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Keith Ellison

Keith Ellison

          “Unsubstantiated” physical and emotional abuse claims were levied against Keith Ellison days before his election for Minnesota Attorney General according to an October 27th Politico article (Choi). Ellison, who was the first Muslim member of Congress, claims the accusations are false and a law firm he hired reported them to be “unsubstantiated.” Interestingly enough, none of the other Democrat lawmakers from Minnesota rescinded their support for Ellison after hearing the allegations, despite their heavy involvement in the accusations and interrogation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) apparently only believes the survivor if they are accusing a political enemy. I don’t know whether or not the accusations against Ellison are true or not. The hypocrisy is wild to me, though. To steal from Rosemary Clark’s language in her article “Hope in a Hashtag,” it is absolutely necessary for “articulation to make visible the hegemonic, taken-for-granted power structures that infuse daily life” (791). A power structure that men in politics have is the automatic defense by your party against any accusations. This is shameless in some cases as we see the hypocrisy in Senators like Amy Klobuchar’s actions.

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White Punks on Hope

White Punks on Hope

          One of my favorite songs by the highly political 70s/80s British Punk band is “White Punks on Hope.” While many of their songs dealt with class, the monarchy, and war in the UK, “White Punks on Hope” dealt with both race and class. It is the position of the band and their lead singer, Steve Ignorant, that racial dividing lines were created by the upper-class to keep poor whites and poor blacks at their necks while they continue taking advantage of both groups. The lyrics of this song also target fellow punk bands who had taken to social justice. Crass criticized punk bands who “said because of racism they'd come out on the street; It was just a form of fascism for the socialist elite” (“White Punks on Hope”). “Coming out on the street” is a way of describing how the left and the right would both send their hooligans to pound on each other. To Crass, neither side’s hooligans were virtuous since, at the end of the day, you are serving the elite’s wishes for a disunified lower class.

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Personal Experience: Masculinity

Personal Experience: Masculinity

          I consider masculinity a very important aspect of manhood. What I found in many of my friends growing up, though, is that they were more interested in feeding carnal desires and putting up an image of what they thought was cool and masculine. The true form of being a man in the traditional sense was gone. Raising a family, not cheating, providing for your loved ones…All these ideas were tacky and “cookie cutter.” Zimdars described the new image of masculinity.

For example, Ann Johnson argues that “The Man Show” (1999–2004) rejects the notion of the “new man” in favor of reclaiming a hypermasculine space by celebrating chauvinism, sexually objectifying women, attacking powerful and iconic women, dismissing feminist demands, and silencing women both figuratively and literally (Zimdars 280).

I have always found it more appealing to marry a girl in my early/mid-twenties. This idea repulsed a lot of my “hypermasculine” friends who wanted to sleep around till their early thirties at the earliest. They think this is cool and completely erase any feeling of anxiety at the notion of growing old, fat, and weak without finding “the one.”

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“Gods of the Copybook Headings”

“Gods of the Copybook Headings”

          Two of my favorite poems are by English poet, Rudyard Kipling. Besides having the coolest name ever, Kipling wrote amazing stories, novels, and poems. The poem “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” is especially impactful. To summarize in a painfully short manner, the Gods of the copybook headings are a metaphor for age old adages and the inherent truths in them that have stood the test of time. These Gods stand opposite the gods of the marketplace. These marketplace gods stand for the abandonment of conventional wisdom for ideas that sound nice and pleasant but aren’t realistic. The conventional wisdom of the Gods of the copybook headings, when forsaken, draws the wrath of the Gods of the copybook headings upon the arrogant people. This has happened, according to Kipling, several times throughout human history. At the end of the Poem, Kipling states that there have only been “four things certain since Social Progress began” (Kipling “Gods of the Copybook Headings). He ends the poem by explaining these four things:

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire; And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire; And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins; When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins; As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn; The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return! (ibid).

