Holy effin Moly! A new trend??????

I know this is slightly off topic. But I still feel there is extended relevance. On that note...wtf???!!!!

http://m.bilerico.com/bilerico/#!/entry/breaking-az-senate-passes-right-to-discriminate-bill,53054045025312186cd34bcd

holy ish.

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/02/14/what-the-hell-just-happened-in-kansas/

This Deserved A Hashtag at the End

 First I wanted to say that my brain had a longwinded fart… until today when I realized I completely forgot about the blog for Wednesday. Guess I filed away blogging in my brain’s Sunday storage space. Sorry about that—I'm making a blog now (since we didn’t technically have to for this week) in attempt to make up for my little oopsy. 

            I really wanted to blog about the little Arac paragraph that I brought up during class. I'm not quite sure what I understand of it and I had trouble verbalizing the mixed feelings it gave me during class. I'm afraid this close reading has broken a brain circuit, so my writing/understanding might be a tad circular—bear with me.

(Page 31 second paragraph)

           

            “The fact that nigger is widely used in the text of Huckleberry Finn has had the effect of encouraging authors, scholars, teachers, and other persons of goodwill to feel that they are doing the right thing when they name Jim in the language of a racism that is less important to locate in the psyche of individuals—as Myrdal did in An American Dilemma—than in the structures of our nation, what since the days of Black Power has been called “institutionalized racism. “ Over forty years ago, Lionel Trilling praised Huckleberry Finn for being a “subversive book,” and Hechinger echoed him in his Times article, but it seems to me that Huckleberry Finn is currently being read and publicly used in support of complacency. “

           

            I was able to break down the first long convoluted sentence. I have come to the conclusion that the “authors, scholars, teachers, and other persons of goodwill,”(basically everyone) are the ones who now believe that racism is not an individual act. They believe that the blame has been lifted and relocated to a structural/institutional issue. However, Arac argues different. Unlike Trilling and Hechinger who both believe Huckleberry Finn is “’subversive’” or “undermining the principals of”(Dictionary.com) the word nigger. In other words: Trilling, Hechinger, the authors, teachers, scholars, and Myrdral believe that Huck saying nigger does not make him racist. However, society has instituted the word and therefore they are to blame…not Huck. Instead, Arac determines that Huckleberry Fin is, “in support of complacency,” or, “a feeling of satisfaction, esp extreme self-satisfaction”(dictionary.com). So, Arac basically believes that it is the individual who is to blame in the name of racism.

            This means that since Arac disagrees with how Trilling and Hechinger, and how other authors, scholars, and teachers interpreted the book—which is paralleled to Myrdal’s criticism—Arac then is arguing against institutionalized racism. The framework of the first sentence of the paragraph then becomes just that much more curious. He cites Myrdal as the founder of structural racism in his book An American Dilemma and then follows up with a citation of “Black Power” labeling Myrdal’s theory as “institutionalized racism.” (omg) I have to ask then: is Arac, the emotional low blower, throwing a jab at the black power movement? Is he saying that Black Power is trying to blame the institution in order to take hold of it some how? Because Arac argues that the institution here is not at fault, but the individual. Why then  does Arac cite two different people for something he disagrees with? One: Myrdal, whom is from Sweden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_Dilemma) and then secondly the Black Power movement, who he says in reference to Myrdal’s theory, “what since the days of Black Power has been called “institutionalized racism”. It is understood that throughout Arac’s book, his in-text citations are emotionally charged. Only one of many examples is how he described one scholar he disagreed with, “so the authoritative scholar’s pedagogical guidance required students to perpetuate this wounding error”(27). Not to mention Arac decided to omit the second part of Myrdal’s book title, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. Why did Arac include both references and then neglect to do it in completeness? It seems to me that Arac has an agenda—and in the face of passive aggression, trying to accuse Myrdal, the Black Power movement, and maybe the individual of “goodwill”(31) for having their own agenda.

            I found it particularly interesting that in order to make this point he began by saying, “The fact that nigger is widely used in the text of Huckleberry Finn has had the effect of…” Here, Arac places blame ON the book for making people, “feel like they are doing the right thing…” in reference to their relief of personally driven racism. He is arguing that the book makes it seem as if the word nigger has become embedded in society and that using it is not racist because it has been instituted in, and, thus, a normal part of society. He disagrees, as I said earlier, and blames the individual for attempting to find release from his or her own racist tendencies. But this is not a book that the common individual decides to pick up and then comes to such conclusions all alone, is it? Arac even says in his preface, “This book [his book] details and analyzes the emergence of hypercanonization [of Huck. Finn.] in the academy,”(vii) and “early-teenage children are being made to study and admire a text in which the character, hero, and narrator, Huck, uses the term nigger hundreds of times,”(viii). He makes the point that this book is being institutionalized. Forced upon young America—teaching them to only idolize the main character and ignore the possibilities of racism within his dialogue. One preface and 31 pages later, Arac completely combats his own argument, saying it is the book that penetrates the minds of its readers and plants the idea that racism lies on an alternate level than individually. Even though 31 pages and a preface ago he states, “I do not argue that Huckleberry finn is racist or un-American,”(vii).

