On the suspension of intercollegiate sports in the US

Last week, the Ivy League universities suspended all sports until January 2021, with the most prominent suspension, of course, being the football teams. Given the current trends in the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, this decision is entirely reasonable. But as an American who has lived in Europe since 1991, held teaching jobs at a German and a Swiss university, and watched my son play youth soccer for eight years, I think American colleges and universities should not even have sports teams, or at least no intercollegiate competition. In Europe, higher education doesn't provide amateur minor leagues for professional sports; the clubs themselves provide training and competition for young athletes. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 16 July)

Women as "rational creatures" in Austen and Wollstonecraft

When Elizabeth Bennet rejects Mr. Collins's proposal in Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", she urges him to believe what she says: "Do not consider me now as an elegant female [...], but as a rational creature [...]." That same phrase also appears in "Persuasion" when Mrs. Croft chides her brother, Captain Wentworth: "[...] I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures." This marks Austen's women – and Austen herself – as readers of Mary Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of the Rights of Women", who calls for society to educate women and allow them to be "rational creatures, and free citizens". (Andrew Shields, #111words, 15 July)

Poems by Andrew Shields published online in 2019

I had occasion to produce this list the other day (for the Basel English Department's annual report), so I thought I'd share it here to as an anthology of poems I published in 2019).

Poems published online in 2019

Andrew Shields

 

Bonnie's Crew: 23 Resolutions for the Old Year

Bravearts Africa: Sand Castle

Cabinet of Heed: You Ful I

Crossways Magazine: A Few Quick Lines

Dodging the Rain: A Walk Along The Shore, Itinerary, Satisfaction

Eunoia Review: Almond; Choir Boy; Driftwood; Getting Yahweh's Goat;  Emergencies; Save the Tigers

Hypnopomp: Crosswalk, Menetekel

Ink, Sweat and Tears: Rhine Swim

Inverse Journal: Hearsay; Pick a Card; Pit Bull on the Twelfth Floor

London Grip: Numerology; Sidewalk

Marias et Sampaguitas: Grasshopper; Late For A Very Important; This One's On The House

Picaroon Poetry: Stop, Look, Listen

Poetica Review: September Street

Poetry Pacific: Poet Spam, Two Small Snowmen Discuss the Skiing Conditions

Rasputin: Bench, I Dreamed Tom Waits Killed His Brother, Thunder

Runcible Spoon: At A Loss, Eggs

Street Light Press: Detour, Face Paint, New Life Stories

The Drabble: October; Neither Nor

The High Window: Quarters

The Poetry Village: Wings

Unlikely Stories: Does It Take A Village?; Jesus Confetti; Wherever You Are

Wellington Street Review: At Least That Moment

Yes, Poetry: Conditions

"No means yes" in "Pride and Prejudice"

When Elizabeth Bennet rejects Mr. Collins's proposal in Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", he responds that "it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept." And though she never gives in, she does counter his claim that his patroness Lady Catherine de Burgh would approve of Elizabeth. That is, she offers him a reason for not marrying him, and he thinks that Elizabeth would say "yes" if it weren't for that reason. In other words, "no, because" means "yes, but" – and that's why men, to this day, produce variations on his ridiculous claim that "when she says no, she means yes." (Andrew Shields, #111words, 14 July)

"Politically correct", "treating people with respect", "being polite to people"

I like replacing "political correctness" with "treating people with respect", as in this altered Donald Trump quote from 2015: "The big problem this country has is treating people with respect." It fits, because his political ascent began with birtherism and thus with disrespect for Barack Obama. Or there's this version: "I think the big problem this country has is being polite to people." Etymologically, the pun on "political" and "polite" doesn't work: "political" comes from the Greek for "citizen"; "polite" from the Latin for "polish". Yet people challenged for being PC are often from disrespected groups, and those challenging them apparently see "PC people" as lacking the "polish" of proper "citizens". (Andrew Shields, #111words, 13 July)

Revealing comments by Trump supporters after the President wears a mask

After President Trump wore a mask during a visit to Walter Reed Hospital (thus turning the visit into a photo op), his supporters, who mocked Joe Biden for wearing a mask and looking silly, are now complimenting Trump for looking good and saying things like this: "Now that Trump finally wore a mask in public, is this the part where liberals CANCEL masks and make the case for how terrible they are?" Nobody's turning against masks because Trump wore one, but his supporters project their reading of everything in terms of Trump onto the "liberals" and call it "Trump derangement syndrome". Such comments make clear who is actually "deranged" by Trump. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 12 July)

"What one poem meant the most to you as a teenager?"

