…he was talking about the wealth building education and subsidy program that created the definitive economic divide between Black and mainstream America. About how the United States of America itself served as the extended family for those who had full citizenship.
Some may have wondered why I brought it up again. I brought it up just a few days earlier in connection with my reaction to a speech given at the Take Back America conference. And I had to know someone would disagree, because I said something…real about The Greatest Generation.
I expected to have a bit of a discussion, but another one of those "division of labor" things happened; In the comments of the fist linked post up there, Chrissy rather simply and directly stated my the Greatest Generation wasn't so great for Black folks. That let's me ignore that thread for a minute so I can state directly why I've got this bug up my butt.
We're in the midst of a culture war. I don't think I'm actually supposed to say that out loud but Conservatives and the Religious Right have already done so, which makes it sort of a fact on the ground. When someone declares war on you, you're at war—there's no real need to declare it back.
Now, let's assume one side or the other has won the culture war. What exactly have they won?
They have won the right to define the Ideal Americans. Their culture becomes the norm, and any variance from it will be seen as an aberration, an illness or a crime…no matter how many times it happens, even if physically obstructing the process is the only thing that keeps it from happening.
It's not that simple and binary in real life, of course, but it's a decent working model for what I need to discuss. I'd have to go all Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung to be rigorous in my presentation, and I'm willing to do that. I just want to get this out there right now.
Up until, say, the mid sixties, the Ideal American for the middle class types was The Cowboy (it needs caps because nothing like The Cowboy ever actually lived. It's an archetype, a capitalized essence). Strong, independent, a fighter, a conqueror actually. John Wayne and Gene Autry were Cowboys. James Dean was a Cowboy too. And Elvis. And Shaft.
Cowboys ain't making it no more.The world is too complex for a Cowboy. And we're making new myths.
This isn't the sort of thing that someone sits down and decides to do. It's one of them emergent quality things. And circumstances definitely have an effect on both input and output. But once you see it happening you can add a few things to the mix consciously.
Between the Right's defining morality as the nuclear family, and the Left's mythologizing the Greatest Generation, I'm seeing the possibility of an Ideal American that has nothing to do with Black folks' lives. Again.
At the Take Back America conference, Robert Borosage said
African Americans left segregated communities to fight for this country. Japanese Americans left intern camps
It is correct to emphasize this. Whether of not I think it a bright idea, Black folks have always leapt to the defense of the nation, have always wanted to be part of the mainstream. It is correct that white folks be made aware of that, and be made aware it is still the case.
A gesture to those I just pissed off: just making observations, and anyone who is honestly observing will see it as clearly as I do.
They came home and passed the GI bill opening up college and training to an entire generation. They subsidized housing to create the American dream. They organized unions to insure that profits and productivity were shared. For 25 years, they built the broad middle class that made America strong, and we all grew together.
Did.
Not.
Happen.
You do NOT get to build that myth. You do not get to create a Golden Age that has no signs the nigras was ever here. You do not get to pretend everyone who made the sacrifice got the rewards or even the appreciation.
No, no, no.
Now, I can't predict what that Ideal American will be like at this point. I can say with great certainty it will not be as the Right would have it. You'd have to stuff too many genies into too many bottles. And even if you could manage that, the memory of what was will change the nature of the game. A person's memory fades, but a people's memory…let me put it this way: you still celebrating Easter?
What I would like to see is a post-modern persona there: based on truth, and identified with what can be, instead of being based on an idealized past and identified with what should be. I'd like the Ideal American to be aware of how important he is to the process; that he's a vital part but not the whole story.
Posted by P6 at June 22, 2004 08:54 PM
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Comments
AMEN!!
I have always emphasized the extended family also; sometimes I get feedback to the effect of, oh, I'm just "romanticizing" the extended family, because I'm Sicilian, and "we're" all "enmeshed" (funny, how non-Anglo family structures are pathologized, no?)....but seriously---any modest familiarity with human history demonstrates that the extended family was the norm, and that the nuclear family was made possible only after industrialization.
Listening to the Right perform their opera of historical revisionism reminds me of why they want the extended family in the history books, and not in present-day reality. See, when one has daily dealings with one's elders, one gets daily reminders of how things actually were in lived experience. I grew up (and am still!) hearing refutations of these attempts at collective brainwashing, such as the idea that no one ever had premarital sex, or ever got a divorce, or molested children, abused drugs...whatever, back in the (nonexistant) "good old days".
I remember being in a Social Studies class in the ninth grade, and the teacher was telling us how devastating Richard Nixon's lying to the public was, how it was such a shock to everyone....and I thought "Bullshit!, because it sure wasn't a shock to everyone. This teacher was actually insisting that folks believed politicans told the truth! I wondered what planet he was on. I said, "Sure didn't surprise anyone in Chicago..." and the teach gave me a dirty look before quickly moving on....
The importance of elders passing on knowledge and culture can't be over-emphasized. Not everyone suffers amnesia.
Posted by amarettiXL at June 23, 2004 12:15 AMTrackback Prometheus 6 observes that there is, indeed, a culture war going on in America: We're in the midst of a culture war. I don't think I'm actually supposed to say that out loud but Conservatives and the Religious Right have
Posted by Colorado Luis at Jun 23, 2004 8:57 AM
I'd like the Ideal American to be aware of how important he is to the process; that he's a vital part but not the whole story.
That he's just a wave, not the water.
Posted by George at June 24, 2004 02:21 AM