"Conduction" by Ta-Nehisi Coates As Political Allegory

Ever since I read "Conduction" by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The New Yorker of June 10 & 17 of 2019, I've been wondering if it should be viewed as political allegory, in this case a story set in the age of slavery illuminating current circumstances.

Allegory involves the representation of abstract ideas by a specific narrative.  In this instance, the idea in question is where should blacks look for betterment?

Women and Identity Politics

With the degree of misogyny evident in the last U.S. presidential election and with the on-going Hollywood-led sexual harassment scandals, one would think that just being a woman would suffice to be a member of a political identity group.

But no, it apparently gets more finely sliced than that with white women under attack along with white men in the prevailing U.S. culture wars that may increasingly determine political outcomes.

Here's a Washington Post story about a recent conference in Detroit attended by about 4,000 women. What struck me about it was the following paragraph:

Identity issues were a theme of many of the convention events, which included a workshop titled “Confronting White Womanhood,” for “white women committed to being part of an intersectional feminist movement to unpack the ways white women uphold and benefit from white supremacy.”

Unpack? Then what?

A Wellspring of Identity Culture and Politics

In a recent post that can be found here, I wrote about challenges to our traditional, northern-European-centric culture -- a culture critics argue enshrines what has become known as white privilege.

Americans of other racial and cultural backgrounds have found it hard to break through the barriers such a culture presents, but there have definitely been success stories, and they may be increasing in number. As that happens, will the country drift further and further into culture wars and identity politics?

Quote of the Day: On The Rewards of Writing

"If you’re going to write, you’re going to have to find a reason to do it that has nothing to do with money or recognition or award."

That, says poet Hala Alyan in a Literary Hub article, is because publishers mostly say "no."

I also liked the following from the same article:

"We are living in an age of borders, a moment when people will either cling to those borders or try to dismantle them. A time when language matters more than ever, when words can be used to stoke or resist fear, as people try to criminalize words like 'immigrant' and 'trans' and 'Black.' Reclaim language. Allow writing to transcend those borders."

I don't agree with President Trump on much, but I do agree that political correctness has gone too far.

More Themes of Young Adult Fiction

I've written several posts about Young Adult (YA) fiction, in large part because it is one of the fastest if not the fastest growing category of books in print -- at a time when most categories are flat or declining.

What's in these books?  Well, just about everything and especially, it seems, crest-of-the-wave social topics. If you are young, you want to be with it, right?

Next for Fiction: Trigger Warnings and Safe Pages?

I recently read an article on Literary Hub entitled "On the Use of Sensitivity Readers in Publishing" and it got me thinking: will we soon see novels with trigger warnings appearing at certain interior points, directing readers to "safe pages" within the book, where they can rest and suck on lollipops, certain that they won't encounter any micro aggressions before cautiously proceeding.

"Identity" is where it's at these days, in politics as well as in culture, and woe be it to anyone who offends, even inadvertently, a marginalized group to which they don't belong.  What is a marginalized group?  Well, pretty much any group other than white males, it seems.

Which brings me back to sensitivity reading, which Lit Hub  to its credit admits is a somewhat problematical activity. Is political and cultural correctness compatible with free literary expression and the role it has traditionally played in intellectual life?

The Lit Hub  article gives three views on sensitivity reading: that of a writer, that of a sensitivity reader and that of a publisher. Sadly, no effort appears to have been made to determine what the reading public thinks about this.

Is that important?  I don't know, but one could argue that a failure of certain elites to pay much attention to what was happening on the ground in significant areas of the country led to the election of Donald Trump -- for better or for worse. And one thing Trump repeatedly dismissed during his campaign was political correctness.

Identity Politics Viewed As A Threat To Fiction

During the recent presidential election, America arguably shifted significantly from policy-based political affiliations to affiliations based on cultural and racial identities.

Most notably working class whites living in the so-called Rust Belt states switched in significant numbers from the Democratic candidate for president to a man running as a Republican even though he had attacked the GOP establishment as aggressively as he was attacking the Democrats.