Politics & Society – Page 6

Caste awry

Adam Shatz talks with Hazel Carby, January 12th 2021

This podcast is an accompanying conversation to Hazel Carby’s essay in the current London Review of Books (Vol. 43 No. 2 · 21 January 2021) on Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents; published to acclaim last year. Carby’s argument, like all those that go against the grain, is provocative. Interesting, is that the critique comes from a wider, global perspective of race and the historical complexities of the greater Black diaspora; and ironic, in that it is precisely with this broader brush that Wilkerson claims to make her case in her comparisons with the Indian caste system and Nazi Germany. But, Carby argues, Wilkerson is in fact bound by, and limited by, national constraints (be they inherited or learned), and constructs her “origin” story accordingly; one that depends on a (United States of) American exceptionalism.
Carby does make at least one very persuasive argument; in that I am persuaded to add Wilkerson’s book to my reading list! Beyond that, only a reading will tell.
(I often wonder about the considerations that lead to a book title change; why and to what end – aesthetic, linguistic, marketing. In the LRB review above, “Caste: …” is (mistakenly?) subtitled as in the US, but in the UK it seems to actually have been published as Caste: The Lies that Divide Us.)

January 17 2021: As I intimated above, prior to hearing this podcast, only positive takes on Wilkerson’s book had come my way, but a newsletter that I receive regularly from Jamelle Bouie (which always has something interesting to read, think about – and sometimes to eat!) has just suggested this review by Charisse Burden-Stelly in the Boston Review, in which, similarly to Hazel Carby, she considers “caste” to be an inadequate, even misleading, terminology under which to talk about race in the United States. Their critiques may differ in emphasis, but both reviewers dismiss this (imported) system as too rigid in structure and too dependent upon popular acceptance to lend itself to the complex interplay of politics, class and resistance in a volatile, changing social construct such as that which has evolved – continues to evolve – in the U.S.

When words matter

We are witnessing the beginning of the end of a fantastically failed presidency; the state of the society that facilitated it, and which is to be left in its wake, is yet to unfold and reveal itself, let alone to be told.

Here, in this space, I have been very disciplined in my restraint, and (mostly) suffered and seethed in silence; words are not all that matter, but sometimes really are there to be said…

As things would have it, the events of the last weeks, culminating in yesterday’s mayhem, have coincided with my immersion in Barack Obama’s memoir covering his first years in office. And as my reading, too, approaches its end, it does so leaving me much informed, much reminded of things worth remembering, sometimes irritated, and very often touched by beautifully rendered human moments – full of warmth, humour, regret.

Obama makes the intricacies of finance and health reform and the complications of composing and passing of legislation eminently readable. (Though, and especially in terms of finance reform, I was sometimes overwhelmed with initialisms and acronyms – for legislation, programs, committees, etc.) International relations and foreign and defence policy concerns are usually presented with a brief historical discourse that places the matter at hand in context – for instance, I particularly liked his preludes to discussions on Saudi Arabia (on his visit there) or to Iran (when the nuclear capabilities issue came to the fore). What I liked somewhat less was Obama’s tendency to see fit to describe the physical attributes of others. I mean, we know what Vladimir Putin (“…a wrestler’s build…”) and Benjamin Netanyahu (“…built like a line backer…”) look like. And, perhaps the “high-fiving”, “firing-ups”, “freaking outs” and the like, irritate a little the non-American ear. On the other hand, I “know” Barack Obama well enough to recognise such colloquialisms as genuinely being an aspect of his way of expression, and authenticity in voice is surely what one wants from a testimony such as this.

When did I last think of this. The catastrophe of Deepwater Horizon seems such a long time ago, and affecting a coastal region I once passed through even longer ago, but deserves not to be easily forgot: as an event in and of itself, but beyond that, what it has to say about the world’s insatiable consumption of fossil fuel. And, Obama tells us that little Sasha came into the bathroom one morning whilst he was shaving and enquired: “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?”; a tone Obama sets throughout – of seriousness and reflection blended with glimpses into the intimate family life that was being lived, parallel to, and sometimes intersecting with, the job at hand. There are any number of snippets of repartee with Mrs. Obama and their daughters and interactions with his staff and others, of observations and afterthoughts, which reflect a wonderful mix of wit and intelligence, and a basic goodness that is rarer than we would like to imagine.

So, it is then, that every other day, I have been reading the former President’s account, and every other day waking up to, or retiring of an evening with, the reality of this perversely “other” presidency, or the closing act of absurd theatre – or both. And, wondering where the line is to be drawn, if in fact a line can be drawn, between performance and all its component parts. Is Trump playing a role? Or is he the role? And for all those who enabled – who set the scene, supported from the wings, propped up – does the show go on with a new cast? And, when Trump exits the stage (or be dragged from it!) in a few days time, what will be his legacy, or more precisely, what extent the wreckage he leaves behind? Surely, there will neither be the traditional memoir nor Presidential library – a historian’s nightmare in years to come; explaining this era without the defining subject’s testimony.

