Ta-Nehisi Coates's Blog, page 57
March 9, 2013
'Lucrative Work-For-Free Oppurtunity'
This week Nate Thayer kicked up some dust after The Atlantic asked him to repurpose a previously published piece for our site. The editor here said that her freelance budget was spent, and that she couldn't pay Thayer:
Thayer sent her the following response:
Thayer then took the e-mail conversation he'd had with the editor and published it, name and e-mail of the editor included. When asked about writing "for exposure" by New York magazine, Thayer said:
When asked whether he'd warned the editor at the Atlantic before publishing her name and e-mail. Thayer said he had not, and then added:
I made very little money freelancing. Indeed, when Matt wrote me I had just published a freelance piece for The Atlantic's print magazine. The piece paid me $16,000--the largest amount of money I'd ever been paid for a story. It sounds like a lot until you factor in that I had worked the story since late 2006 when I was still at TIME. I was laid off in early 2007 and spent most of that next year doing more reporting, and finishing my first book. That $16,000 was basically all I made in that one year period.
To put it bluntly, I was--like most freelancers--hurting. My wife had been unerringly supportive. My son was getting older. I was considering driving a cab.
Here is what I wrote back:
I agreed to write for Matt because I wanted exposure. I was not a "young journalist." This was not my chance to break into the profession. What I was was a product of a time when you could be brimming with ideas and have no place to say them. People who talk about "gate-keepers" have mostly had the good fortune of living inside the castle walls. I lived outside. I had a style and voice that had never seemed to fit anywhere (except my first job at Washington City Paper.)
I could not convince editors that what I was curious about was worth writing about. Every day I would watch ideas die in my head. When I was laid-off from TIME, the lack of a job was bad. But what hurt more was that this story, which I felt in my heart to be so important, was going to die. What the internet offered was the chance to let all of those ideas compete in the arena, and live and die on the merits. And Matt was offering a bigger arena. I was ecstatic.
Matt wasn't the only person to ask me to "work for exposure." Earlier that same year Talking Points Memo had done the same, and I was ecstatic. I was ecstatic any time anyone took my ideas seriously enough to offer them a platform. Most people never get that.
Over the years I've had writers come here and "work for exposure" with some regularity. My friend the historian Jelani Cobb has done yeoman's work, some of it based on actual reporting. Judah Grunstein was nice enough to allow me to publish an e-mail, which I thought had a lot of substance, as a piece. Aaron Schatz from Football Outsiders has been here. The great historian Thomas Sugrue has come into this space and done awesome work. So has Adam Serwer. So has Brendan Koerner. So has Ayelet Waldman. So has Mark Kleiman. So has Michael Chabon. So has Shani Hilton.Last year we brought historian Kate Masur, film critic A.O. Scott and writer Tony Horowitz together to discuss Lincoln. None of them were paid.
And lest you think The Atlantic is somehow unusual, ask yourself how often you've seen writers/thinkers/historians/intellectuals etc. in online "conversation." Ask yourself how often you've seen guest-bloggers at sites like The Daily Dish. Do you believe these people to be paid? Do you believe them to not actually be doing work? Tomorrow I will go on television, a prospect that I try (lately unsuccessfully) to avoid. I try to avoid it because it is work. I have to prepare information that I hope to provide. I have to think about what I'm saying. I have to make sure I know what I'm talking about. I have to tell my nervous self to shut up. No one pays me--or any other guests--for these contributions. We work "for exposure."
Nate Thayer wrote a long reported piece and was being asked to chop down that piece, and provide it for this platform. He was asked to do this for free. That would have been work. All journalists have had to chop down longer pieces into something shorter. Some of us have had to do it for whole books. I assure you that the time it takes to cut 5,000 words to 1200 words is nowhere close to the time it takes to blog here twice a day for a week. And as someone who's done straight reporting, as well as opinion writing, I can also assure you that the notion that doing one well is "less work" than doing the other well is very wrong. The Lincoln roundtable was hard. We had to consider each other's thoughts and criticisms and engage them seriously. Each time Kate, Tony S., or Tony H. wrote I felt the game getting harder, and each piece after became harder. When I write op-eds for the Times, I often start writing a week in advance, and spend hours each day getting myself closer to what I want to say. Often I have to consult with historians or with other books. It's work.
