Who says woke?

This illustration has absolutely nothing to do with tonight's post, 
but it is another chance for me to show off my forthcoming mystery. 
And who could find a picture of woke?

Pardon my absence from blogging—I’ve been consumed with proofing, one more time, the manuscript for Irene Deep in Texas Trouble, before I send it to the formatter. But now that’s off my desk and sort of off my mind. What’s still on my mind are some current terms that we hear all the time—terms that are new to our culture in the last few years.

You may guess that “woke” is first I’m thinking about. Gov. Ronald DeSantis gave a speech recently in which he talked about the woke invasion. Everything was in aggressive military terms which struck me immediately. As he drew a verbal picture of an invading army, I couldn’t help think how wrong that was—whatever woke is, it is not tangible and to cast it as an army is ridiculous.

Have you ever noticed that the only people who talk about woke are right-wing conservatives. If the rest of us use the term, it is in defense. DeSantis would tell you that it is an acronym that stands for the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (Stop WOKE) Act—they really had to stretch to get a title which would make an acronym. But the real origin is so ironic as to bring forth laughter from progressives—and no doubt from the Black community. The word came into use among progressive Black Americans in the nineties—one essay I read refers to it as Black slang. It meant to be informed, educated, and socially aware, particularly of injustice and racial inequality. Exactly the opposite of the meaning conservatives have attached to the word. To them, in their incorrect use, it denotes anything they don’t approve of, which turns out to be anyone who is not white, straight, male, and Christian, or any idea that displeases that narrow segment of the population. It is quite possibly the most ridiculous misappropriation of a word that I can remember. Yet hundreds of Americans bitterly decry the woke invasion. Ask them to explain what it means, and nine out of ten are stymied. What a way to fight a war.

Another term that has been bothering me is cancel culture, and I’ve only recently gotten a glimmer of what it means. With current moves to ban classic books like some of Mark Twain or To Kill a Mockingbird and rewrite such classics as Roald Dahl’s children’s literature, I always assumed that the phrase meant the right is out to cancel our historic culture until we end up like an Orwellian society with no past. Not so! It means we are becoming (or already are) a culture that cancels out that which doesn’t fit our ideal vision. Wait! What I mean is that Republicans cancel out (marginalize is a big word these days) whatever doesn’t fit their ideal of America, from LGBTQ citizens to the history of slavery. Makes you a bit uncomfortable? We’ll just cancel it, write a law against it, silence those who disagree with us. The result is we are in danger of raising an entire generation with no accurate knowledge of history, no understanding of anyone who differs from them, no grasp of the great literary traditions in world literature and American literature. Ron DeSantis is not, I suppose, a stupid man—he has degrees from Yale and Harvard (I used to hear that I relation to the second Bush and I didn’t buy it then and I don’t buy I now). Yet DeSantis seems to overlook the maxim that he who doesn’t know history is doomed to repeat its mistakes.

And therein is a dilemma: is DeSantis truly ignoring history or is he using that as a political tactic to play to the amorphous group called “the base” and skyrocket his political aspirations. Does he really believe what he says or is he simply saying whatever he thinks will boost him?

These terms, woke and cancel culture, are matters of language, and it is the uneducated who are easily swayed by this manipulation of our language. And that is exactly where DeSantis would have America headed—by taking over public college curricula, banning books, fining those who speak out, DeSantis is dumbing down if not America yet, at lest his own corner of the country. And he has ambitions to move beyond that. It is a frightening prospect, truly frightening.

Please note that if a law being considered in Florida now passes and if I lived and wrote in Florida, I would probably be under fire for having blogged about the governor. The only saving grace for me would be that I am not paid for blogging. IF I were paid, I would be subject to a $2500 fine. Trust me, few bloggers make that kind of money.

PS Just tonight I read Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter from an American about President Biden’s significant visit to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the voting protest march from Selma to Montgomery. (read it here: March 5, 2023 (Sunday) - by Heather Cox Richardson (substack.com) This is exactly the kind of history DeSantis and his ilk would suppress—brutality against people of color. We must not let them succeed.

 

 

The flap on Mulberry Street

A confession: it took Dr. Seuss to make me understand what the phrase “cancel culture” meant. Oh, sure, I’ve seen it a lot, but I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it. Given my not-so-secret political leanings, it should be no surprise that I thought maybe it had to do with Republicans cancelling literature, art, and music. After all, they never want to fund the arts. But with the current flap about the Seuss books, I understand now that they are whining that we’re doing away with all that makes our culture great. That would be Dr. Seuss and Potato Head.

