discrimination

Where one scholar is in error and another in scholarly license

by

Yes, this is yet another entry for the Ungeziefer file…

One where scholar and author Rebecca Schuman, who is obviously highly intelligent and supremely credible as evidenced by her skepticism (likeminded with yours truly of course) of Michael Hoffman translating Kafka’s Ungezeifer as a cockroach, as discussed in her 2017 Literary Hub article I Made a Mistake in My Book and the Internet Went Nuts.

Cockroach is, some might say, a bold choice. Others might, uncharitably, call it a mistake, and a big, significant one, one that would signify Hofmann’s grasp of the field he dominates as tenuous. But as vehemently as I disagree with cockroach—I prefer Susan Bernofsky’s some sort of monstrous insect—I’m not saying that Hofmann’s a hack, not entirely.

But this entry is a bit more than just a validation my point.

It is also one where with Schuman’s willingness to take on the odd word choice, which some might call a regretful miscalculation, of a renowned scholar such as Hoffman is, isn’t just an example of her intellectual rigor and toughness, it is also yet another example of the disparities between females and males in a professional setting, the setting here being in the arena of German language author-ity and scholarship.

The disparities this time being exhibited in the differences in the reception between a female scholar’s oversight versus a male scholar’s, where Schuman’s oversight of screwing up her German skulls almost lost her her career (and maybe even her mind) and Hoffman’s oversight of calling Gregor Samsa a cockroach was mostly viewed as harmless scholarly license.

Learn more

It was true. I had fucked up my skulls. Given: It’s hardly a rousing soliloquy claiming Goethe’s finest work is Macbeth. But still.

Here’s how it happened. The chapter now marred by Schädel-gate is called Liebeskummer, a word for heartbreak that literally translates to “love grief.” I wrote it, in its entirety, with a newborn baby, a feat comparable to climbing the sheer face of a cliff using only one’s teeth. It’s a goddamned wonder I could remember Goethe’s name. However, I’m loath to share this fact; offering, as an excuse, my attempt at multitasking the impossible reveals me as a woman—and, therefore, someone whose expertise is brought into question by default.

Obviously, these disparities in reception has much to do stereotype incongruencies, you know, kind of how people get weirded out by male nurses.

Anyway, what are we gonna do, right?

It is, after all, a man’s world…

At least until it isn’t.

~~~~~

Featured image courtesy of The New Sisyphus Is a Woman by Ron Milford

ESPN for the Hat-trick

by

And by hat-trick I mean the Rachel Nichols sh*t show at ESPN that features a disappointing trifecta of racism, sexism, and privacy rights issues.

Here’s a quote at the center of the controversy that comes from a phone conversation of Nichols that was inadvertently recorded to ESPN servers and then discovered and (illegally?) dispersed by a former/fired ESPN employee:

“I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world — she covers football, she covers basketball,” Nichols said in July 2020. “If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity — which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it — like, go for it. Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away.”

A Disparaging Video Prompts Explosive Fallout Within ESPN, New York Times, July 4, 2021

Generally speaking, I’m not surprised that a white person (Rachel Nichols) would feel this way towards a Black person (Maria Taylor) regarding positioning and advancement in the workplace. However, I am surprised that a white person would openly (openly can certainly be debated here, hence the concerns about privacy rights) express such sentiments whose occupation (NBA courtside reporter) involves developing close relationships with the employees (NBA athletes) of an an industry (professional basketball) where Blacks make up nearly 75% of the workforce.

On second thought, I’m not actually surprised by that either.

No matter how much we, and by we I mostly mean progressive whites but just about anyone can be included I suppose, profess to be color blind and sex blind and gender blind and sexuality blind and on and on, it doesn’t take much to trigger us back to type, and by type I mean the socialization/indoctrination process that takes place during our formative years and instills deeply, indelibly some would say, within us our beliefs and values and prejudices and fears.

And the fear of losing one’s livelihood is a heck of a trigger.

Not saying it’s right, just saying that’s the way our world works as I see it.

Which is why there has been and there always will be, at least for the foreseeable future, a critical need for special interest groups, identity politics, and the understanding by all of the concept of intersectionality, a concept more and more of us are becoming familiar with as the ugly and misguided debate about Critical Race Theory drags on.

For an example of how intersectionality works, consider how racism, sexism, and homophobia affects the Black female lesbian, perhaps the most marginalized group in the country:

The most general statement of [the Combahee River Collective] politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives. As Black women we see Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face.

THE COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE STATEMENT (1977), Blackpast.org

Look, I’ve only scratched the surface here so you really need to read the whole story to get a feel for all the unfortunate issues going on right now at ESPN. It really is quite tragic…

And, unfortunately, quite unsurprising.

Poetry is for Girls

by

humor-image

I may occasionally write the junk, but rarely do I read it.

And it is not because I don’t like it that I rarely read it…

It’s because it, the really good stuff anyway, is so durn hard to read.

I’m talking Poetry here…

Poetry with a big, bold capital P.

And it is so hard for me to read (And by read I mean read. I mean really digging into the poem and fighting through the initial confusion and the complicated and often archaic words. I mean, not just reading the poem, but studying it and trying to close the gap in time from when the poem was written to when the poem is being read by learning about the poet and where and when and why and how he or she is from and where and when and why and how he or she lived and then coming to my own understanding of what I think the poem means and then trying to apply that meaning to my own life and where and when and why and how I live it. That’s what I mean by read.) because it takes more than a little bit of effort to read it.

I certainly don’t have time for all that junk.

Read more

In Honor of the End of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy

by

An offering from POEMS FROM THE RIVER, a collection of my poetry that will soon be released.

~~~~

We War

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things.
The decayed and degraded state
of moral and patriotic feeling
which thinks that nothing is worth war
is much worse.

The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight,
nothing which is more important than his own personal safety,
is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free
unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

~ John Stuart Mills

We war, don’t we
We warriors
We worriers for the world

You, Red Death Warrior
You mobilized
You sanitized
Purified to perform ancient rights of battles
And to stake patriot claims of fragile freedom
In hearts alien, hearts eternal,
Hearts ignorant of all you know

You know
You know

You know, noble warrior,
While you wander through the heaven of Hell
Raking the shit scattered pieces
Of bitter and broken promises
Into neat, heaping piles made ready
For the devil’s dusty full bin,
I, Warrior of The Forgotten Peace
Arming my chair of flaccid command
Long for the glory fight that I never had
The fight I will never know
The fight you will never forget

You know
You know

~~~~

I would like to congratulate and thank all who courageously sacrificed their identities, and in some cases, their lives, in order to proudly and honorably serve their nation while Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was national policy.