            This passage alone made me take a new perspective on everything that Arac says. I don’t know if I like him too much. In fact, I don’t. He gives me bad vibes and at times like this, seems ill-willed and sneaky…….. #justsayin

Sport caster video clip

http://www.upworthy.com/old-white-guy-drops-a-monster-speech-on-anti-gay-football-teams-seriously-impressive-performance-rw7-7d?c=ufb1

Snap-a-roos!

Hey guys, sorry this is late!

By now pretty much everyone has expanded on what I thought was the most impacting of Arac's essay.

The terms hypercanonization and idalotry really peaked my interest. In high school way before I appreciated literature as much as I do now I still kept questioning what was it that classifies GREAT literature? How did the classics become the classics? What makes them standout?

Those terms mentioned by Arac really resonated with me because I can see it everyday. I don't know if this is a good example, but Harry Potter, man. Yes I do love those books but I can't imagine what it must be like for someone who never having read the book and having that made public to a room of people... all the dirty looks and jaw dropped faces! Insulting or criticizing Harry Potter is nearly considered something so DRASTIC as a crime! I can't help but ask myself, to what extent has people's passion for the series affected my own perception of the story?

Totally unrelated to Huck Finn, so here we go: Again, not knowing any of the content of Twain's novel, I did not know what I was in for, only that this book has been very beloved and discussed yay number of times. So the first day of class (which I was totally unprepared for, didn't even have the book yet) I was shocked witht he discussion of racism and the problems addressed in the story. So when I started reading it after class I already had the impression of the controversies throughout Huck Finn's adventure. But I enjoyed the last 12 chapters as I did because it was in those sections I felt immersed in Huck's old intimate world but still see the issues that go with it. Basically everything I'd said in my presentation.

A Creative Choice

In chapter two of Arac’s argument, the critic made a statement that really stood out to me.  I actually paused in my reading so I could take in exactly what he was trying to get at.  He wrote, “I prefer to understand Huckleberry Finn as built from highly selective artistic choices rather than simple reflections of the reality of antebellum America” (Arac 39).  The way that Twain is representing a version of Missouri that is entangled in slavery at the time, is not necessarily historically accurate.  Arac mentions that everything is a bit more simplified in the world of Huck Finn. 

For me, personally, this is a reassuring assessment.  In the previous chapter, and continuing into the second as well, Arac describes the way some readers have latched on to Twain’s work, creating ideological beliefs from it.  But the sooner we accept the fact that it is fiction work, the sooner people will hopefully stop trying to turn his work into a political statement.  Twain was not trying to be Harriet Beecher Stowe when he wrote his novel.  Since the beginning of the semester, I have held fast to the idea that Mark Twain depicts a world in a realistic manner, not offering concrete answers to life’s difficult questions via the narrator.  In my opinion, Arac’s explanations for the slight inaccuracies or inconsistencies of the real world to the novel highlight the case for Twain offering his readers an example of human relations, race relations, what have you, during a moment in time.    

The 129 Year Old Elephant

Arac's argument that debates and discussions regarding Huck Finn should be more multidimensional and comprehensively informed is both engaging and lucid; however, it is easy to overlook how necessary such a seemingly simple argument is today, even though it concerns a book that has been around for 129 years. One would think that a text that incorporates the "N-word" (yes, I'm copping out of typing/saying such a loaded word) 219 times would be unraveled very carefully, as Arac suggests, but its canonization has impeded our ability to carefully dissect the text. Evidence of this is seen in the influx of hostile mail that Harper Magazine received when it published Jane Smiley's "Say It Ain't So, Huck," in 1996, more than any other essay had ever received in Harper's history (Berube 693)! The impulse to shield Huck Finn from criticism due to the notion ingrained into us that it is a cornerstone of American literature is counterproductive for it allows us to ignore the nuances that the text truly contains. As Arac puts it, Huck Finn became "an icon of civil rights consciousness," even though this idolatry led individuals to read Huck Finn with blinders, causing them to loose sight of other muddied moral and social conflicts imbedded in the text. Arac's argument really struck me when he asked the question, "How great must artists be before we trust them so much that their words are treated not only as unchangeable but also as obligatory?" (Arac 31). It seems that by placing Twain and Huck Finn on a pedestal and lashing out at critics, we only do ourselves a disservice. If we encourage an attitude of complacency around a word, topic and history, it will pollute the future with this infectious complacency. While important, worthwhile discussions can stem from reading Huck Finn, ignoring major conflicts that the text brings to the table is irresponsible, especially at a grade school level. To ignore these conflicts is like ignoring an elephant in the room, one who stomps on notions of social justice, equality and civility while no one comments or explains the deeper issues and complicated historical context.