Writing is always hard. I understand why someone might not want to do it for exposure. I've certainly had professional journalists like Thayer turn me down. But those journalists have also taken the title of "professional" seriously enough to not print my e-mail address and all of my private correspondence without asking me. Indeed, it's the high morality and offense-taking which most puzzles me about all this, given that writers, all around us, are "working for exposure," given that every one of us is participating in a system in which they consume for free.
I think journalists should be paid for their work. Even here at The Atlantic, I think it would be a good idea to provide a nominal amount, if only as a token of respect for the work. But more than that, I want more jobs at more publications wherein journalists have the basics of their lives (salary, health care, benefits) taken care of. Whatever The Atlantic isn't, right now, the fact is that it currently employs more journalists than it ever has in its entire history. There are real questions about whether we will always be able to do that in this new world. But that is landscape on which all media currently tread. It's not perfect. But it never was.
Thanks for responding. Maybe by the end of the week? 1,200 words? We unfortunately can't pay you for it, but we do reach 13 million readers a month. I understand if that's not a workable arrangement for you, I just wanted to see if you were interested. Thanks so much again for your time. A great piece!
Thayer sent her the following response:
I am a professional journalist who has made my living by writing for 25 years and am not in the habit of giving my services for free to for profit media outlets so they can make money by using my work and efforts by removing my ability to pay my bills and feed my children. I know several people who write for the Atlantic who of course get paid. I appreciate your interest, but, while I respect the Atlantic, and have several friends who write for it, I have bills to pay and cannot expect to do so by giving my work away for free to a for profit company so they can make money off of my efforts. 1200 words by the end of the week would be fine, and I can assure you it would be well received, but not for free. Frankly, I will refrain from being insulted and am perplexed how one can expect to try to retain quality professional services without compensating for them. Let me know if you have perhaps mispoken.
Thayer then took the e-mail conversation he'd had with the editor and published it, name and e-mail of the editor included. When asked about writing "for exposure" by New York magazine, Thayer said:
I don't need the exposure. What I need is to pay my fucking rent. Exposure doesn't feed my fucking children. Fuck that!" he continued, adding that he can't even afford to get online. "I actually stick my fucking computer out the window to use the neighbor's Internet connection. I simply can't make a fucking living."
When asked whether he'd warned the editor at the Atlantic before publishing her name and e-mail. Thayer said he had not, and then added:
"I understand the position she is in and I do not know her and I am sure she is simply doing her job," said Thayer. "I would reject such a position on ethical and moral grounds, personally, which is maybe why I'm broke."I've been watching all of this with some curiosity, mostly because, as Matt Yglesias notes over at Slate, I got my start at the online Atlantic working for free. In May of 2008 Matt wrote me a note entitled "Lucrative Work-For-Free Opportunity" with the following text:
Hey -- we don't know each other, but I've been reading and enjoying your blog since I read your great Bill Cosby piece in the Atlantic and I saw I'm on your blog roll, so I figure you probably know who I am and I might as well reach out. In part, just to say that I like your blog, but more selfishly because I'm trying to put together an elite roster of guest-bloggers to help me out the week of Memorial Day (May 27-30) when I'll be on vacation. The idea is to get a bunch of people so that nobody in particular is expected to produce much volume. I'm not in a position to offer any compensation, but I think it is a good opportunity for a newer site to get introduced to a wider audience and build traffic, and self-promotional posts about a new book aren't out of bounds.Effectively Matt was asking me to work for exposure, much like the Atlantic editor was asking Thayer. In 2008, I was not some young fresh-faced college kid. I was 32. I had worked in print for twelve years, virtually my entire adult life. I had been on staff at The Village Voice and TIME magazine. I'd freelanced for The New York Times Magazine and had begun dipping my toe in the online water by freelancing for Slate and blogging on my own.