I was sad when Little Black Sambo disappeared from children’s bookshelves. If you’re older than the hills, as I am, you may remember that Sambo was a young black boy who lived with his parents, Black Jumbo and Black Mumbo, in the South of India. One day out for a walk, Sambo encounters four tigers and, one by one, outwits them so that they don’t eat him. The book was so much a part of my growing up that when my mom hooked bedside rugs for my children, Jamie got one depicting the tiger from Little Black Sambo. (She ran out of steam by the time Jordan came along, and poor Jordan has no rug). But, primarily because of the stereotypical names of the characters, the book, written by a Scottish woman, eventually disappeared. In its day, it was hailed as the first children’s book to feature a black character.

Dr. Seuss books were similarly basic to my childhood. When my brother was little, my family lived on 50^th Street in Chicago, and my mom would read And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street to John, only she changed Mulberry Street to 50^th Street. When I came along, she kept it 50^th Street even though we had by then moved to Madison Park. And that’s one of the books I grew up with: And To Think That I Saw It On 50^th Street! A friend wrote me that he learned to read from the Seuss books and still, now in middle age, has the original books a relative gave him and used to teach him to read. Politics aside, we all treasure those books and the childhood memories they evoke.

In a way, I almost understand the “cancel culture” movement—not that we can cancel our heritage, but I sometimes think at this late date we’re trying to rewrite history when we might do better to look our history full in the face, admit its shortcomings, and strive to do better. Yes, racism is a strong and regrettable thread throughout American history, but is banning Little Black Sambo or tearing down Confederate statues going to change where we are today? Not to my mind. We are where we are, it isn’t good, and we must work to eliminate racism in all its forms. With Black Lives Matter, attention to outrageous black brutality, efforts to eliminate voter suppression, and other movements, we are chipping away at the major social problem in America, probably not fast enough for some but social change is never rapid. Preserving books and statues and other relics simply reminds us of errors we don’t want to repeat. Of course, there are those who see those things as shrines rather than errors, but I firmly believe they are in the minority. And little we do will reason with them.

Back to the present, I find the Republican response nothing short of ludicrous. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has posted a video of himself reading Green Eggs and Ham. Our country faces several major crises right now—the pandemic (though we’re slowly gaining on it), an economic crisis where too many people go to bed hungry, can’t pay the rent, and have no medical care; a crisis of racism, with everything from justice to vaccines unfairly allotted; an environmental crisis, with the doomsday clock ticking. As McCarthy was reading, Congress was considering the American Rescue Act, which would give major aid to those who need it, along with some important reforms. And he has nothing better to occupy his mind than reading Dr. Seuss on a video?

I have seen some posts that seem to blame President Biden directly for the withdrawal of six Seuss titles. After all, his remarks on National Reading Day did not mention Seuss, as both Obama and trump had done in previous years. Obviously, therefore, Biden was behind pulling the titles. Wrong! Overlooking the fact that President Biden is an extraordinarily busy man with weighty matters on his mind and desk, there is the truth that pulling the six titles was a marketing decision made by Seuss Enterprises, now a part of Random House. Apparently, it was a wise decision, because sales of Seuss titles have skyrocketed.

Making a conservative hero of Theodor Seuss Geisel is as ludicrous as McCarthy’s video. Geisel was a lifelong Democrat and left-leaning liberal who published dozens of cartoons vilifying Republicans. He despised racism, anti-Semitism, and Fascism and would, so students of his work say, despise the trumpians who are now trying to “defend” his honor. He apparently regretted the racist images in some of his books and dedicated Horton Hears A Who! to a Japanese friend, because he had earlier mocked the Japanese in resettlement camps. He was not afraid to admit his errors, and he would want as much for his work today.

The Republican Party, badly divided as it is, has no policy, no constructive suggestions and is reduced to talking about children’s books, albeit some of the best children’s lit ever written. Anyone want to take on The Wind in the Willows? Surely there’s something subversive in those pages.

As for Mr. Potato Head, I still haven’t figured that one out. And have you heard of the new plural—womxn? Use Google. I can’t bear to go into it here.