On Twitter, A. M. Juster asks, "What one poem meant the most to you as a teenager?" The responses are full of passion about poems that we found – or that found us – in our teens. The beautiful list is full of wonderful poems, but it led me to not a literary but a sociological observation: so many of these early favorites are by white men. If we get drawn into poetry at all, many of us first do so in school, so we can only discover our love for poetry through "what is found there" – not only what is found in the poems, but also what poems are found in schools. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 11 July)

https://twitter.com/amjuster/status/1281909917457186817?s=20

"No man shall suffer for the murder of a Savage": 1765 and 2020

On 14 June 1765, Francis Fauquier, the Lieutenant Governor of the Virginia Colony, wrote a letter to the Board of Trade about "the Augusta Boys", who had recently killed five Cherokee in Augusta County, and connected them to "the Paxton Boys", who had killed six Susqehannock in Pennsylvania in 1763: "I am informed that the Paxton Boys [...] say no man shall suffer for the murder of a Savage." When I recently came across that phrase in Jeffrey Ostler's "Surviving Genocide", it seemed like an observation about the recent American history of police murders of African-Americans, which so often amounts to "no police suffering for the murder of a Black person."  (Andrew Shields, #111words, 10 July)

"I will be fine for telling the truth": The bullying of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman

In his testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on 19 November 2019, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman pointed out that, if he were in Russia, "offering public testimony involving the President would surely cost me my life". Then he reassured his father: "I will be fine for telling the truth." But yesterday, after "a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation" (as his attorney said in a statement), Lt. Col. Vindman retired from the military while under consideration for promotion. His testimony may not have cost him his life, but it has cost him his career – just as it has not cost the President his position, despite the damning evidence that Vindman provided. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 9 July)

 

 

The illusion of an inclusive "we" in the Harper's letter

The Harper's "Letter on Justice and Open Debate" begins with what is presumably intended to be an inclusive "we": "Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial." This "we" includes whoever it's addressed to: "you (the addressee), I (the speaker), and others". It thus urges others to defend "cultural institutions" from those who threaten them. But that makes this "we" not inclusive but exclusive: it may include addressees who identify with those institutions, but it excludes those who do not as "threats". The figure of "trial" confirms the opposition established by that opening phrase while also turning challenges to the letter into confirmation of the danger of such anti-institutional threats. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 8 July)

 

The signatories of the Harper's letter defend their paid speech against free speech

Today, Harper's published "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate" with 150+ signatories affirming "robust and even caustic counter-speech" but denouncing "calls for swift and severe retribution." Later, three of the six mentioned types of "retribution" involve people being "fired" or "ousted", which leads the signatories to "fear for their livelihoods" and the potentially "dire professional consequences" of "mistakes". That is, these "professionals" resist those they perceive as "amateurs", whose failure to follow proper rules of discourse threatens their ability to make a living. The letter defends "free speech" but is ultimately more about their own opportunities to continue to get paid for their own speech even if they make "mistakes". (Andrew Shields, #111words, 7 July)

 

Native Americans in the United States Declaration of Independence

In the United States Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson includes Native Americans in the list of the "repeated injuries" that characterize the "tyranny" inflicted on the colonies by King George III: "He [...] has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions." While accusing the Native Americans of mass murder, he constructs them as failing to make the distinctions that mark Jefferson and the colonizers as civilized, even as he himself makes no distinctions between them or about their alleged actions and thus positions the "Savages" for such "undistinguished destruction" themselves. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 6 July)

