Roses Supposes

Seriously, there is not one heavy actor in all of Hollywood who could play a stereotypical Minnesotan? You had to load up a skinny something or other with an expensive fat suit?

Playing Stu Kopenhafer, the plant manager whom Lucy summarily fires, J. K. Simmons — outfitted in what appears to be a modified fat suit — struggles to maintain some dignity.

The movie looked horrendous before I saw the NY Times headline, but still. Talk about a massively huge plastic waste of money. Maybe the hollywood people have been chatting with the finance execs.

I’m still jazzed by Wenonah Bond Logan’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Alexander, reading her poetry at Obama’s inauguration. I really liked her poem (though less so her presentation–which shut out too many viewers instead of opening up a new generation’s interest in poetry). Here she is on Stephen Colbert (who wonders about the difference between a metaphor and a lie and quotes from the Love Song of  J. Alfred Prufrock).

One of my many baby steps on this road toward African American History was watching Maya Angelou recite poetry at Bill Clinton’s inauguration when I was a kid.

I had a bought of insomnia last night…partly because I’ve weaned myself off my sleep aid and partly because I’ve got a bit of a sore throat that makes it hard to sleep. The funny thing was that when I did fall asleep I dreamt about sleeping–I was in a big house with family and I kept wandering from bedroom to bedroom trying to decide which bed to choose and then I would crawl in and sleep. When I woke up in the dream, I had to wash the sheets in preparation for more of my family showing up (I had slept in a couple of the beds).

March 1924 Woman’s Press

p172: recent letter in Atlantic Monthly decrying overused expressions.

“As witness that YWCA secretaries recognize the humor and sometimes the absurdity of overworked expressions comes this paragraph signed ‘The Rampant Radicals’ from a recent conference of industrial secretaries who drew up these ‘focal points of the conference’ as recreation:

To the end of a crystallization of the fluidity of this Conference, we shall attempt to formulate or synthesize a philosophy or way of life, in a Commission which shall generate public sentiment; serve as an amplifier to integrated groups, make contacts in a zone of agreement, starting with graspable felt needs, avoiding pure Nordic superiority complexes and inhibitions, working toward modifications and adjustments of relationships in a way that shall not obstruct progress, but shall reflect in minature predominant factors in reactions to problems, and shall narrow down from the top to the contribution toward comity, in an effort to methodize and synthesize intuitions which involve complicated technique. The trend fo this achievement will be to make articulate and facilitate reflections regarding recruiting, legislation, fellowship, the alternate basis, marriage (for the 12 reasons mentioned), the validity of educational projects, and the far-reaching and absolute integrity of the industrial movement.

While advocating tolerance and removal of all prejudice in international relationships we must add that anyone who does not subscribe to the aforesaid should be branded as a soporific anesthetic.”

Branch gave a completely fascinating speech–particularly in his invocation of non-violence. I have rarely seen such a respected historian make such baldly ethical claims on his audience. It was exciting. He introduced several myths about the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) and then revealed the miracles that it achieved. Some notes:

2^nd volume of Branch’s biographies are about King’s relationship with Abraham Heshel. [which I now really want to read. I've only read the first volume....and that for comps....] Together they wrestled with the idea about vertical versus horizontal politics. Most politics is vertical—and as such wholly compatible with violence b/c it’s about who’s on top. Political theory becomes horizontal with Am Rev. through its basis in power relationships to other citizens. Roots of democratic theory lay in Hebrew prophets—judging kings based on how they treated widows and orphans.

People were equal under the Hebrew prophets b/c they had equal souls before God. Equal not because they have the same values or the same abilities. Branch likes to call this equal souls and equal votes (this is how he characterizes the relationship between church and state).

Hebrew conception of justice is completely different from the static blind justice, mathematical idea we have—let justice roll down like water—emotional, moving, changing, about widows and orphans

Non-violence was the most powerful idea to come out of the CRM but the first to become passé. It is not studied at universities, but most salient to young people. [I wonder how he would characterize all the peace studies centers that have arisen in the last few decades...maybe the ghetoization of these is part of the problem].

[I really like this: ] Our culture simultaneously believes violence is a sign of sickness, but also say that violence will solve most fundamental problems (see movies). Violence is not only definitive, but quick and decisive. We don’t investigate the idea of nonviolence. Only people who really think about it are military people (Violence destroys more but governs less)

King—power grows against the grain of violence. Bombed a Birmingham church and killed those girls, but now people of those stripes don’t exist –instead people vote.

Democracy itself is nonviolence—a vote is a little piece of nonviolence. Democracy a big cathedral of votes. thousands and thousands of innerconnected votes. make this country run.

Stokley Carmichael—why is it that America only values non-violence in black people? Otherwise, we value James Bond and John Wayne, etc. King to Carmichael—it’s a leadership tool. We are ahead of white folks. It’s not that we are nonviolent because we’re inferior.

