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Notes from a Boy @ The Window

Tag Archives: Discourse

Irksome American Conversations on Gender & Race With “Impact”

31 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, culture, Eclectic, Marriage, Politics, Pop Culture, race

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"Impact", "Impacted", American Conversations, Bigotry, Cliches, Discourse, Feminism, Interracial Marriage, Interracial Relationships, News Media, Platitudes, Racism, Social Media, Strong Women


Wonder Woman, October 30, 2012. (http://tvequals.com).

I’ve wanted to write about this one for a few months now. Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy or not, this one is important to me. The fact that so much of our discourse in traditional media, social media and everyday conversation remains so much more about cliché commentary than about any exploration of the meaning behind the words we say.

I’ve already looked at the laziness that a monopolized media has created in the world of journalism (see my recent post “The Make-Believe Media” from earlier this month). But this is about more than the “both sides do it” media world. It’s about the contradictions between the style in which we use our words and the substance within. The reality behind our words, then, becomes buried, and has made us all a little bit more ignorant in the process.

For me, three random examples stand out:

“We Can Do It!” – Rosie the Riveter poster [1942], by J. Howard Miller, October 30, 2012 (Wikipedia). In public domain.

1. “I’m a strong woman” – This could also be “I’m a smart woman,” or “I’m a bitch,” or “I’m a tough woman,” or a hundred other phrases I see every day on Twitter or hear in our public discourse. Even if this is meant to show some sort of feminist solidarity, it seems trite to proclaim strength as part of a conversation about gender (or any other topic, for that matter). I learned my lesson more than thirty years ago, courtesy of Crush #1, at the ripe old age of twelve, to not spend so much of my time telling people how smart I was (see my “Was I Really In Love In 7th Grade?” post from March ’12).

Really, how weird would it sound for me at six-three and 230 pounds to say that “I’m a strong man?” Or in commenting about all the abuse I survived, that “I’m a tough man?” I think that most of us can recognize a strong, tough, intelligent woman without the use of underwhelming language. I think most of us regardless of gender genuinely admire women who are who they are without saying the words all day and every day. To slightly misquote the name of the foundation that Lance Armstrong just stepped down from, just live strong, be strong and stay strong, and tell others females (and occasionally males) to do the same.

2. “Interracial/multiracial marriages are on the rise” = a less racist/post-racial America – Yeah, if there hadn’t been a long history of grossly unequal interracial relationships in this country for the previous two hundred years prior to the late ’80s.  This isn’t to say that the average American citizen isn’t less bigoted or racist than they would’ve been thirty years ago. But a sexual or even marital bond doesn’t automatically mean a lack of prejudice. It certainly doesn’t mean a massive empathy for and participation in social justice and other human rights causes. Just like with any relationship or marriage, people from different ethnic backgrounds can also come together for all the wrong reasons, can be abusive, and can even be racist.

Mildred Loving and Richard Loving (famous for landmark Supreme Court Loving v. Virginia (1967) miscegnation case), January 26, 1965. (AP). Qualifies as fair use under US Copyright laws – subject of post and no other photos available.

Making an exception for a few Whites, Blacks, Latinos or Asians as an individual doesn’t mean that one doesn’t generally view Whites as racist, Blacks as intellectually inferior, Latinos as “illegals” or Asians as “model minorities.” The fact that interracial marriages have been on the rise for nearly thirty years merely proves that the taboo against these marriages has broken down, not that the nation isn’t divided around the issue of race.

Manny Pacquiao v. Antonio Margarito (true meaning of the verb “impact”), Arlington, TX, November 13, 2010. (AP via http://9run.ca).

3. The growing use of impact as a verb and an adverb: Whether “impact,” “impacted,” “impacting,” or “impactful,” most of the time, this term is used incorrectly, especially in terms of politics. Take the use of impact during the 2012 Presidential Election cycle. “Nothing has impacted the 2012 race more than Romney’s 47% tape.” Really? Did someone take the recording and literally hit Mitt Romney in the head with it until he was rendered unconscious? If that didn’t occur, then the correct sentence would be “Nothing has had more of an impact on the 2012 race than Romney’s 47% tape.”