Hannah Gadsby and the figure of having to laugh when the joke's on you

In "Nanette", Hannah Gadsby brings up the cliché that lesbians don't think jokes about lesbians are funny but adds that they have to laugh at such jokes because if they don't, it "proves the point." This figure of having to laugh to protect oneself also comes up in Gadsby's "Douglas" when she warns anti-vaxxers that they "will not like this next bit": "But if you’ve been laughing [...] and you suddenly stop now, everyone will know." That is, if your group is the butt of a joke, there's pressure to laugh along with it so as to not reveal yourself as a member of that group who "can't take a joke." (Andrew Shields, #111words, 5 July)

 

Nanette: What sort of comedian can’t even make the lesbians laugh? Every comedian ever. That’s a good joke, isn’t it? Classic. It’s bulletproof, too. Very clever, because it’s funny… because it’s true. The only people who don’t think it’s funny… are us lezzers… But we’ve got to laugh… because if we don’t… proves the point. Checkmate.

 

Douglas: if you are an anti-vaxxer, I can guarantee you, you will not like this next bit. But if you’ve been laughing the whole way through the show and you suddenly stop now, everyone will know.

Hannah Gadsby and Picasso

When Hannah Gadsby brings up Pablo Picasso in her comedy special "Nanette", she is dismissive: "I hate Picasso!" She explains that he "suffered… the mental illness of misogyny", as in his seduction at 42 of the 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter. She grants that "cubism is important" because it offers "all the perspectives at once", but she asks, were "any of those perspectives a woman’s?" She later adds that in the reception of Picasso, "our mistake was to invalidate the perspective of a 17-year-old girl." Many might see Gadsby as "cancelling" Picasso, but I see this not as a matter of rejecting his work but of attending to what his work itself rejected. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 4 July)

Returning books to the Amerika Haus library in November 1989

There was a news item shortly after the East German border was opened on 9 November 1989 that an East Berliner had returned two books to the Amerika Haus Library that he had checked out shortly before the border was closed when Berlin Wall was constructed in August 1961. All the reports and comments on this in the United States made a point of saying that the man was a typical German with his sense of order, but I thought otherwise: imagine how those books had become a symbol to him of the restriction of his freedom of movement, so returning them was a symbol of his having regained that freedom. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 3 July)

The casting of "Da 5 Bloods"

In Spike Lee's "Da 5 Bloods", the four African-American Vietnam veterans who return to present-day Vietnam are played by actors ranging in age from 57 to 67 years old, which is slightly younger than the age of their characters. But in the flashback scenes to their time in Vietnam, they are not played by younger actors, nor are they made up to look younger. The flashbacks are their memories, and while their squad leader who died in the war is still a young man, they picture themselves not as they were, but as they are now. The powerful effect will hopefully inspire more directors to make such bold, anti-realistic casting decisions. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 2 July)

20202 words in 2020 so far

My post yesterday made 182 texts of 111 words each, or 20,202 words. That's a lovely number in itself, but it's special in 2020. If it was all one story, it wouldn't be enough for a novel; according to a website I consulted, it's about 50 to 70 pages in a book. That would  make it a novella, or a long essay. But then I never intended it that way – it's an exercise, above all. And if I keep writing such a text every day for the rest of the year (which I'm not sure I will do), then this is the halfway point: the 183rd day of a leap year. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 1 July)

Bicycle helmets and face masks

Once when I saw a teenager on a bicycle with a helmet hanging from the handlebars, he stopped, put it on, and rode around the corner to his house – presumably to prove that he'd been wearing it. I thought of him today after seeing people who may have been wearing a face mask (as is required in shops in Germany and recommended in Switzerland) but had it under their noses. Yet really those mask-wearers are more like the teens who wear their helmets – but unbuckled. I've never seen an adult riding a bike like that – but the only people I've seen wearing a mask with their nose uncovered have been adults. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 30 June)

Children and car-door locks

We bought our 1999 VW Golf from my father-in-law in early 2000 (he used to buy a new Golf every year with his VW employee discount and sell it a year later). It doesn't have a central-locking system. Even by 2010, I noticed an unexpected effect of this: our children's friends not only weren't in the habit of locking car doors, they didn't not even know how to do it. These days, younger children even ask what the knobs for the locks are for. I don't reproach them for this, of course; it's just a matter of the world they've grown up in, the not just digital world they're native to. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 29 June)