What do you say? matt
I made very little money freelancing. Indeed, when Matt wrote me I had just published a freelance piece for The Atlantic's print magazine. The piece paid me $16,000--the largest amount of money I'd ever been paid for a story. It sounds like a lot until you factor in that I had worked the story since late 2006 when I was still at TIME. I was laid off in early 2007 and spent most of that next year doing more reporting, and finishing my first book. That $16,000 was basically all I made in that one year period.
To put it bluntly, I was--like most freelancers--hurting. My wife had been unerringly supportive. My son was getting older. I was considering driving a cab.
Here is what I wrote back:
I say I'd love to do it, but I need a day to juggle some things and make sure I can. My main concern is I've got a couple pieces do right around then, and I need to make sure I'm not over-committing. You and Andrew post a TON, whereas a good day for me is probably, five or six posts. What would you be looking for from each person, in terms of daily post rate? And wouyld I be able to cross-post from my blog or would you want exclusivity?Matt agreed to cross-posting and I did it. And it was delightful. It was especially delightful because there other professional journalists there with me--Kay Steiger, Kathy G, Isaac Chotiner, and the awesome Alyssa Rosenberg.
The compensation is a non-issue for me.
I agreed to write for Matt because I wanted exposure. I was not a "young journalist." This was not my chance to break into the profession. What I was was a product of a time when you could be brimming with ideas and have no place to say them. People who talk about "gate-keepers" have mostly had the good fortune of living inside the castle walls. I lived outside. I had a style and voice that had never seemed to fit anywhere (except my first job at Washington City Paper.)
I could not convince editors that what I was curious about was worth writing about. Every day I would watch ideas die in my head. When I was laid-off from TIME, the lack of a job was bad. But what hurt more was that this story, which I felt in my heart to be so important, was going to die. What the internet offered was the chance to let all of those ideas compete in the arena, and live and die on the merits. And Matt was offering a bigger arena. I was ecstatic.
Matt wasn't the only person to ask me to "work for exposure." Earlier that same year Talking Points Memo had done the same, and I was ecstatic. I was ecstatic any time anyone took my ideas seriously enough to offer them a platform. Most people never get that.
Over the years I've had writers come here and "work for exposure" with some regularity. My friend the historian Jelani Cobb has done yeoman's work, some of it based on actual reporting. Judah Grunstein was nice enough to allow me to publish an e-mail, which I thought had a lot of substance, as a piece. Aaron Schatz from Football Outsiders has been here. The great historian Thomas Sugrue has come into this space and done awesome work. So has Adam Serwer. So has Brendan Koerner. So has Ayelet Waldman. So has Mark Kleiman. So has Michael Chabon. So has Shani Hilton.Last year we brought historian Kate Masur, film critic A.O. Scott and writer Tony Horowitz together to discuss Lincoln. None of them were paid.
And lest you think The Atlantic is somehow unusual, ask yourself how often you've seen writers/thinkers/historians/intellectuals etc. in online "conversation." Ask yourself how often you've seen guest-bloggers at sites like The Daily Dish. Do you believe these people to be paid? Do you believe them to not actually be doing work? Tomorrow I will go on television, a prospect that I try (lately unsuccessfully) to avoid. I try to avoid it because it is work. I have to prepare information that I hope to provide. I have to think about what I'm saying. I have to make sure I know what I'm talking about. I have to tell my nervous self to shut up. No one pays me--or any other guests--for these contributions. We work "for exposure."
