The Anthropic Review of Books

This is a feature I want to do regularly...I tend to read a lot of books, so it only makes sense to talk about them. This first book review may seem strange, but this book has been annoying me lately:

A Different Mirror by Ronald Takai.

First, let me point out that this is the text for my Ethnics class. Some people have a problem finding out that the past was shitty, especially for those who were not white. Personally, I don't have a problem with this learning these things. History is history whether we like it or not, and undeniably the song and dance show we're given in public school glosses over a lot of the more unpleasent events in our past.

The crux of my problem with A Different Mirror is twofold:

1. Missing the Point

You may recall that the criticism of traditional history texts is that they lack substantive integration of race as a driving factor in history. A Different Mirror has the opposite problem...It covers almost nothing but race. On the one hand, I understand books have to specialize, but there's almost no discussion in this book of the context the book covers occur within.

As an annotated list of bad things, this book certainly succeeds. However, if this book is intended to be a racial history of the United States it fails. I would very much prefer something that integrates with the series of events we've traditionally been given in history classes. If regular history texts say: "Everyone was happy an prosperous in America, and then there was the Civi War. And then everyone was happy and prosperous again," then A Different Mirror would be "White people did bad things, then there was the Civil War, then white people went back to doing bad things". Quite frankly, both views are bullshit.

What I want is history, damn it. For example, the Civil War shouldn't appear out of nowhere in this book. There should be a much wider discussion of the sectionalism that was fueled by the derisive nature of slavery in America. There's almost no mention of the Underground Railroad in this book. In A Different Mirror, outside events generally don't exist unless they can be somehow spun to condemn whites. I shouldn't need another history text just to get some context.

In this book, what we already know barely exists. A good example here is the section Takaki devotes to Thomas Jefferson. Unsurprisingly, Jefferson was a bit of a bastard when it comes to race. On the other hand, Takaki seems more eager to bash him then try to integrate Jefferson's racism and hypocracy into his larger character. There are magnificent contridictions at work within this man. If this was a novel, Jefferson would be an awesome character; torn between enlightenment and utter brutality. We can't see that when Takaki is content with only providing us with a one facet of Jefferson. Mr. Hyde is missing Dr. Jekyll.

2. Cut the Crap

A more serious problem in A Different Mirror is Takaki's habit of stuffing so many quotes from so many sources into a single paragraph that you haven't a clue what the hell he's talking about. If he just wanted to list shit, he should have made a book full of bullet points. If he's got a point to make here, then these sources belong in footnotes so they're not cluttering up everything else. Takaki seems to have a hard-on for synthesis.

In another class, one of the readings was Andrew Jackson's written justification of his decision to force the Indians from the eastern US (which directly led to the "Trail of Tears"). I was struck by how disturbing this thing was. This is akin to Hitler justifying the "Final Solution". Takaki must have been aware of this document. If he was smart, he have just dropped this whole piece into his book (it certainly fits) and not shove bits and pieces of Jackson's words in with a dozen other sources. Let the man dig his own grave.

Final Judgement:
A Different Mirror by Ronald Takai
Score: (**---) Two out of Five Stars

Really, It's Not My Mind That's Warped But the World

It looks like political blogs just came in fashion!

This being campaign season (isn't it funny that campaign season and hurricane season coincide?), there's all sorts of political angst being displayed around campus. So today, for the second day in a row, I walk past this guy screaming anti-Bush stuff in the middle of the sidewalk. I sort of laughed as I walked by. Frankly, I'm voting for Kerry (that's a whole nother post). But, at the same time, the level of political obnoxiousness in this country has reached a critical level.

For example, take this article from my fair school's newspaper:

Discussion of real issues is missing

You would think with a title like that, it would be a fair piece about just how obnoxious things really are...Nooooooo...Take a look at it...That's got to be one of the most hillariously vitriolic things I've ever read.

Why am I getting so fired up by some goddamned "guest editorial" in a college newspaper? I think that's best answered by this quote from Christopher Hitchens:

What will it take to convince these people that this is not a year, or a time, to be dicking around?

Within the last month, we've had Dick Cheney tell the American people that if they vote for Kerry, they'll get another serious terror attack and shortly after we've had John Kerry claim that voting for Bush will bring back the draft. This isn't the traditional mudslinging of campaigns of yore. This is serious. This is a nation waking up to the fact that shit has hit the fan. Politicians spew things like that only when they know that people will believe them (like the author of that trash editorial linked above).

I feel as if I am not contemplating a political landscape here, but a Dali painting.