Two photographs by Patrick Semansky of a man in a suit and tie

In the first photograph, his expression is serious. His suit and tie and flag lapel are the uniform of his power. He holds up a bible in front of the church he walked to after the park was cleared by tear gas and police. He thinks his performance is under his control. – In the second photograph, which he must know will be taken, his expression is exhausted. The uniform of his power is no longer uniform, no longer powerful: his tie loose, his collar open, his suit wrinkled, unbuttoned. He crumples a cap as he leaves his helicopter. He doesn't look like he still thinks his performance is under his control. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 28 June)

[The photographs were taken on 1 June and 20 June.]

Disingenuous claims about racist ideas and behaviors

People often argue that ideas and behaviors are not racist and that anti-racists see everything in racial terms. One common version of this in Switzerland involves the name of a confection, "Mohrenkopf" ("Moor's head"). In the wake of the worldwide Black Lives Matter protests, criticism of the name has been followed by insistence that the term is not racist. But on Thursday, Aiyegun Tosin, a Nigerian striker with FC Zurich, was called "scheiss Mohrenkopf" by the opposing team's fans. Once again, then, insistence that an expression is "not racist" is disingenuous. And of course, those defending this term have already come up with further specious arguments that it is not racist. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 27 June)

"Brooklyn Nine-Nine" and the tropes of policing

Although with Captain Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher), "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" thematizes discrimination against homosexuals and African-Americans, it cannot escape the standard tropes of police shows and the problems of American policing. It begins with a standard conflict between the rule-oriented Captain and the unorthodox but effective Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg), who may get reined in by Holt, but his successes still outweigh his rule-breaking. Further, Peralta's  bet with his rival Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) to see who can make more arrests reflects how police departments are evaluated in terms of how many arrests they make. So even a show addressing discrimination reproduces the issues that lead to calls to defund the police. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 26 June)

Email and salutations

I sent an email to a student today without a salutation, and it bothers me when I do that. When students were closer to me in age, I used first names: "Dear Sandra" or "Dear Chris". But then they'd write me informally – "Hey Andrew" or just "Hey." So I got more formal: "Dear Ms. Schmitt" or "Dear Mr. Müller." But then a former student transitioned, and I decided to drop gender markers and write "Dear Sandra Schmitt" or "Dear Chris Müller". The message today was "here is your essay with my comments", and I wish I had said "Dear" and addressed the student by her name, but it's too late now. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 25 June)

The literal, political, and spiritual journey in Chuck Berry's "Promised Land"

Chuck Berry wrote "Promised Land" in prison with an atlas from the library to get the geography right. The "poor boy" travels from Norfolk to California in a celebration of the freedom of movement similar to earlier Berry songs, as well as to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", which the song alludes to. Further, the bus he first travels on "bypasses Rock Hill", the site of a sit-in by the Friendship Nine in 1961. The song's literal journey is thus a figurative political journey from the Jim Crow South to Californian freedom and a spiritual journey like the spirituals of enslaved African-Americans that figured both salvation and escape from slavery to freedom. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 24 June)

Matches

In "Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians out of Existence in New England", Jean M. O'Brien discusses how "New England Indians [...] selectively incorporat[ed] elements of the non-Indian material, spiritual, and intellectual world" while still retaining their Native identities. – In the 1980s, a friend went on a camping trip with Native guides who taught the participants traditional survival methods. The guides always set up camp away from the participants. One evening, he found them lighting their fire with matches (while the campers were rubbing sticks together to starts theirs). The guides explained that Europeans had invented some very useful things – who'd want to rub sticks together when matches are much more efficient? (Andrew Shields, #111words, 23 June)

You Will Go Days Without Remembering That I Exist

Today in 2018, I retweeted this: "The 2020 Democratic nominee should campaign on a platform of You Will Go Days Without Remembering That I Exist". It would be nice to live free of politics. But it's a privilege to have such a retreat available to me. Many people seldom have days free of influence from the decisions of the powerful: the poor who need social welfare; immigrants whose status is uncertain; the disabled with access problems; anyone whose gender and sexuality put them outside the mainstream; and of course minorities in general. Don't succumb to the temptation to depoliticize your life as long as anyone's full humanity is politicized and threatened. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 22 June)

