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LETTERS p.o. box 1027, Athens, ga sogos
INANE DRIVEL
As a recent UGA graduate, I have read your
magazine frequently for the past four years.
Based upon the majority of the issues I’ve
read, it seems to me that the Flagpole canon,
when cast against the racial makeup of Athens,
seems to lack a certain, shall we say, “local
color." I was therefore pleased to find the cen
terpiece article in the July 24 issue dealing
with the extremely important issue of minori
ties being left behind by the computer age. But
why so short? I think that the subject certainly
might have been developed further, perhaps
by analyzing how, without appropriate local
and federal intervention, the problem will cer
tainly worsen in a post-affirmative-action land
scape. I take issue with Claire Auwater’s lame
apologism and with Jon Katz’s idea that the
underclass would “go berserk" when they
wake up to the fact that they were being shaft
ed — the underclass has already been driven
to the brink by prevailing social conditions, as
evidenced in minute part by the fact that so
many black boys have been tricked into
wagering all of their talent on the inillion-to-
one odds of the pop plantation system of pro
fessional sports.
Good piece on lynchings in Oconee County.
As for the Richard De Rose story, I’d bet that
most blacks in Athens-Clarke County are too
busy trying to stay afloat to give a flying
Farrakhan about the unqualified black-baiting
opportunism of some crazed white man. As for
the ravings of another apparently crazed white
man, your editor Richard Fausset, where in the
TIIS MUM WUl»
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OPTION!
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B FLAGPOLE JULY 1, 1998
hell does he get off stating that bullshit black
movies like Def Jam's How Tv Be A Player— “a
Black film through and through"- are not the
result of white paternalism? If not for white
paternalism, there wouldn’t be any of that
black player bullshit or any other of the nihilis
tic, hyper-sexed, super-violent pop racial
pornography that garners millions of dollars in
album ar.d box-office sales and helps push
young blacks ever closer to the brink of extinc
tion. It is white paternalism that has kept the
most marginalized of blacks so crippled that
they don’t even realize that pop culture is piss
ing on their heads. How To Be A Player is
nowhere near being a black film and, like the
majority of “black" projects out today, is noth
ing more than Jim Crow in drag. How To Be A
Player is a white minstrel movie if I ever saw
one, even if it was written by and stars olack
actors (New Age Uncle Toms). After studying
for four years alongside some of the most
racially retarded young people I ever hope to
meet, Richard Fausset’s is the type of inane dri
vel that I’ve come to expect. Mr. Fausset, as the
editor, you really should do better. You really
ought to save the enlightened white man act,
or else you really ought to shut the hell up.
Raymond Givens
Athens
Thank you for the comic relief courtesy of
“Annoyed Citizen," who took you to task for
being so mean to those nice young people from
the Socialist Workers' Party [ "letters, "June 10).
It was a hoot! Of course, Mr. Citizen did manage
to miss the point of both your article and the
meeting itself.
What the young lady (lo whom the writer
referred) was upset ubout was the total inabili
ty of the SWT* speaker to connect to real work
ers, as well as his dismissive attitude to the
suggestion that there are other alternatives to
vanguardist, hierarchical and authoritarian
parties such as the Socialist Workers’ Party.
Perhaps Mr. Citizen didn’t notice that the mod
erator only called on SWP members that were
planted in the audience. If a few of us hadn’t
forced our way into the debate, it would have
been even more one-sided than it turned out
to be. One-sided in terms of time I mean. The
Flagpole writer was correct: The speaker, and
his minions, were caught totally off guard by
the young woman’s passion and eloquence,
both of which spoke more directly to the expe
rience of working people in Athens than did
the pedantic mumblings of the SWP speaker.
The real shock for the SWP (who regularly
stop oy Athens to collect money from inno
cents) was that they were outflanked on the
Left, not by the frat boys they were expecting.
Athens already boasts a range of political
debutt and discussion that relegates the tired
old ramblings of a few worn-out Stalinists to
that ash heap of history they are so fond of
evoking. Direct action groups such as Critical
Mass and a plethora of socially conscious
activist organizations, not to mention a few old
cantankerous anarchists such as myself, make
Athens a very unfriendly place for those radi
cal poseurs, like the SWP, who want your blind
obedience to their rigid doctrine. By the way,
Mr. Citizen, are YOU a member of the SWP?
Roger Herrin
Athens
ODE-IOUS
Lizzie Zucker took an ax/ Gave the artwork
40 whacks/ When we saw what she had done/
W'e gave Flagpole 41./ Glad to see MFA on
cover/ Enjoyed the show (don’t forget Ben
Jos£)./ Struggled with the hand-fisted, disre
spectful writing/ Read like Vanity Fair meets
A'ascar Today./ Barreling down the illiterate
speedway/ Run amuck in a semi-tractor truck./
Please no more Saltz in our wounds!
Julie Delphienia Chibt
Athens
CONTACT FLAGPOLE
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