Nerdsharesa tumblelog

Professor Myers is certainly quite angry with me! He refers to my place of employment no less than four times, in spite of the fact that this blog is clearly entirely separate from my job! But to counter what I think Professor Myers is aiming at, I will state explicitly: The views expressed herein are my own and are not meant to reflect the views of the “liberal Catholic weekly” who kindly employs me.

Onward.

Now, however, the assistant literary editor of the liberal Catholic weekly America accuses me of saying that, in her dedication to her 1987 novel Beloved, Toni Morrison “purposely, intentionally distorted figures of slavery casualties in order to minimize the significance of the Holocaust” (emphasis in original).

True, I never actually said that. Or, as the assistant literary editor puts it, “Myers never owns this statement.” Perhaps I never “owned” it because, well, I don’t believe it.

First: This is not an accusation. It is a statement assessing what I have read on Professor Myers’ blog. If Toni Morrison has officially stated, in an interview with TIME magazine that she consulted with several historians and they gave her the figure “sixty million,” then to say she is “demonstrably not interested in accuracy” seems odd. An author who has publicly stated that she has done due diligence in her research is not, by literal definition, “demonstrably not interested in accuracy.” She is demonstrably interested in accuracy. Whether she is actually accurate is another point, but Myers repeatedly speaks to Morrison’s intention, not the results of her research: In his earlier post, he asks if the “compulsion to compare” is Morrison’s or his, and states, his exact words: “Instead, she appropriated the Jewish commonplace of six million and trumped it by a factor of ten.”

Dr. Myers, as I know you are reading, I would be happy for you here to correct me and state specifically and clearly exactly what you mean when you say this. Are you saying that Toni Morrison did not consult with historians? Purposely chose “sixty million” to, as you say, trump the Jewish commonplace of six million? If Morrison has gone on record as saying she consulted historians and that’s the figure she received, then saying she “appropriated the Jewish commonplace…” does indeed seem equivalent to being called a liar. If you can provide an alternate explanation, I would — no sarcasm intended — be delighted to hear it.

The statement is justifiably attributed to me because I am a “white male academic critiquing the masterwork of an African-American woman,” and apparently then I am without rights to my own explicit views.

Actually, I implied no causality between Myers’ thesis and his status as a white male academic. This statement, which he plucked out of context, was made with regard to his use of the word “monkey.”

On that he says:

But not the assistant literary editor. She reads the word monkey, and alarms go off. She falls into the tones of a schoolmarm: “ ‘monkey’ is a well-known racial slur for an African-American. Now, when a white male academic is strenuously criticizing an African-American author, you would think he would take care to avoid using the word ‘monkey.’ ” Irrelevant that the white male academic was referring to scholars, who follow the lead of better-known scholars rather than arriving at their own independent opinions. The word monkey must be a racial slur; it must not be anything else; because that is how the assistant literary editor would use the word (not that she, exquisitely sensitive as she is to racial “difference,” would ever use it).

Which is, actually, precisely what I didn’t say! I did not say monkey “must” be a racial slur. I said it is commonly known and recognized as a racial slur. I also specified that I did not believe Prof. Myers had any racist intention in his use of it. I also juxtaposed this against Morrison’s use of sixty million. Six million is a commonplace; “monkey” is a commonplace. To reach the conclusion that Myers’ use of monkey was anything other than innocuous would be to read far more into his intentions than I would ever be comfortable; and the same is true of Morrison. I have no compelling reason to believe, in light of the TIME interview, that she has “no demonstrable interest in accuracy” or was intentionally appropriating the Jewish commonplace of six million (Does Dr. Myers mean that she unintentionally appropriated the Jewish commonplace?)

And so when Prof Myers states:

But to my intentions she can speak with aplomb. Thus I am safely solipsized.

I can only express bafflement. My original post states clearly: “I cannot speak to his intentions…”

And let it be known that I did not discount the possibility that Dr. Myers’ thesis is correct — on this point I have been fairer than he has been to me — but merely that it lacked compelling evidence in its favor.

Further, as a point of pride, I feel that I must say this to Mr. Myers, who accuses me of ad hominem attacks:

(In the liberal Catholic weekly America, apparently, the words demonstrably not interested are unfamiliar terms, a little too highbrow for the common reader.

That kind of rude, unsporting, wholly inaccurate ad hominem attack? Sir, your quarrel is clearly with me, not my employer and certainly not with our publication’s readers.  I took issue with the hedging of your language, not its relative complexity. True, as you say, you do not “name call” but you are not above invoking the name of my institution, as though it is its/their duty to answer for my opinions — I do not believe I have, beyond providing your bio, consistently identified you with Texas A&M, or attempted to conflate Texas A&M’s views with yours. This is mostly because I believe that, no matter who signs our paychecks, our opinions are our own — ours to defend and ours to stand behind. To call out your “university’s” position on Beloved when it is clearly only your own would be unfair and dishonest. If this was an error on my part, I am, as always open to correction.