This is, in many ways, how I feel about the social progress we talk about in class and in our book/readings. For so much progress to happen so quickly, I fear that we are departing from tradition based on emotion of what we feel is moral rather than what is real. I find it extremely arrogant for the modern man and woman to look upon our ancestors as immoral and bigoted while simultaneously believing we are making the world better; that we won’t be seen as the same as them one day. I fear that reality, being the Gods of the Copybook Headings, will return just as Kipling warns should we not be careful of what we do with all this progress and where we go next with it.

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Jake Tapper and Chris Cuomo

    In a segment on Chris Cuomo’s show on CNN, fellow CNN host Don Lemon was distraught over racially motivated attacks on two black people in Kentucky and a synagogue in Pittsburgh (Bever). He said that white men are the biggest terror threat to the United States among other incendiary comments about the white race’s male population (ibid). Chris Cuomo agreed with Lemon and said that he was making all the right points (ibid). Lemon, a black man, feels that white men are the most dangerous part of the United States and doubled down on his comments later in the week by suggesting we “put emotion aside and look at the cold hard facts. The evidence is overwhelming" (ibid). The evidence he is citing is a study by the Government Accountability Office that states the number of attacks from far-right violent extremists since September 12th in the United States at 62 with a death toll of 109 (ibid). Ironically, Lemon, who is so sure that the evidence is behind him, only looks at the number of attacks rather than deaths. Terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims since 9/11 are responsible for 119 deaths in 23 attacks (ibid). Of course, if you include the Islamic attack on September 11th, the death count is 3,096 dead Americans. Even without 9/11, Muslims have still killed more Americans than right-wing whites, despite the Muslim population in the United States making up less than 2% of the population and the white population being closer to 70% depending on the poll.

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Fun with Dick and Jane (2005)

Often seen as just a fun movie done by Jim Carrey, Fun with Dick and Jane taps on several interesting notes. Set right after a financial collapse, an upper-middle-class man with a white-collar job, played by Jim Carrey, finds himself without a job (Fun with Dick and Jane). While the expenses continue, the income ceases. He and his wife tighten their belt and even start selling off possessions like TVs as their pool construction stops and their newly planted sod is repossessed due to bounced checks and failed payments (ibid). Hilarity ensues when the couple resorts to stealing as to keep the lights on and save some face in their highly judgmental, middle/ upper-class white friend group (ibid). While the entire plot is an inspection of socio-economic culture, there is another interesting point of the movie. Their house-maid is a Hispanic immigrant and acts as a governess for their son (ibid). This isn’t a hugely important part of the movie but it is a fascinating fold when looking at the household with an intersectional lens.

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Works Cited

Works Cited:

Bever, Lindsey. “CNN's Don Lemon Doubles down after Saying White Men Are 'the Biggest

Terror Threat in This Country'.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 1 Nov. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2018/10/31/cnn-host-don-lemon-said-white-men-are-biggest-terror-threat-this-country/?utm_term=.159f822be9da.

 Choi, Matthew, et al. “Keith Ellison Reeling after Abuse Allegations.” POLITICO, 27 Oct. 2018,

www.politico.com/story/2018/10/27/keith-ellison-abuse-allegations-minnesota-ag-2018-943086.

 Clark, Rosemary. “‘Hope in a Hashtag’: The Discursive Activism of #WhyIStayed.” Feminist

Media Studies, vol. 16, no. 5, 22 Jan. 2016, pp. 788–804., doi:10.1080/14680777.2016.1138235.

 Crass. “White Punks on Hope.” Stations of the Crass, Crass Records, 1979.

 Fun with Dick and Jane. Directed by Dean Parisot, Performances by Jim Carrey, Téa Leoni,

Alec Baldwin, and Richard Jenkins, Columbia Pictures, 2005.

 The Kinks. “Living on a Thin Line.” Word of Mouth, Arista, 1985. Written by Dave Davies.

 Kipling, Rudyard. “Gods of the Copybook Headings.” 1919.

 Kitts, Thomas; Kraus, Michael. Living on a Thin Line: Crossing Aesthetic Borders with the

Kinks. Rock 'n' Roll Research Press, 2002. Pp. 71-72.

 “Tinderbox: Part 2.” NCS: Manhunt, Season 2, Written by Malcolm McKay, directed by Michael

Whyte. BBC Home Entertainment, 2002.

