Friday, January 28, 2011

Symbolism outside of literature is a largely masturbatory exercise

   At the MLK Day event after the march (see previous post), there were a series of speakers onstage alongside the soft rock, interracial band. The topic of these speakers was that they were lobbying to rename the bridge where Martin Luther King Boulevard goes over Interstate 35 as the J.J. Seabrook Bridge, after J.J. Seabrook, who along with a group of others lobbied for renaming 19th Street as "MLK Boulevard". What the others in this lobbying group did not do, however, is have a fatal heart attack shortly after working for the renaming, almost certainly for unrelated reasons. And apparently, though it comes as a great surprise to me, dying makes you a more moral person than staying alive, even when other actions performed are the same.

   I have no problem with the act itself of renaming a street to anything that is not obscene. It's the city's and citizens' business what they want their street signs to read. That is not the issue I have. What I found annoying was the immense self-congratulatory remarks the speakers at this event were making because they were changing the name of a part of a street to a allegedly great African-American leader. One might have thought they were ending racial inequality entirely by the way they were figuratively shaking each other's hands. And all this because of the great 'symbolism' of renaming this bridge. This symbolism, they professed, was to be an important and great accomplishment, something that really matters a great deal.

   This is where I feel that a few words about what I think about symbolism should be expressed. Symbolism is most useful in literature, and, to a lesser extent, in other forms of media, to say things in fiction without saying them outright. The primary reasons for this are either to avoid social censure for discussing the actual topic or to convince the reader of something that they might not otherwise accept using an analogy, which is the third most effective form of argument (More on effective arguing at some later date.) And sometimes, writers use symbolism just for fun.

   Symbolism in action, however, is, as the title of this post says, a largely masturbatory exercise. What does that mean? It means that it is an activity that has no other result than providing pleasure to oneself. In this way, while the people behind naming the J.J. Seabrook Bridge may feel that they have made a difference, their actions had no practical effects. Will black children with reading problems suddenly have increased literacy when they see the sign for J.J. Seabrook Bridge? Will a racist employer decide to finally hire a black employee once he drives over a road named after a black man? No, these will not happen, and I am not positing that the proponents of these renaming measure would say that these would be the case. Rather, I suspect that they are subscribing to the argument that having a public work named after a black man will inspire black students and allow them to look into the world and see something that is marginally more reflective of their own skin color. Whether or not this argument is valid, it is insufficient to justify the act. This a line from comedian Chris Rock that says that every city has a MLK street and that street is a violent and rundown area. When it comes right down to it, I would rather spend the money it would cost to rename a street toward building a community center (or some-such) for that same neighborhood.

So my position is: Rename the bridge if you want but see it for what it is— an exclusively symbolic and therein, largely masturbatory exercise.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Marching for Irony

I went to the Martin Luther King march during the previous holiday. Although it was an interesting experience, I was concerned and amused by the many ironies present at the event, and the implications of these ironies.
Here are a few:
1. Many people brought their dogs along with them and many police officers were present both around and in the march. Whereas MLK and his fellow marchers often clashed with police. Often, members of law enforcement would beat down and arrest protesters. Along with nightsticks, smoke grenades and fire hoses, police officers would often sic dogs upon protesters.

2. Before the march and at the festival after the march, there was an overwhelmingly large presence of public officials. During MLK's time, the movement was against the people in power (and the segregation laws they supported); now, the people in power are part of the movement.

3. Even the professed messages were filled with irony. There was an official making a speech who said something to the effect of "This is not a holiday based on consumption like so many other holidays." However, at the end of the march, when we arrived at a celebration ground, what did we see? - with the exception of a band and a children's area, there was only food trucks and people trying to sell us stuff. Make no mistake— All American holidays are about consumption, at least to some degree. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing, but no matter how you feel about it, it's important to be honest about consumerism's role.

4.There were a surprisingly large number of kids of various ages playing around, which there isn't anything wrong with inherently, but is implicative of what MLK Day marches have come to represent. Consider that the marches of King were serious affairs where people would get beaten up by the police and arrested for trying to gain basic human rights. The joviality of children just demonstrates how much loss of gravity these events have taken on.

5. Also demonstrative of the holiday's departure from its original meaning is the preponderance of people marching for a cause other than the racial equality that King advocated for. The causes I saw were mostly liberal concepts as well: There were banners advocating a universal living wage and a high school, and people were handing out socialist fliers and fliers to other events.

6. What perhaps bothers me the most was the repeated and Christian religiousness of the whole affair. There were at least 2 prayers by Baptist ministers (alongside other minister speakers) which ended with the phrase "In Jesus' Name" While I aware that King was a minister, many of the people he marched with were not Christians. Of some note, a few somewhat famous rabbis marched alongside King himself. Additionally, I guarantee you that not everyone in the crowd was Christian. As a non-Christian myself, I felt the inclusion of an exclusionary prayer as part of the official docket made me feel unwelcome.
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So what are we to make of this Martin Luther King Day March? There were 1000s of people marching and at the event afterwards, a larger group of people than I have ever been a part of, all people, to some degree, coming together to celebrate a great man's life and racial equality. But because of the reasons stated above, I believe the event has been warped from its original purpose and has become almost entirely meaningless.