for 10 June 1998. Updated every WEEKDAY.

White Man's Bulworth

Ambrose,

Your excellent deconstruction
of the (il)logic of the
Warren Beatty Old Guard,
white liberalism-inspired
Bulworth leaves me perplexed
(as usual) about what
solutions a European (don't
call me white) progressive
(don't call me liberal)
should argue for with regard
to the age-old question of
race in America.

I certainly don't see the
right-of-center people
offering anything new on race
relations, aside from the
equally old "just ignore it -
we're all (English-speaking)
Americans first" line. Nor
does the New Democrat-Bill
Clinton approach offer much,
however genuine it may be.
It's mostly a Southern
white-black church revival,
helpful if you are running
for president and you need
votes, not so useful for the
rest of us.

I'm left dreaming about a day
when we drop all the old
monikers of White and Black
and Other in favor of
investigating, celebrating,
and respecting people by the
various and diverse
combinations of ethnicity and
regions they represent: i.e.
the Native Americans of New
Mexico, the Somali Americans
of Omaha, Nebraska, the
Central American Mestizo
Americans living in Southern
California, the Laotian
Americans in San Francisco,
etc.?

But that wouldn't make for
good Hollywood movies now,
would it ?

David Maurer
<dmaurer@worldbank.org>

Why not? It's all about
story, Dave, and a good
pitch. A Native American of
New Mexico falls hopelessly
in love with a ne'er-do-well
Somali American of Omaha,
creating a compellingly
conflict-ridden situation.

But then again, once you
involve minorities in
scripts, everybody's jumping
out of their skins to take
your "stereotypes" to task.

So just keep 'em white. It's
much simpler that way ... for
us whites, that is.

Tongue in Cheek,
Simple Sucksters

"... a question: If the civil
rights movement happened
because of World War II and
the jobs given - and perhaps
"given" should be in italics,
too - to blacks by whites,
what would the United States look like
if there had been no war?"

I think a related question
would be, why did it take
South Africa so long to
eliminate apartheid? I have a
sneaking suspicion that
without the grand
mobilization of women and
minorities into positions
that ... pre-war were highly
segregated by Jim Crow and
even unions (?!), life in the
United States of America
would have gone on even
more differently than you let
on. Of course, we'll never
know, because our history
relies on World War II to get
us out of the Depression.

I, however, firmly believe
that World War II and the
pressure of "there's a war
on" forced white racists to
turn the other cheek and
allow black men and women
into factory jobs where they
would have the feeling of
accomplishment seeing those
ships, planes, and tanks
leave the factory. As a kid, I
heard the stories of how
black people felt liberated
to move to Detroit and work
in a grimy old factory, just
because they weren't doing
the same agri-labor jobs that
kept them in chains down
South. I know the change in
my outlook when I stopped
being a temp and got a career
- even if it was just from
lame to less-lame. While it's
fine and good to suggest that
factory jobs and other blue-
collar jobs aren't the poor
black person's hope out of
long-term poverty, I ask you,
what jobs are on a bus line
from the ghetto?

I don't know ... my white
girlfriend has a job
interview today at Howard
University. They are
interested in offering her a
job to teach in the medical
school there. The job has
been open for weeks, and her
lab chief (a black chemist)
said they were desperate.
That's right, there's an
opening for a black medical-
school professorship that one
of the nation's top black
colleges can't fill. If only
one more parent in the '60s
had a high-paying factory job
instead of driving a cab.

Maybe a couple more
generations of factory jobs
(my grandfather sent my
mother and aunt to the
University of Chicago, an
uncle to Harvard, and an
uncle to Stanford on a
steelworker's salary with
some union scholarships
thrown in) would help those
people who don't have college
degrees today.

Don Smith
<dsmith@health.org>

Very good points, Don. Women
who took factory jobs during
World War II certainly
emerged with a completely
transformed view of
themselves and their
possibilities.

That is, until the boys came
back from the war and wanted
their jobs back. The
propaganda films from that
time period are hilarious.
"Go back home girls - your
big daddy needs you doing
dishes, not riveting
battleships!"

You can say a factory job's
an insult. Until you can't
get a job, and then the only
insult is hunger.

Where might the great leaders
of black America be? Hmmm,
how about the great leaders
of white America? Or the
great leaders of yellow, red,
or brown America?

Maybe they're all enjoying a
long vacation in Cape
Hatteras or Hollywood?
There's a thought: If
politics is incidental to how
this country really operates,
perhaps all these leaders are
engaged in other endeavors
such as making money or
becoming cultural icons. Or
both.

If you had couched your
argument in terms of class
struggles (e.g. Where are the
leaders of the poor and
disenfranchised?), it would
have been a bit more
entertaining than reflecting
on a Warren Beatty movie.

Simon Adkins
<sadkins@roanoke.edu>

All our arguments are couched
in popular culture, Simon,
you know that perfectly well.

Of course, we could abandon
this format and go straight
to a textbook format, sans
illustrations, replete with a
"Drawing Conclusions" review
section at the end. Does that
sound more fun?

One thing's for sure, even
the great leaders of America
need a sugary pop-cultural
tie-in to keep 'em
interested. And who's to say
Warren Beatty movies aren't
about 100 times more
effective at spreading
ideologies than C-SPAN and
the network news and all the
newspapers combined?

Only the big screen speaks to
a confederacy of dunces,
Simon, ourselves included.

Stupid Mail Day!

Subject: Frank Sinatra
Autograph

Greetings!

My mother got Frank Sinatra's
autograph in Vegas in the
1970s, and she would like to
know what it is worth. Would
you be able to help us with
that information?

Traci Stone
<msigene@aol.com>

No.

Is That Justice?

Loved the last column, as per
usual. But why in God's name
was Paul McCartney attending
the Kennedy-Smith trial?

Diego Ibarra
<dibarra@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>

Because he's a Kennedy.

You didn't know that?

Gaahh! Yer stupid.

More Injustice

Subject: WHY DID YOU STEAL MY
DRUGS!?!?

I just want to know why you
stole them, and if you have
any plans to return them?

Maq Dadae
<lucid@nsa.secret.org>

We stole your drugs, yes, but
we have extensive plans for
returning them.

Waq Dadae

Marion Bunny

So if Marion Barry is gone,
who will speak for the
crackheads? Are they to be
without representation?

University of Colorado
Student
<Anonymous@Colorado.edu>

We're not certain, but we do
know a certain giant rabbit,
albeit evil, albeit Canadian,
who might be up for the job.

Maq Dadae also appears
well-suited to represent the
drug-abusing world, in case
the rabbit is a no-show....