial devastation.
ReplyDeleteConservatives need to relax. There are plenty of great conservative artists: Eliot, Pound, Mamet... um, Michael J. Nelson... I mean, I'm sure there are more, but I don't know most artists' politics off the top of my head because by and large I don't care.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to have escaped McWhorter (I didn't read his whole thing though) that just because Hurston wanted Taft for president in 1952 doesn't mean she'd be on Fox supporting McCain in 2008. Voting Republican doesn't mean the same thing 56 years later, and specifically Wikipedia sez she disliked Truman not because he was too liberal but because he dropped the atomic bomb. Maybe that repelled her from the Dems and war hero Ike? I dunno, but I do know Taft '52 doesn't automatically mean McCain '08 is her man. Who cares? Let's not wonder who Dickens would have voted for in 1972* or Hawthorne in 2000, either.
ReplyDelete*Assuming illegal registration via ACORN.
Yep, we sure did stand by and let all the banks who had made themselves insolvent through shitty investments circa 2007 fail. Injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into them in an attempt to prop them up would've been downright un-American!
ReplyDeleteThere's a strong case for considering Hurston as a conservative thinker - far stronger than the case for considering"Rock the Casbah" as a conservative song. McWhorter's essay plays up Hurston's differences with positivist and modernist (what might, if the word had less ideological baggage, be called "progressive") views of African American and African art and culture in favor of a traditionalist reading. That a strong conservative streak ran through Hurston's though is not a controversial position in African American intellectual history and McWhorter fleshes out this history fairly well.
ReplyDeleteWhen McWhorter strays into "How Zora would live today", Miller's confounds and compounds 100 years of history to equate a traditionalist challenge to the high-modernist aesthetics of the Harlem Renaissance with today's left/right divide today.
Well, not to nitpick: The Community Reinvestment Act didn't come along till 1977 (wikipedia tells me) but the Republican Southern Strategy worked (1968) as a response to the Dems ramming the VRA down our throats in 1965. Still, your point stands: The Dems gave us the CRA, the Repubs gave us the SS, and both happened after Hurston preferred Taft and died.
ReplyDeleteMaybe something about rich and poor alike being barred from sleeping under bridges . . .
ReplyDeleteThis makes so much sense I figure you just cribbed it from one of them, didn't you?
ReplyDeleteWell, I meant the Civil Rights Act, so...
ReplyDeleteThey crave recognition like a new vampire craves sight of himself in a mirror. All joking aside it is because they are, definitionally, authoritarians--authoritarian followers and authoritarian leaders--and both types need to feel part of a dominant (authoritative) social order and majority. All the googledoodles must belong to them. All the public figures of note. All the top ten musical choices. And the romance novelette category of Harlequin books for that matter. Everything must belong to them and celebrate them or they fear that they have ceased to exist.
ReplyDeleteThat's the best, most succinct explanation of this bizarre wingnut trend I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteWell, you know, it's okay for people to fail. But not banks. Banks are special, and so are the debts that they are owed. They're so special we should ignore it if they break the law. And if that means that more people need to sleep in their cars, Megan is sure it will be an invaluable learning experience for them.
ReplyDeleteSkree!! Skree!! Typical! Google commies once again honor a fellow traveller because 1st-amendment-shredding Obama sharia law shoving Hitler armies down our patriot throats! Blarghh!!Oh look. Google honored a conservative today.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if she attempts to rationalize how executives walk away with millions even when they fail. It's funny how corporations can go bankrupt while no one takes a loss except their creditors and shareholders.
ReplyDeleteWell, Megan sez we should not only embrace failure, we should give it a blowjob, too--provided it's a failure involved a minimum of eight figures. If not, well, here: Enjoy getting jerked off by the invisible hand.
ReplyDeleteAnd Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Kitsch
ReplyDelete"...but also in its determination to let them pick up
ReplyDeleteafter the fall."
So by Megan's logic, both Thomas Wayne and Alfred the Butler were conservative, as in:
youtube.com/watch?v=kTWjtnKv4vE
But in a really twisted, "If you don't love me, you're a stupid librul bitch" kind of way...
ReplyDeleteDo fascists count as conservative?
ReplyDeleteCorporations aren't people, my friend!
ReplyDeleteIf it weren't for the fact that right-wing think tanks tried to blame the Great Recession on the Community Reinvestment Act, we could all use C.R.A. for the Civil Rights Act without danger of ambiguity.
ReplyDelete~
Permission to Suck!
ReplyDeleteShort answer: yes.
ReplyDeleteThere's got to be a "Their Eyes Were Watching Fox and Friends" joke in here somewhere...
ReplyDeleteI'm sure this contributed to my confusion. In 2009 a conservative family member vehemently explained to me that the Great Recession was the fault of Jimmy Carter (for signing the Comm R. Act) and Clinton (for expanding it). Obama didn't start the recession, admittedly, but he was making it worse. Escaping blame (via magic?) were all Republican presidents between those guys. I had no persuasive reply.
ReplyDelete"I don't think being self-sufficient is any guarantee of how you'll vote. I've spent my whole life working in the private sector, yet I'm far more liberal than anyone on wingnut welfare."
ReplyDeleteExactly. This silly idea, that the self-sufficient always vote for conservatives, is spouted by the Tea People constantly. Self sufficiency is a very nice trait to have but its independent of political identity and is certainly not a feasible system of govt as libertarians would like us to believe.
Lol. Yes the Tea Hordes on the Internets generally get themselves whipped up into frothing frenzy over the All Important Google Doodles.
ReplyDeleteWhat did they do before Google? Pour over TV Guide so they could pull a triumphant 'gotcha!' when liberal CBS was showing classic Western movies by the conservative John Ford?
ReplyDeleteCéline and Yukio Mishima, though I rather think they would both view today's wingnuts with bemused contempt.
ReplyDelete-- but if Hurston had been more inclined to sing about what happens to a raisin in the sun,
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that would have made her a member of the Violent Femmes.
They crave recognition like a new vampire craves sight of himself in a
ReplyDeletemirror.
And with about as much chance, outside of their extended dysfunctional family.
because they are, definitionally,
authoritarians
And like all security-obsessives, horribly insecure. I don't know which was worse, the scaredy-pants Republicans who freaked after 9/11, or the craven Democrats who fell in step with 'em.
its willingness to let people and companies fail
ReplyDeleteThe existence of Chapter 11 Bankruptcy says otherwise.
Just what did they certainly before Yahoo and google? la prise de rendez vousPour above TV Guide so
ReplyDeletethey really could take a triumphal 'gotcha! ' while liberal CBS has been showing classic American movies center d'appel tunisia ,call center maroc and la recette facile from the conservative Get More Information and a href="http://recette-de-cuisine-facile.over-blog.com">follow my blog .
No. That's never happened to her, so by her logic it can't happen to anyone else, anywhere.
ReplyDelete(signed, still paying student loans twenty-five years later)
Men And Elephants
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sqY0Jb3HWA
You'd be surprised at the number of black conservatives name-check Malcolm X.
ReplyDelete