Nate Thayer wrote a long reported piece and was being asked to chop down that piece, and provide it for this platform. He was asked to do this for free. That would have been work. All journalists have had to chop down longer pieces into something shorter. Some of us have had to do it for whole books. I assure you that the time it takes to cut 5,000 words to 1200 words is nowhere close to the time it takes to blog here twice a day for a week. And as someone who's done straight reporting, as well as opinion writing, I can also assure you that the notion that doing one well is "less work" than doing the other well is very wrong. The Lincoln roundtable was hard. We had to consider each other's thoughts and criticisms and engage them seriously. Each time Kate, Tony S., or Tony H. wrote I felt the game getting harder, and each piece after became harder. When I write op-eds for the Times, I often start writing a week in advance, and spend hours each day getting myself closer to what I want to say. Often I have to consult with historians or with other books. It's work.
Writing is always hard. I understand why someone might not want to do it for exposure. I've certainly had professional journalists like Thayer turn me down. But those journalists have also taken the title of "professional" seriously enough to not print my e-mail address and all of my private correspondence without asking me. Indeed, it's the high morality and offense-taking which most puzzles me about all this, given that writers, all around us, are "working for exposure," given that every one of us is participating in a system in which they consume for free.
I think journalists should be paid for their work. Even here at The Atlantic, I think it would be a good idea to provide a nominal amount, if only as a token of respect for the work. But more than that, I want more jobs at more publications wherein journalists have the basics of their lives (salary, health care, benefits) taken care of. Whatever The Atlantic isn't, right now, the fact is that it currently employs more journalists than it ever has in its entire history. There are real questions about whether we will always be able to do that in this new world. But that is landscape on which all media currently tread. It's not perfect. But it never was.
March 8, 2013
Good People, Racist People
My Times column yesterday focused on something we've talked about quite a bit here: the idea that racism is not merely the property of the morally deformed. Before we get to that, I wanted to acknowledge Thomas Sugrue's Sweet Land of Liberty, which is probably the definitive history of the civil rights movement in the North. I've written about the book's rendition of Levittown's segregationist policies before.
But I thought this quote from racists in Levittown really illustrates what I mean. Here you find people in the practice of not just actual racial discrimination, but the kind of actual racial discrimination that gifted us the wealth gap we now struggle with, insisting that they are doing no such thing:
A few years ago I wrote a modern history of people practicing racism all the while claiming they were not. You can include this example of a Louisiana judge who refused to marry an interracial couple and then told a newspaper:
Along with that (perhaps in the 60s) comes the idea that racism is something that "low-class" white people do. It's not a system of laws and policies, so much as the ideology of Cletus the slack-jawed yokel. But Arnold Hirsch and Beryl Satter's work shows the University of Chicago quietly and privately pursuing a racist strategy of "urban renewal" while publicly claiming otherwise.
None of this is new. It's akin to proto-Confederates loudly and lustily defending slavery, daring the North to war before 1865, and then afterward claiming that the war really wasn't about slavery. The point is to save face. Last night I had the luxury of sitting and talking with the brilliant historian Barbara Fields. One point she makes that very few Americans understand is that racism is a creation. You read Edmund Morgan's work and actually see racism being inscribed in the law and the country changing as a result.
If we accept that racism is a creation, then we must then accept that it can be destroyed. And if we accept that it can be destroyed, we must then accept that it can be destroyed by us and that it likely must be destroyed by methods kin to creation. Racism was created by policy. It will likely only be ultimately destroyed by policy.
That is hard to take. If Forrest Whitaker sticks out in that deli for reasons of individual mortal sin, we can castigate the guy who frisked him and move on. But if he -- and others like him -- stick out for reasons of policy, for decisions that we, as a state, have made, then we have a problem. Then we have to do something beyond being nice to each other.
But I thought this quote from racists in Levittown really illustrates what I mean. Here you find people in the practice of not just actual racial discrimination, but the kind of actual racial discrimination that gifted us the wealth gap we now struggle with, insisting that they are doing no such thing:
"As moral, religious and law-abiding citizens, we feel that we are unprejudiced and undiscriminating in our wish to keep our community a closed community."