It’s as if journalists, reporters, pundits, commentators, intellectuals and scholars have forgotten that there are other, better words in the English language to use than impact. Like “affect,” or “effect,” or “influence,” or “sway,” or “transform,” or “change.” There are NFL color commentators and WWE announcers who use the word impact more correctly than most in the news and social media worlds. But this incorrect overuse is apparently here to stay, affecting and infecting our already ignorant use of language.

All of these uses of language irk me, because if we are to ever have real discussions of serious issues, we need our language to have real substance to it. Not just platitudes and clichés that wouldn’t survive Fashion Avenue if they took the form of a dress.

Dumb, Discussion

31 Thursday Mar 2011

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Christianity, culture, Eclectic, eclectic music, Movies, music, Patriotism, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion, Sports

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"Evil Empire", "White Discussion", Barack Obama, Bill Maher, Bill O"Reilly, Derrick Rose, Derrick Rose Dunk, Discourse, Discussion, Egypt, FOX News, Glenn Beck, Japan, Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Libya, Live, Military Intervention, Modern Journalism, Montage, MSNBC, Obfuscation, Political Correctness, Political Corruption, President Obama, President Reagan, Protests, Public Discourse, Real Time with Bill Maher, Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin, Speeches, Talk Shows, Talking Heads, The O'Reilly Factor, Tsunami, Wisconsin


Inspired by my friends Catherine Lugg (see her recent comments about the Obama Administration and their ignoring of the unemployed) and James Lee via Facebook (running a one-man crusade on our government’s daily hypocrisy), and my Twitter folk, the video above is for all of you. It is my montage to the past thirty years of obfuscation, dissembling, exaggeration, plausible deniability, and spittle-laden spin that is our everyday news and politics. Or, as the post-grunge band Live would say in their “White, Discussion,” (1994) the “decibels of this disenchanting discourse continue to dampen the day/the coin flips again and again and again and again, as our sanity walks away.”

So I put six minutes of video together from President Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech (1983), a YouTube video “A Tour of Detroit’s Ghetto” from camosilver, and a couple of pictures I took from the Rally to Restore Sanity here in DC back in October. Along with clips from:

  • The Daily Show (with Jon Stewart eviscerating Bernie Goldberg and FOX News via “gospel,” April 20, ’10)
  • Real Time with Bill Maher (one with Keith Olbermann from last year, the other from a couple of weeks ago calling Rep. Ellison’s religion [Islam] one “filled with hate”)
  • Glenn Beck’s insanity on FOX News
  • The O’Reilly Factor
  • Sarah Palin being interviewed by Chris Wallace on FOX News last year
  • ITN’s coverage of the tsunami in northeast Japan earlier this month
  • Protests in Egypt after January 25 (Russian TV)
  • The protests in Madison, Wisconsin at the end of February (Russian TV)
  • Rachel Maddow’s “Home of the Whopper” segment from the Fall ’10 election cycle (MSNBC)
  • The infamous Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson clip accusing all left-of-center folk of causing 9/11 (CBN)
  • President Obama’s Libya speech from Monday evening, March 28 (PBS).

Now I’ve given credit where credit is due and claim fair use under US copyright laws. But if our American public discourse doesn’t look dumb after watching it with Live’s “White, Discussion” playing in the background, I’d dare say that you’ll need to see an optometrist as soon as possible. In fact, I think we all need to get our brains, ears and eyes checked after three decades of being dummied down.

P.S. Also meant to give credit to NBA and Derrick Rose for a clip of his dunk against the Phoenix Suns last year.

