The Future of a Confusion

This is not, perhaps, entirely to the point, but I have a story to relate: Recently, I was standing in the bookstore literally stupefied by a fit of despair brought on by one of my students' papers, entitled "Racists of Islam," which managed to demonstrate, among other things, a complete lack of distinction in the author's mind between a) a muslim and Islam, b) race and religion, c) racism and intolerance, and d) plural and singular subjects, and I saw a book called A Practical Guide to Racism (New York: Gotham Books, 2008). Naturally curious, I picked it up, and, within ten minutes, my spirits were lifted. (NB: I am pretty sure that the book is written by Daily Show Correspondent Dan Bakkedahl, but my evidence for this is scanty.)

The book purports to be written by Professor CH Dalton and to be the colleced form of the 2005 Lothrop Stoddard lectures, "delivered near Harvard University." All of this is beside the point. I found it, actually, despite its parodic nature and sacrilegious tone, to be quite helpful for me as a guide, even though the promise to the reader would seem to be that this would be the reverse. It contains, unapologetically, a list of racial stereotypes broken down by the principal races: Hispanics, Jews, Whites, Indians (and Injuns), Blacks, Asians, Merpeople, Arabs, and Gypsies. Professor Dalton has made it his business to debunk harmful stereotypes, "except when they are 100% true." As you can imagine, what follows is extremely inflammatory. But also extremely perceptive. It is a guide for racists, as well as a guide for those of us who aren't sure we can identify racism when we hear it.

The point of all of this is the following: I propose two chapters of this book as teaching tools for the 39 series. "Hispanics" and "Arabs." (Although our students could learn quite a lot from every chapter.) The tool would work like this: I would assign the chapter as reading to the appropriate group, perhaps in PDF form, and then I would ask the students to separate out the "truth" from the "fiction." The appropriate group is important because, for example, the "Hispanics" chapter is most applicable to students writing on immigration (and illegal immigration). It contains all of the worst stereotypes that perennially show up in my class papers, and those about Americans on which most of the weirdest claims are based (e.g., "They steal our jobs!" and "They steal our jobs, but only the jobs Americans don't want/are too lazy to do/are to spoiled to do, so that's okay," etc.), and, as an added bonus, it contains all of the worst policy ideas for the advocacy, as well as implicit hints (probably too subtle for our students) as to what more humane solutions to the "immigration problem" would be. I would, of course, talk about tone, etc., during the discussion of the chapter, but I would also relish the humor of the text relieving my stress at trying to raise these issues in a nuanced way. (Jonathan's 39c maxim number 17: Nuance never works. Blunt force trauma for the critical faculties is way better.)

But the kicker is this: I learned stuff I didn't know from this book by the simple expedient of looking up the references to understand the jokes. I would make this the second part of the tool, and it would lead naturally into social research.

Here is my ultimate claim: this book, offensive as it is, raises all of the issues of 9-11 as it is being taught in a different way, and one that manages to tackle implicitly the previous issues of Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed. It also brings into the same spotlight on racism the differences between race and religion, not to mention putting the current state of the American Indian into the same arena as the more politically glamorous questions facing politicians about immigrants of all ethnicities, as well as giving a kind of cartoon-history of traditionally persecuted and ostracized peoples (Jews, Gypsies, Merpeople) as a parody of historical analysis...yaddah yaddah yaddah. I guess all I am saying is that a chapter or two would be a short read and might be a good exercise.

I will leave you with this word from Professor Dalton, taken from the last page of his lecture on Hispanics:

"The outcry over Hispanic workers taking away jobs glosses over the real problem here. I am speaking, of course, of the lazy American poor. If working-class Americans would just work harder for less money, this wouldn't even be an issue. That is the lesson of globalization...It's not the Hispanics fault tha they are willing to work harder for less than all the lazy, entitled American people living below the poverty line, but that doesn't mean that we want them in this country. While there are some talented Hispanics (e.g., Julio Iglesias, Enrique Iglesias, Julio Iglesias, Jr.), most of them are uneducated and criminally inclined. To add insult to injury, Hispanic lawbreakers are also more diligent and industrious than American criminals."

Okay, one more blurb, this one from the conclusion to the chapter on Arabs:

"The arabs are responsible for much of what we think of as modern civilization, from government and architecture, to geometry, naval exploration, and shawarma [ed: fn. 'Not to mention the mythical shawarma-lafel']. Unfortunately, the race's most public figures are a marginalized extremist movement that is doing its best to blow all of that up.
"The key to combating extremist groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban is to do everything we can to make all Arabs hate America. That way, those extremist groups won't actually be so extreme, and we can fight a race war, rather than an ideological one.
"So far, U.S. foreign policy is doing an extraordinary job of making that dream a reality.
"FURTHER READING
"If you're interested in learning more about the Arab people, here are some suggestions for further reading:
"Rumsfeld, Donald, Paul Wolfowitz, et al. Rebuilding America's Defenses. Project for the New American Century, 2000."