"Rebellion as a pedagogical text"

In "Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent", Priyamvada Gopal interprets "rebellion [...] as a pedagogical text" with which "the colonizers [...] must learn from the colonized." While at this point in her book she is discussing the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny in India and its influence on British dissent against the nineteenth-century British imperial project, the pedagogical effect of rebellion connects with the proliferation of anti-racist reading lists in the United States and abroad as part of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations after the murder of George Floyd. Finally, White Americans are at least considering the idea of listening to African-American stories to learn about our own implication in systematic racism. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 21 June)

"Where are you from?"

When my brother's family lived in Australia, my sister-in-law said she could pass as Australian until she opened her mouth. During my 25 years in Switzerland, nobody has asked me where I'm from before they've heard me speak. So pleasantries have already been exchanged; people have learned my name; they've noticed I don't speak Swiss German. Thus, since I can "pass" as Swiss until I open my mouth, the question "Where are you from?" still has something personal which is often lacking when Swiss citizens and residents with more melanin are asked the same question. Even before they say anything, then, their skin color makes it impossible for them to "pass". (Andrew Shields, #111words, 20 June)

"like a patient etherized upon a table": The seductiveness of "Prufrock"

In my late teens, the sound of T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" immediately captivated me: "Let us go then, you and I, / when the evening is spread out against the sky, / like a patient etherized upon a table." The imperative, the rhyme, the alliteration, the dissonance of "etherized" – I couldn't name them then, but their music seduced me. Later I learned how such unconditional love turns out to have conditions – with Eliot, his anti-Semitism. The lesson is not necessarily to reject him for that, but at least to reflect on the relationship between what draws me into his poetry and what pushes me out. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 19 June)

Deepest Kleinbasel

Here's a translation of a message a friend shared with me from someone who said there's no racism in Switzerland: "I know NOBODY who was anything against Blacks... Except when they rape and attack women in deepest Kleinbasel..." The use of "except" makes this a version of "I am not a racist, but ...", and what follows fulfills the resulting expectations, with the stereotypical racist association of Blacks with rapists. Then there's a local twist: the phrase "deepest Kleinbasel" relies on racist interpretations of the demographics of Basel. Nobody would say "deepest Bruderholz", just as one might talk about "deepest Harlem" in New York City but never about "deepest Staten Island". (Andrew Shields, #111words, 18 June)

"Some of them don’t even know that’s what they want, but that’s what they want."

Even though in democratic countries they are elected only by some fraction of the population, presidents and prime ministers claim to speak for all the people of the countries they govern. They are thus inclined to say that they are doing "what the people want." Yesterday, in his remarks at the signing of his executive order on "safe policing for safe communities", President Trump said that "Americans want law and order." But then he went beyond that: "Some of them don’t even know that’s what they want, but that’s what they want." This is the language of abusers, who tell their victims that they know them better than they know themselves. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 17 June)

Memes from Dawkins to Godwin to virality

"Meme" was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book "The Selfish Gene" to refer to "a unit of cultural transmission" in parallel to the "gene" as a unit of biological transmission. Though I read the book in 1983, I have only now learned that the internet use goes back to the early 1990s, when Mike Godwin used Dawkins's term to refer to ideas popping up on the internet, specifically the "Nazi-comparison meme" that led him to formulate "Godwin's Law". Of course, the meaning of "meme" has since evolved to refer to image-text combinations that "go viral" – a return to the idea's biological origins, as well as to the current pandemic. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 16 June)

"The movement is not a fad", neither today nor in 1895

Since Saturday, 6 June, when I heard several speakers at the Black Lives Matter demonstration in Basel insist the movement is "not a trend", I have read further statements from the US that say the same, or that it's "not a fad". Then today, in "Women, Race and Class", by Angela Davis (which I have been reading slowly for several months now), I came across a quotation from Fannie Barrier Williams at The First National Conference of the Colored Women of America in 1895: "The club movement among colored women ... is not a fad". The critique of anti-racist movements as merely fashionable is apparently as old as the movements themselves. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 15 June)