My Father and Conservatives

13 Tuesday Apr 2010

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, culture, Eclectic, Politics, Pop Culture, race

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Tags

Debate, Discourse, Jimme, NBA on TNT, Parody, Politics, Race


This particular post may be a bit much for some of you. So this is a warning. There are some verbal bombs in this posting. It’s a “What-If?” post about a hypothetical interview between me and my father. My father, though, at the height of his alcoholism, when even on his best days, Miller Beer wasn’t far from his mind. This pseudo-interview would be me as if I was Ernie Johnson as anchor for the NBA on TNT with Charles Barkley, being played by my drunken father from the second half of the ’80s. The topic? The last couple of years of the Conservative Movement, specifically its response to the presidency of Barack Obama and its obsession with spreading fear and fomenting violence, as if Armageddon were on our very doorstep. Remember: you’ve been forewarned.

So I asked, “Do you think the changing conservative movement has been a positive influence on Americans in the past two years?”

My father: “That Reagan a good man dere, but most of those dum muddafuckin’ conservatives don’t know shit. Reagan think you dumb asses too, and he dead! I’m tired of yo’ muddafuckin’ asses sayin’ a bunch of stupid shit all the time! You tea baggers need to go bag some the fuck else where! You dum muddafuckas, and I’m tired of yo’ shit! I beat yo’ ass and keep beatin’ yo’ ass, you dum muddafuckas!” Father Files 1.April 2010

Me: “Wow! I mean, are you in the camp of those progressives and other folks who’ve been using the text messaging acronym STFU in their comments about the Tea Party and other reactionary conservatives? Do you really think that they deserve this kind of language and response?”

My father: “I’m a big shot muddafucka. I make fitty million dollas a week. Look at dis dum lookin’ muddafucka conservative — dat dum muddafucka cain’t do shit fo’ me! Muddafucka! Got thoughts nobody want! I buy an’ sell muddafuckas ’round here! I kick yo’ muddafuckin’ stupid ass! And I’m da boss of the bosses. No conservative tell me what ta do. You conservatives don’t know shit!” Father Files 2.April 2010

Me: “Well, okay. Do you have any final words for the folks who have become part of the post-Obama conservative movement, or do you really care about this at all?”

My father: “You dum muddafuckin’ conservatives — su my dict! You dum muddafuckas. I don’ giv’ no money to no dum muddafuckin’ conservative. If you a conservative, I don’ want you ’round me. You betta get the fuck outta here!” Father Files 3.April 2010

Hopefully most of you laughed and weren’t too offended. Still, I have a few points to make regarding this. Our language toward each other has become so coarse and rough that we sound like my father when he was in his mid-forties, drinking many more days than not, and angry at the world. We’ve reached the point where most of us — me included — refuse to take the high road. In our language or actions. The Tea Party or other conservatives who’ve become like rabid dogs really don’t have anything to say. Which is why President Obama is a Nazi/Communist/Socialist tyrant (by the way, all educated Blacks who are too uppity are Communists, going all the way back to World War I ). Or why health care reform is a form of terrorism, alternative energy the downfall of American civilization, and talking with the world the road to Hell itself.  Many of these folks are — dare I say it — closeted bigots who were crushed by Obama’s election in ’08. But we live in an era in which racism should never be mentioned, especially by people who look like me. So I’m saying it anyway.

But for progressives to respond with STFU across Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere? Conservatives, even bigoted ones who are tea-baggers and part of the birther movement, have the right to spout their idiotic ideology. I have a bit of experience with the bizarre form of Afrocentric Judaism that I grew up with or listening to folks spew their venom toward Whites in the form of Melanin Theory in the ’90s. We gain little to nothing with verbal bombs the equivalent of being in a bar with your blitzed father on East 241st Street in the Bronx in ’84 or ’85.

I must admit, though, that this hypothetical conversation (based on far too many real ones between ’82 and ’97) made me laugh a few sheepish laughs. Not of approval, but of understanding. Understanding that not everyone can maintain civility at all times. Certainly not me, and certainly not the likes of Tiger Woods. But try we must, even if the other side’s foaming at the mouth. Others, hopefully, will see that those who are foaming are in need of a rabies shot.

Boy @ The Window: A Memoir

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