 Zimdars, Melissa. “Having It Both Ways: Two and a Half Men, Entourage, and Televising Post-

Feminist Masculinity.” Feminist Media Studies, vol. 18, no. 2, 4 Apr. 2017, pp. 278–293., doi:10.1080/14680777.2017.1308411.

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Summary

I wanted to approach this project with a different take than what we see in class. My environment in which I grew up greatly determines a lot of my viewpoints and has shaped my opinions greatly. At the end of the day, I found this a very challenging assignment and I did not give myself nearly enough time to do it justice. I spent a lot of time on an artifact that I eventually threw out. It was a very personal piece about my mother and I and feminism that brought me to tears. 

This project has made me think a lot about the media I consume and how that language is sermonic no matter what the platform. The bands I listen to usually don’t share my worldview and when I do find someone just slightly representative of my opinions, I tend to learn everything I can about them. I tried using a broad range of artifacts from movies, to the news, to songs, to poems. Some of the artifacts that I have mentioned, like the Kipling poem, for example, have shaped my views dramatically. 

Media is a large part of that environment I mention that shapes us into who we are and what we believe. Poetry is not excluded. I was especially proud of my bit about Kipling’s poem since it is a very intense poem and I feel that I explained it well in the limited space that I had. I did my best to describe it, even though I could go on all day about the nuances and verbiage used. 

My intro to rhetoric class helped me think through a lot of the thoughts that I expressed in this. None of them are firm and they often change when I’m presented by what I perceive to be more common sense even though “common sense” is in and of itself a subjective screen.

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“I am an Englishman” Scene

In the fourth episode of season two of the brief BBC series, “NCS: Manhunt,” a speech is given by one of the characters portraying a “right-wing extremist.” The scene depicting the speech in the episode called “Tinderbox: Part 2” featured a man who claimed to speak on behalf of his relatives, deceased and alive, whom he had been tracking down and contacting over the years. He counted “seven called George, and five called Victoria” and spoke longingly of a time when is home, London or “London Towne” as he refers it, was not filled by foreigners. The speech, much like “Living on a Thin Line,” is filled with frustration of a working-class English man.

My gripe is that we were never asked. My gripe is that we were told, not asked, and every day we are told again and again how we are to be and how our country is to be. We are told by them, and we know who they are, they’re English too. They are the class that has always set themselves apart, they are the class that has always taken what they wanted for themselves, and now they are the class that is giving England away. They have never asked us, and they never will (Tinderbox: Part 2).

The orator, played by Marc Warren, is a man named Lawrence Bright and he reflects a lot of the same concerns that sparked UKIP’s (United Kingdom Independence party) rise to popularity and the BREXIT movement.

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“Living on a Thin Line” by The Kinks

One of my favorite songs by the English rock band, The Kinks, is “Living on a Thin Line.” This song is featured on the 1984 album, Word of Mouth, and was written by Kinks guitarist Dave Davies. Davies, one of Rolling Stone’s top 100 guitarists of all time, resented British politicians of the age and how, in his view, they were letting his nation be destroyed (Kitts & Kraus 71). The lyrics of the song, while hidden among guitar strums and melodious back-up vocals, are full of frustration at the seemingly useless wars that were won and lost by the band’s ancestors and countrymen. In the second verse of “Living on a Thin Line”, Davies asks “what are we gonna leave for the young?” This concern for his future countrymen is heavily rooted in class since the upper-class, regardless of the racial makeup of England, would be fine. This is an intersection between race and class for the band. This line is followed by a lyrical conversation where he is struggling to determine whether the future state of his nation really matters at all.

What we couldn’t do, what we wouldn’t do; it’s a crime, but does it matter? Does it matter much, does it matter much to you? Does it ever really matter? Yes, it really, really matters (The Kinks, “Living on a Thin Line”).

In England, where class is a large source of conflict, the working class have fought and died in every war that the monarchy and the companies have told them to. Now, after all of that, they are being replaced by low wage labor from countries and cultures so foreign to their own, it makes one question why they fought and died for the land they will pass on to their children.