I’m thinking a lot about this because of a fantasy book series I’ve been listening to lately with E. The books are heavy-handed apologies for a certain worldview–influenced by Ayn Rand and espousing many typically conservative values (anti-socialism, poverty the fault of the poor, quasi-states rights)–and is very pro-violence. Over and over again the author justifies violence as the only path to peace. Only those who wield violence (soldiers and the main character–a war wizard) understand peace and yet desire not to use violence. Every time Richard (main character) wields violence, he is incredibly reluctant, and yet he seems to be constantly wielding it. Also, the author sets the book up such that the opponents are soooo evil, that violence is the only possible way to defeat them. The books bug me because it seems to me that real life enemies are rarely that way.

Oh, also in this series every group that attempts to avoid war through pacifism and neutrality is portrayed as weak-kneed and selfish. The only reason they want neutrality is to make the easy choice that will perserve their own life instead of protecting a lot of the defenseless. And over and over again the defenseless are women (needing big strong men to come in and save them from rape). I understand how powerful this narrative structure is–the hero man, morally good, fighting against an evil world, protecting his family. But the world is so much more complicated than that. And I don’t think pacifists are truly so cowardly. Often the non-violent choice is much more difficult than the violent one. That is why any kid can get into a street scrap, but non-violence had to be taught.

Part of the reason I am so annoyed by this book is that it seems to perfectly capture our culture’s relationship to violence. Like Branch said, over and over again in popular culture we see violence as the only possible answer to conflict. If we go by cop shows, then cops fire their guns every day. And yet, at least in one instance, I read about the “hip-hop cop” who in 20 odd years of service never shot his gun and was an incredibly effective mediator between police and hip-hop youth in New York. (though he is not uncontroversial–there is a documentary about his unit’s persecution of hip-hop artists. Can’t find the original article)

Yet, I know I don’t have the rhetorical sophistication to justify non-violence to many who advocate variations of the just-war theory. But my heart is in it. And thus I must read more Branch. I’m interested to hear your thoughts, too.

thoughts and thoughts and thoughts swimming. more posts to come.

Last night at Bible Study, M challenged everyone to vocally condemn that which is of the devil–not just something that most people consider evil (torture say), but that which is considered by Christians to be evil. He challenged us all to do this, it seemed, fundamentally to distinguish ourselves as Christians first off, and only then later to actually do something about the evil.

When I read this comment on Ta-Nahisi Coates’ blog, I thought about my discomfort with what M said:

Man, I love Lowery – if anybody hasn’t seen his eulogy for Coretta Scott King, go watch it. Actually, I think Coates may have posted it at some point? It’s amazing.

What a contrast between Warren, who felt the need to explicitly affirm the Christian God’s supremacy and primacy, and Lowery, who loves the same God just as much but spoke so much more powerfully by simply saying “Let all who do justice an love mercy say Amen.” AMEN! –Andrew Embassy

I know many evangelicals will be proud of Warren for how explicitly Christian he was–not giving in to pressure to conform. And yet, I feel much more communion with Embassy’s opinion.

There is something important about maintaining a strong independent identity–in order to keep strong content and not become all contentless mush. But I don’t think that will be my role. I am much more interested in a powerful content-filled ecumenicalism.

I just saw Julian Bond give the Martin Luther King Jr. Day keynote speech. He was very clever with words and very excited about Obama. I think if E had been there, he would have said there was too much rhetoric and not enough substance. A couple of things I was surprised by:

He declared his utter and complete commitment to integration. I realized that that is not a political goal talked about much these days. We talk more about ending the achievement gap and such (rather than about integration itself as a positive thing–maybe diversity has taken its place in some way). Bond started life as a civil rights activist (founding member of SNCC) before becoming a Georgia politician, professor and now chairman of the NAACP. I think he definitely represents that older kind of leadership that was always posed against Obama during the election.

He also talked about two “transcendant” generations–
those born in slavery who were emancipated by the war and those born in segregation who, through their own effort, lived to see its end.

I think this is why my peeps get so little attention–they are the children/grandchildren of the first generation and parents of the second. They had to live squarely in segregation, fighting against it without real hope of transformation. I think that’s also why they are a fascinating bunch–how does one survive and thrive in such circumstances? I like the Bond’s phrasing to use at the beginning of a grant proposal as to why my period is important.

Off to hear Taylor Branch–pulitzer prize winning biographer of King.

There’s a pretty awesome article on Michelle Obama in the Atlantic this month (Jan-Feb edition) by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I especially like this statement:

On the night of his victory, Barack Obama talked about Ann Nixon Cooper, a black woman who, at the age of 106, had voted for him. But when Obama told her story, he presented her not just as someone who’d been born a generation after slavery and had seen segregation, but as a woman who’d seen the women’s-suffrage movement, the dawn of aviation and the automobile, the Depression, and the Dust Bowl, and Pearl Harbor. He presented Nixon Cooper as an African American who was not doubly conscious, just conscious. That is the third road that black America is walking. It’s not coincidental that two black people from the South Side are leading us on that road. If you’re looking for the heralds of a ‘post-racial’ America, if that adjective is ever to be more than a stupid, unlettered flourish, then look to those, like Michelle Obama, with a sense of security in who they are–those, black or white, who hold blackness as more than the loosing end of racism.