Words matter. What is said and written matters. Words inspire and words incite. The 44th and 45th Presidents of the United States have proved that; each casting long shadows that could not be more different. And the 46th? Mediocrity incarnate one could reasonably suggest, uninspired. Perhaps. But, a Biden presidency will at least offer some respite, and with good will (and some luck) allow in its warmer shadow a new generation of political leadership to form.

Just a phone call away

Former NYT star critic, Michiko Kakutani, makes a return to talk with Barack Obama about A Promised Land – the book and all the books that led to it, and the land, and all the promises it makes – sometimes fulfilling them and just as often not. One could say her piece (based on an extended telephone conversation) confirms what one already knows about Obama’s intellectual and literary influences, but it does also reveal a few new things. For instance, about his method of writing – not a disciplined keeper of a diary, rather a collector of fragmentary anecdotes; digitally inclined when it comes to research; very analogue – legal pad and favourite pen – when it comes to the writing.

In her opening paragraph, Kakutani refers to A Promised Land as being, beyond the expected historical record, also “an introspective self-portrait”. Perhaps, not exactly the same thing, but Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, in fact missed “true self-revelation” and bemoaned Obama’s (too) cool detachment. Nor does Kakutani insinuate any discomfort with his handling of race issues, unlike Adichie who is frustrated by what she identifies as his tendency towards misplaced evenhandedness. But, then, Kakutani is not writing a critique. What they both do agree on, though, is the fineness of the prose and the pleasure of the reading experience, and the service done in giving an enthralling account of an extraordinary (too) few years.

Any hesitancy I may initially have had about diving into such a meaty tome – fearing somewhat the insider policy-speak that comes with most political memoirs – was quickly assuaged. Obama talks to us! Every other passage, every turn of phrase, one may well imagine coming from his lips – just without the ums and ahs! The complexities of politics are so well packaged in familiar real world scenarios, and without a preponderance of technical jargon, that they should be understandable to most, and, more importantly perhaps, are embedded in the common warmth of a life being lived.

Asked about what he is reading now, I am absolutely unsurprised that Obama has turned, amongst other things, to Jack for some respite. It would not need me to bring to his attention the significance of his return to Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead” opus just now; the first story of which had accompanied him as he traipsed around Iowa in 2007, at the beginning of an odyssey that could have led nowhere, but instead to the highest echelons of power. Did he ever imagine that the (once) “bright radical star” of the Union would play such an important role in his life?

Granted, I must confess, I am only a couple of hundred pages in – chronologically speaking, the first weeks of his presidency – and as one unable to confine myself to just one Lektüre at a time, I do have some reading ahead of me, but I look forward every day to a bit more. And, I will most definitely have more to say.

Titillating

Well, it is not very fair to comment without a full frontal view, but whether this is quite the right way to honour the great Mary Wollstonecraft is debatable!

Irrespective, there is one part of me pleased enough that some more diverse (if you count “women” as diverse!) historical figures, are finding their way into public spaces. And, of course, that Virginia Woolf should find a place now in Richmond, where she lived for a long period, is fitting. Though sitting on a park bench watching the day go by – is that not a bit too Mrs. Dalloway? As the tortured soul she does not have to be depicted, but… And, whether this trend is stretching to people of other ethnic or cultural backgrounds (beyond Gandhi and/or Mandela) I have not heard. Then, there is the sceptical me, one who can’t help but doubt whether any number of busts, statues, plaques, do very much in the way of taking the viewer (or casual passer-by) beyond the public space into the public consciousness; whether they really tell us anything of the person, the time and circumstance, and are in the end only sentimental reflections of a work’s creator and the society and time in which he/she/they lived, rather than that of the subject.

There are indeed enough that one could be well rid of – for instance, Cecil Rhodes; a hullabaloo that spans continents, and Sloane; now put under wraps at the British Museum. A couple of years old now, but this is an opinion on the greater global predicament of just what to do with some of these guys (they are mostly “guys”!). And Jonathan Jones questions the whole “folly of depicting history through the dead art of statues”, and pleads for “serious art” and a contemporary approach that remembers without the false promise of restoration. His “selfie in bronze” description is spot-on – and not unlike my reflections above.

All the above links are to The Guardian.

Obama again, and then enough…

…until I read this tome that arrived on my doorstep the day after publication – courtesy the enormous first printing that demanded a “Printed in Germany on acid-free paper” component!

My copy of “A Promised Land” , Crown Publishers, 2020.

