The Nation published a poem by Anders Carlson-Wee called “How To.” Whether it’s a good poem is better decided by others, or perhaps by any reader individually. Whether it’s an insensitive poem, however, is decided for you.
As poetry editors, we hold ourselves responsible for the ways in which the work we select is received. We made a serious mistake by choosing to publish the poem “How-To.” We are sorry for the pain we have caused to the many communities affected by this poem. We recognize that we must now earn your trust back. Some of our readers have asked what we were thinking. When we read the poem we took it as a profane, over-the-top attack on the ways in which members of many groups are asked, or required, to perform the work of marginalization. We can no longer read the poem in that way.
After its publication, the editors were attacked for publishing such an “ableist” poem. It includes the word “crippled,” which is unmentionable in polite company. And like all people told they’re insensitive, the editors admitted guilty and repented, throwing themselves on the mercy of the mob. The mob, however, was not feeling particularly merciful.
At some point, all of us in the literary community must DEMAND that white editors resign. It’s time to STEP DOWN and hand over the positions of power. We don’t have to wait for them to fuck up. The fact that they hold these positions is fuck up enough.
This came from Fresno State’s Randa Jarrar. What “white editors” have to do with a putative “ableist” poem is unclear, but then, that could be my inability to see connections that are clear to pedagogues. Whether Jarrar is on the committee to tell us what poems are allowed is also unclear, as the membership is either a huge secret or changes with such speed that they can never make up a bronze plaque for their extraordinary service to humanity.
I might question Jarrar’s demand for “white editors” to resign, but I can’t without creating an internal conflict, Being white, being male, being privileged, the challenge itself is outrageous, no less the substance of the challenge.
I learned this early on, when a young female lawyer twitted something kinda inaccurate, to which I twitted a reply. The reaction was neither to agree nor disagree with my twit, but that I was a misogynist for question a woman. I, being a fool, pointed out that I was questioning a lawyer, regardless of gender. Protip: Never reply with reason to an ad hominem attack, as it only proves you’re sexism.
After Maggie Haberman wrote her NY Times op-ed about getting off twitter, my old pal Kevin O’Keefe wrote a post about it, arguing that the problem wasn’t twitter but the way Haberman was using it. Just so it’s clear for the thinking challenged, Kevin has a blog. Maggie writes for the NY Times. In the scheme of who had the bigger soap box, Maggie kicks Kevin’s butt.
And yet, a law librarian at Western State College of Law, Scott Frey, went after Kevin for the outrage.
This post strikes me as (1) mansplaining and (2) “blaming the victim.” By (1), I mean that I doubt you’re saying anything that (Pulitzer Prize winning reporter) Maggie Haberman doesn’t already know about Twitter. Also, I doubt that you’re a better judge of whether Haberman is or isn’t using Twitter well than she is. And by (2), I refer specifically to the concluding remark that she’s brought the bad parts of Twitter upon herself. Really?
There are two paradigms within which to assess this. In the first, person challenges the contentions of another person who published words in major newspaper. In the second, white cis-hetero-normative male undermines the lives experience of oppressed, yet superior, female survivor.
And Frey pursued the battle for a couple more comments, because no ally to the cause, clad in his white armour, should be complicit. Even thought Frey might be white, might be male, might be short of victim points for the purpose of winning the three-legged race, he can at least call out the outrage perpetrated by Kevin so that the trauma didn’t infest anyone else. Or, more likely, to educate him on how to be “better person,” because better people are woke people.
Can anyone be sufficiently sensitive to write a poem that is simultaneously meaningful and yet offended no maginalized person? Beats me. Will female lawyers win argument, maybe even cases, because questioning them, or, god forbid, ruling against them, is proof of misogyny?
Is the problem white editors, lacking Jarrar’s sensitivity to things Jarrar decides to be sensitive too?
Some will eventually come to realize that there is no pleasing, no accommodating, no amount of trying to be so very sensitive that you don’t come off looking like Scott Frey. The next realization is that we can’t change out skin color, aren’t really inclined to change our gender and, well, kinda like being our toxic selves. And unless you plan to shut up and serve the woker good in contrition for wrongs they may have suffered, even if not at your hand, you’re kinda left without many options.
So, write whatever you want in a poem. If someone doesn’t like it, tough nuggies.
Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I’m no poet like Fubar,
And I just don’t give a damn.
Neither should you.
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