[lit-ideas] Re: BRAGGING RIGHTS
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:33:40 -0500
Irene,
Your post can easily be read as insinuating that those who criticize
corruption and malfeasance in office by African Americans do so out of
racism. I'm sure that's not what you meant to imply, for not only is it
absurd, it's insulting as well. You further seem to imply that Dolphin and
I are apparently too stupid to recognize corruption in white politicians and
office holders or that we are indifferent to their crimes (being likewise
white).
Furthermore, if you knew Mayor Willie Herenton, you would know that he has
no problem whatsoever liking himself. He has actually claimed that he's
mayor because God wants him to be. This is Herenton's 17th year as mayor of
Memphis. I was very excited when he was first elected in 1991. And I voted
for him twice after that mostly because he is African American, and I
thought it imperative that the old White Planter Mentality that had ruled
Memphis for 150 years be thoroughly quashed. And it was. Too thoroughly
perhaps. It has been replaced by over arching arrogance and disdain for
anyone who disagrees with His Honor or dares to question his integrity. A
man who plays the race card with every hand.
I'm sure that you did not mean to imply those things, that you were simply
voicing support for the African American community, and God knows, support
is needed, especially in this racially divided city. But why you felt the
need to do so in reply to our posts, I don't know, certainly neither of us
has made any untoward remarks in regard to African Americans, only in
reference political corruption.
In regard to Kunstler's thesis, I can't comment with anything but my own
prejudices which I do freely and frequently share. I will say that Memphis
and Nashville are very, different cities. The demographics are different
(Memphis is 60% black, 30% white, while Nashville is the flip of that) the
geography is very different (Memphis is flat delta land, Nashville is lovely
hill country) the economics are very different (Memphis is poor, Nashville
is much richer). Why Kunstler would select the South as study in
suburbanization, I don't know. There are not very many large cities (over a
million people) in the South. Atlanta is one, and yes, it's surrounded by
suburbs, but most of the population there are not indigenous to the South, I
think. Houston and Dallas are large cities as well, and again, I would be
very surprised if the majority of people living there are Southern born and
in any event, I count Texas as Western, not Southern. The Memphis
metropolitan population is 1.3 million and Nashville's is 1.5, but the
cities proper count only half that. Memphis is ranked the 18th largest by
city population, but only 41st by metropolitan population. My point is that
while suburbanization is true of the South, it is far less a factor than
other parts of the country. How the world will adjust to shortages in oil
supply seems more pressing for cities like New York and LA and Philadelphia
than for cities like Nashville.
In order to thrive economically, Nashville
had to identify itself with everything "country."
Nashville is the 2nd largest (NYC is 1st) music production center in the US.
That's not "country music". It's a $6.5 billion industry and employs over
19,000 people. Hardy, your "Grand Ole Opry" operation. But music is not
the major industry in Nashville, Health Care is. With over 250 different
Health Care companies headquartered in Nashville, -- an $18 billion
industry -- it employs over 94,000 people. Kunstler's cartoonish image of
Nashville makes me question the quality of his research.
Socially, suburbanization represented a decisive
victory over everything thought to be represented by
city life, especially things thought to be effete and
unmanly, like the traditional arts. Of course the
ersatz country folk of suburbia had their own art,
country music, but wearing large hats immunized its
practitioners against effeteness and made it manly.
Arrant nonsense.
>So, life imitating art killed
Nashville.
I didn't know Nashville was dead. I'll have to tell my relatives there.
It strikes me too that segregation is a
form of species-wide dissociative disorder, or Jungian
Shadow.
Segregation? Meaning what?
What we don't like in ourselves we
collectivize and project onto others.
Speak for yourself.
That doesn't explain
widespread white corruption, but it does explain
acceptance of widespread white corruption.
Acceptance by whom?
In fact,
not only acceptance of white corruption, but of
downright humility in the face of it, as we look in
awe at the robber barons and other mostly illegally
amassed white money, including the CEO's of pharma and
on and on.
Speak for yourself -- again.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy" <mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2008 4:51 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: BRAGGING RIGHTS
White people are corrupt too, very corrupt, and for
the same reasons as black people, which is that they
don't like themselves very much. Somehow it's not as
noticeable when white people are corrupt. Why is
that? White corruption is like wallpaper, in the
background, just business as usual.
I just finished reading James Kunstler's book. His
basic premise is that suburbanization will be
unsustainable in a world growing shorter on oil.
Here's what he says about Nashville, which may or may
not be extrapolatable to Memphis (three paragraphs).
It's in the section on what he hypothesizes will
happen to different regions as oil winds down by
mid-21st century, in this case to the Old South:
Page 281. ... The result [of an abundance of cheap
fossil fuels] was a region that would base its economy
largely on suburban expansion. Cheap land was
plentiful across the South and the region was
culturally predisposed to an antiurban bias. In the
minds of most developers, suburban development was the
logical, natural way of improving country life. The
fact that it decimated rural landscapes and rural
lifeways didn't seem to matter, because by the
mid-twentieth century in the American southland, rural
life was more about being in cars (or trucks) than
growing cotton, with all the horrors of serfdom
implied in that form of agriculture. If anything,
postwar southerners tried to forget what rural life
had really been about for them and their ancestors,
and manufactured a sentimental version to replace it,
which was later sold back to them in the form of
commodities such as popular music, corporate religion,
and theme park admissions.
Nashville is a good example of how this mentality
worked. Prior to WWII, Nashville had some legitimate
claim to being if not exactly a great city, then a
large town of consequence. It called itself "the
Athens of the South." It had a full-sized replica of
the Parthenon in one of its parks and a world-class
university (Vanderbilt) with a cultivated
international faculty. As the region became more
affluent in the 1960's, country music became an
important "industry," with Nashville designated its
"capital." In order to thrive economically, Nashville
had to identify itself with everything "country."
This meant, paradoxically, repudiating its qualities
as a town. Nashville therefore did an excellent job
of destroying most of its center in an orgy of
late-twentieth-century "urban renewal," while the
stars of country music settled in suburban villas
outside of town, that is, in the "country," along with
their fans, who didn't want to have anything to do
with the town, whose remaining inhabitants were
predominately the descendants of deracinated African
American sharecroppers.
Socially, suburbanization represented a decisive
victory over everything thought to be represented by
city life, especially things thought to be effete and
unmanly, like the traditional arts. Of course the
ersatz country folk of suburbia had their own art,
country music, but wearing large hats immunized its
practitioners against effeteness and made it manly.
Eventually, its holiest shrine, the Grand Ole Opry,
moved out of its downtown auditorium into a cheapjack
plastic theme park in the suburban hinterlands.
End of excerpt. So, life imitating art killed
Nashville. It strikes me too that segregation is a
form of species-wide dissociative disorder, or Jungian
Shadow. What we don't like in ourselves we
collectivize and project onto others. We then
disenfranchise economically and socially that rejected
part of ourselves and turn around and say, oh look,
they're this and that. That doesn't explain
widespread white corruption, but it does explain
acceptance of widespread white corruption. In fact,
not only acceptance of white corruption, but of
downright humility in the face of it, as we look in
awe at the robber barons and other mostly illegally
amassed white money, including the CEO's of pharma and
on and on.
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