Cultural Erasures

One thing I learned from my, as yet unfinished, road trip excursion is the value of podcasts. I assume everybody is saying, “Duh!” and that I am very late to this discovery. Anyway, I recommend, for one, Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History.
A hallmark of Malcolm Gladwell’s work is that you are never quite sure at first as to what he will be driving at. Yesterday I began listening to an episode that featured an interview of singer/songwriter Randy Newman, then told the life of Lester Maddox (the former restauranteur and governor who voluntarily embodied the worst of segregationism), and ended with an interview featuring Lester Maddox and Jim Brown (a football player at that time) on the Dick Cavett show in the 1970’s.
Lester Maddox walked off in mock indignation because Dick Cavett used the word “bigot” in conjunction with Lester Maddox’s “admirers”. Before he walked off in a huff, Lester Maddox had been complaining because Jim Brown had brought up the need for economic development for Americans of African descent. Lester Maddox refused to even entertain that topic as being in any way worth discussion, saying, (I will paraphrase): How come you people are always talking about the problems of black people and you never bring up the problems of whites?!?!”
The brainless and self-serving complaint can still be heard today in the Far-Right Blogosphere!
Post Script: Lester Maddox showed a lighter side when he came on the Cavett show a second time. This time Dick Cavett walked off the stage in mock indignation and as a joke. Meanwhile, Lester Maddox qued the band and started singing “I Don’t Know Why I Love You”, and Dick Cavett came back on stage and joined in.
This morning the CBS show, Sunday Morning, did a segment on ancient archeological sites on land where Palestinians now live, but that were originally founded by Judaic people. These remote sites on the West Bank are being restored by the Israelis, but the restorations are a bone of political contention. Both sides apply a distorted political slant: The Israelis downplay the present and the Palestinians downplay the past.
Like Lester Maddox, the Israelis and the Palestinians only want to sanction the part of the narrative that suits them.
Proposed: Let’s stop doing that! It’s not productive!