Saturday, 15 January 2011

Not knowing better and other thoughts about books and race and words


Thesis 1: Racism was not invented in the Twentieth century.



Thesis 4: Fraught words are fraught.




Aadisht said...

Also, words that are slurs in one time, place, or group are not so in another time, place or group.

Re: thesis 4, things that are pro-colonialism etc may also contain themes that undermine racism etc, creating stuff that is complex and fun to sort through.

Re: Thesis 4, also see Chetan Bhagat.

Falstaff said...

You haven't read Huckleberry Finn?!! Why? And how come?

I would add:

Words, even fraught ones, are just words: To focus on a word or a phrase and ignore everything else is a form of illiteracy, one that, encouraged, is easily used as a form of political suppression. To accept that something as subtle and complicated as a book can be judged by a single soundbite is to accept a diminishment of intellectual discourse. And to take words at face value, without context, is to make comedy / irony impossible. The n-word should stay in not so much because it forces us to confront 'our' past (whatever that means), but because it's a valuable lesson in the need to look beneath the surface, in the idea that a person (in a book, as in real life) may say one thing and mean another, which is a large part of what makes books exciting.

I would also add (re Tolkien, for instance) that bias is generally in the eye of the beholder. Pretty much any text can be interpreted to fit one's pet theory of oppression. It's the reason one has more faith in writers than in theorists.

Unmana said...

Love this post. Agree vehemently with all of these, and especially with #1 and #2.

Aishwarya said...

Aadisht - Explain the Bhagat connection, please? And yes, I accept your first proposition - with some caveats. :)

Falstaff - There are huge gaps in my education; particularly with regard to American literature. I must do something about it someday.
I'd accept your addition as well - also with caveats.

Unmana - Thanks :)

Anonymous said...


Anonymous said...

I love this game :)

Anonymous said...
