This appeared here. My thanks to Mary for allowing me to publish
here work. RK
While reading the engrossing biography of National
Review publisher William Rusher, If Not Us, Who? by David Frisk,
Dissident Prof came across this reference to William F. Buckley’s opinion of
the Beatles: as “‘so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so
dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art’” that they were “’the crowned
heads of anti-music.’”
It’s hard to stand against the universal acclaim of
the Beatles and Dissident Prof is glad to hear she shares the good company of
WFB. The Beatles’ early songs were poor imitations of American rock ‘n roll.
Like many in the 1960s, they thought they were inspiring the folk, with their
songs that turned out to be sappy, insipid, and imitative.
She prefers the squares of the time who sang of what
they knew: cheatin’ hearts and lonesomeness: Conway Twitty, Tammy Wynette,
Charlie Price, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Ray Price, and Hank Williams. And not
one word about world peace.
The Beatles appealed to rich white kids, who wanted to
lead “the people” through a cultural shift. Many who had never had to work with
their hands or leave the Upper East Side decided to study the history of the
South, which for them never changed from the opinion the SDS and SNCC had when
they decided they would awaken the blacks from their religious delusions and
beat the ignorant white hayseeds and debutantes with charges of “white
privilege.” Then these coddled youth got tenure or went to work for the New
York Times and provided each other their deep thoughts about such issues as
Trayvon Martin and Paula Deen.
Is it surprising that all the professors interviewed
for the New York Times article,
“Paula Deen’s Cook Tells of Slights, Steeped in History,” concurred that her
behavior points to evidence of a South still mired in racism?
When did reporters
stop reporting the news? Kim Severson, instead of reporting on the facts of the
case, has to impose on the reader the description of the relationship between
Deen and former employee Dora Charles as “a complex one, laced with history and
deep affection, whose roots can be traced to the antebellum South. . . . it
illustrates lives of racial inequity or benevolence.”
To affirm her assessment, Severson turns to Jessica B.
Harris, “a culinary scholar,” who said that Deen and Charles are “characters in
a story that has been played out since slaves started cooking for whites.”
Hodding Carter III, public policy professor at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, affirms Severson’s assessment that
the “power imbalances on race” have a particular “historical resonance” in the
South.
Marcie Ferris, “a professor who coordinates the
Southern studies program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,”
concurs, “’It points to the fact that race is at the heart of Southern food and
you can’t avoid it.’”
Really? Have any of these people been to an expensive
restaurant in Atlanta recently? Have they seen who is dining and who is
serving? Have they seen who is working in the kitchen? Have they, for that
matter, ever had to work in a restaurant themselves?
Continuing the theme of Southern racism and “white
rage” is University of Buffalo (SUNY) history professor Carole Emberton, who
uses the Trayvon Martin case to weigh in with the theme of her book, Beyond
Redemption: Race, Violence, and the American South after the Civil War at
the History
News Network. She begins by disputing the claim of pundits that
“fear is at the heart of the matter” in the case of “the murder of Trayvon
Martin.” The emotion with greater “historical valence” is “rage.” As evidence,
she points to George Zimmerman’s use of profanity to describe what he thought
was another burglar in his neighborhood. Imagine! Being angry about break-ins
in your neighborhood! Such rage or anger at people breaking into houses, in the
professor’s estimation, is evidence of racism on the same order as lynchings
during Reconstruction (as the photo accompanying the article indicates). She
ends her analysis by comparison with the 1867 example of Peter Marang, a black
man who was falsely accused of stealing two barrels of turpentine by Ely Faulk,
a white man. He was shot in the back by Faulk, who then skipped town and did
not need to face “justice for his actions.” The historian leaves readers with
this: “Faulk did not need a law codifying his right to ‘stand his ground’ when
confronted by an inferior being; it was inherent in the culture of the post-war
South. When I think of what it means to be afraid, I think of Peter Marang. . .
and Trayvon Martin.”
If this analysis of “white rage” enrages you then you
must be a racist, according to these historians.
In the historians estimations, the “legacy” of racism
in the South means that anyone who hires a black person for less than what the
boss is making, that anyone who does not vote Democrat, that anyone who does
not believe that a less-qualified person should get the scholarship or job that
you don’t need, that anyone who thinks that sometimes when a “white Hispanic”
kills a black person it might be in self-defense, is a racist.
If you don’t know that you’re a racist, please ask a
historian.
And of course if you are a College Republican who
doesn’t support our first-ever white-black president it must mean you are a
racist…or at least a “security threat,” and that’s why you can’t enter an event
at the University of Central Missouri, where the
president is speaking--even though you got tickets and paid your tuition and
fees. The t-shirts emblazoned with tea party slogans, Republican symbols, and
patriotic motifs, apparently, scared security. Right.
Furthermore, if you write a headline that is
"rude" to the president, insinuations will come your way from Jim Galloway and you will be fired. And always
remember what happened to Paula Deen (and remember that she supported Barack
Obama) and remember Trotsky.
Speaking of Trotsky, don’t try to keep Marxist
propaganda by Howard Zinn out of teachers colleges as Mitch Daniels tried to do
while governor of Indiana. After much commentary about “censorship” and puffing
about Daniels’ lack of academic credentials, the professors of the American
Historical Association sent an open letter. Even leftist critics of Zinn’s
history turned to defend Zinn and denounce Daniels for stepping out of line.
Exiled is Book-of-the-Month in Phyllis Schlafly’s Education
Reporter. The book offers first-hand accounts of how the cabal of radical
professors keep out those who dare question their views. Dissident Prof is
proud of the mention.
History departments are full of people who cannot
think beyond stereotypes and clichés and provide quotes for the equally vapid
New York Times reporter to puff out the piece that begins with a false premise.
All the cant about admitting women and minorities was
a ruse, for only the women and minorities whose thinking runs along the tracks
of the radicals are allowed in.
The radicals are bent on destroying philosophy
departments, which, like science and math departments, attract more men than
women. So Georgia State University has imposed a quota, mandating that all
instructors increase the number of female philosophers on the syllabus to
at least 20 percent, as Inside Higher Ed reports. So how to appeal to those who
are not drawn to philosophy? Change philosophy! What will happen is that
philosophy departments will turn into women’s studies departments, with the
subject matter trivialized. Dissident Prof saw it happen in an English
department when to fulfill quotas, a professor added a popular female novelist
of the nineteenth century to the syllabus. She remembers a class discussion
that ensued about umbrellas and dresses.
She also remembers delightful afternoons at the
University of Georgia in philosophy seminars, where she joined about twenty men
and one other woman in discussions about the dialogues of Socrates that went
well over class time.
This is a plot to change and destroy philosophy, long
an object of feminists’ ire. Socrates will be replaced by Martha
Nussbaum, and even worse.
I don’t think Plato would approve. Nor would he
approve of the Beatles. My marketing director will not approve because after alienating rap music fans at the forum at
Kennesaw State University in April, I’ve now managed to probably alienate
Beatles’ fans, approximately 95 percent of the world population, alas.
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