Liked very much this interview given to David Olusoga on BBC Radio 4 – to be followed (from December 14th for two weeks) with an abridged reading of A Promised Land by Barack Obama himself.

David Olusoga has written an accompaniment of a sort for The Guardian, which is an interesting extension to his interview experience and his not terribly optimistic personal observations of the United States post-4 Years Trump.

And a musical accompaniment there must be!

A short story, a loving tribute & a long review

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Another one, most favoured by many, and by me; so elegant her prose, so singular her voice. And, here is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie now, with three quite different pieces of writing, but all seeped with ideas about belonging – to family, to nation; about losing – those we love, freedoms taken for granted; and about fickle power – as a tool to control or to set one free. All are recent, very recent, very contemporaneous in style and subject and intent.

Firstly, Zikora. As modest a work as it is in terms of length, so wide its sociological and psychological scope; and all displayed in the compact first person narrative of a successful professional Nigerian woman, Zikora, about to give birth surrounded by the cool accoutrements of western medicine. At her side, the mother who she does not know how to please, and in the conspicuous absence of a partner, Kwame, deemed “perfect” and then to do “a runner”, and from whom she struggles to let go, and all the while reflecting upon her complicated Nigerian family and their complicated relationships, the awkwardness of her place as an African woman in the United States where her Blackness is always writ large. And, in the end, wondering herself why she persisted in forgiving the men who did her wrong – Kwame was not the first, and then there is the father who had deserted her mother (and her) and started another family, but whose attention she still craved. And when it is over, a new life brought into the world, a realisation is in the dawning that just as her thoughts flew to Lagos and her impossible family, it is alone her mother who has flown to her; her difficult, impossible to please mother who never left her and was with her now.

Interesting, in another respect, is that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has chosen to publish this through Amazon. I dare say this will not impress some, but it does actually make sense for a “small” work at a small price that she would have wanted to make available to as many people as possible.

This links to Amazon.de in Germany (because that’s where I am) but it is of course at every other Amazon out there in the big wide world.

Segregation by Genre

For a couple of reasons Alex Abramovich’s piece entitled “Even When It’s a Big Fat Lie” (limited access so the link is a bit dicey) in the London Review of Books particularly interested me. Firstly, it is a review of Ken Burns’s eight part PBS documentary “Country Music”, and I had read a flattering piece in The New York Times a couple of months ago, and that Abramovich’s is not; secondly, I saw a grainy rerun of Burns’s lauded by some, and lambasted by others, 1990 series, The Civil War, not so long ago – and thought it a very mediocre work – whereby, I mean in terms of the structure and film-making aesthetic (though to be fair it is thirty years old); the historical shortcomings and omissions, as Abramovich mentions, were debated at the time by those qualified to do so, and the criticism has not abated over the years. (I should say just about everything I know about the Civil War comes from Eric Foner, and he was one of the fiercest critics at the time.)

And it is in terms of Ken Burns’s prior work, that Abramovich launches into his criticism of “Country Music”, because, whether one agreed with their perspective or not, a range of historians did contribute to “The Civil War”, whereas in Burns’s succeeding documentaries the input from historians has dramatically declined over the years, to the point whereby “Country Music” has only one, Bill Malone, and it his interpretation alone that frames Burns’s work. And, one should say, even there it seems Malone had more to offer but could only give that which fulfilled Burns’s vision.

What Alex Abramovich bemoans the most, are the half-stories and half-truths that will never add to a whole. Instead, one is left with a blurred vision of a music genre that has never reconciled its shared roots in the poor white and Black South, and instead rejoices in an (often false) nostalgia. Following is an accompanying conversation with Abramovich, that explores, beyond his written LRB piece and the specifics relating to Burns’s documentary, the wider history of segregation in vernacular music and the defining role played by the recording industry.

Alex Abramovich on the history of segregation in music in the US

Finally, this is not the same thing, but related, I think, in that it is illustrative of how music and recordings track the extreme social shifts of an era, particularly in respect to the African American experience, through the twentieth century and into the present. Recently, I read an extraordinarily interesting article, again in the NYT, that examines music – American folk music this time – beyond a matter of categorisation that tends to segregation and exposes instead blatant racism and hate, and considers the ensuing dilemma of how to deal with historical works, once popular and now despicable.

Amongst the great lives, one very great life

John Maynard Keynes

Most people take the economical way to Keynes! Not so me – rather, beyond name recognition, my introduction to one of the greatest economists of the 20th century came via the Woolfs, in whose lives and amongst the other brilliant players in “Bloomsbury”, Maynard Keynes played a significant role. Love it that the young British playwright, James Graham, should choose him as a “great life” in the BBC Radio 4 “Great Lives” series. I hope he retains his enthusiasm, for what great stuff there is in this life – for theatre or for film!