A few years ago I wrote a modern history of people practicing racism all the while claiming they were not. You can include this example of a Louisiana judge who refused to marry an interracial couple and then told a newspaper:
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way."The "I'm not racist even though I'm doing something actually racist right now" rationale is linked to the notion of racism as something worthy of societal condemnation. That is a good thing. As Sugrue identifies in his book, you see a post-World-War-II consensus forming in the 1950s that racial discrimination actually is wrong.
Along with that (perhaps in the 60s) comes the idea that racism is something that "low-class" white people do. It's not a system of laws and policies, so much as the ideology of Cletus the slack-jawed yokel. But Arnold Hirsch and Beryl Satter's work shows the University of Chicago quietly and privately pursuing a racist strategy of "urban renewal" while publicly claiming otherwise.
None of this is new. It's akin to proto-Confederates loudly and lustily defending slavery, daring the North to war before 1865, and then afterward claiming that the war really wasn't about slavery. The point is to save face. Last night I had the luxury of sitting and talking with the brilliant historian Barbara Fields. One point she makes that very few Americans understand is that racism is a creation. You read Edmund Morgan's work and actually see racism being inscribed in the law and the country changing as a result.
If we accept that racism is a creation, then we must then accept that it can be destroyed. And if we accept that it can be destroyed, we must then accept that it can be destroyed by us and that it likely must be destroyed by methods kin to creation. Racism was created by policy. It will likely only be ultimately destroyed by policy.
That is hard to take. If Forrest Whitaker sticks out in that deli for reasons of individual mortal sin, we can castigate the guy who frisked him and move on. But if he -- and others like him -- stick out for reasons of policy, for decisions that we, as a state, have made, then we have a problem. Then we have to do something beyond being nice to each other.
Good People; Racist People
My Times column yesterday focused on something we've talked about quite a bit here: the idea that racism is not merely the property of the morally deformed. Before we get to that, I wanted to acknowledge Thomas Sugrue's Sweet Land of Liberty, which is probably the definitive history of the civil rights movement in the North. I've written about the book's rendition of Levittown's segregationist policies before.
But I thought this quote from racists in Levittown really illustrates what I mean. Here you find people in the practice of not just actual racial discrimination, but the kind of actual racial discrimination that gifted us the wealth gap we now struggle with, insisting that they are doing no such thing:
A few years ago I wrote a modern history of people practicing racism all the while claiming they were not. You can include this example of a Louisiana judge who refused to marry an interracial couple and then told a newspaper:
Along with that (perhaps in the 60s) comes the idea that racism is something that "low-class" white people do. It's not a system of laws and policies, so much as the ideology of Cletus the slack-jawed yokel. But Arnold Hirsch and Beryl Satter's work shows the University of Chicago quietly and privately pursuing a racist strategy of "urban renewal" while publicly claiming otherwise.
None of this is new. It's akin to proto-Confederates loudly and lustily defending slavery, daring the North to war before 1865, and then afterward claiming that the war really wasn't about slavery. The point is to save face. Last night I had the luxury of sitting and talking with the brilliant historian Barbara Fields. One point she makes that very few Americans understand is that racism is a creation. You read Edmund Morgan's work and actually see racism being inscribed in the law and the country changing as a result.
If we accept that racism is a creation, then we must then accept that it can be destroyed. And if we accept that it can be destroyed, we must then accept that it can be destroyed by us and that it likely must be destroyed by methods kin to creation. Racism was created by policy. It will likely only be ultimately destroyed by policy.
That is hard to take. If Forrest Whitaker sticks out in that deli for reasons of individual mortal sin, we can castigate the guy who frisked him and move on. But if he -- and others like him -- stick out for reasons of policy, for decisions that we, as a state, have made, then we have a problem. Then we have to do something beyond being nice to each other.
But I thought this quote from racists in Levittown really illustrates what I mean. Here you find people in the practice of not just actual racial discrimination, but the kind of actual racial discrimination that gifted us the wealth gap we now struggle with, insisting that they are doing no such thing:
"As moral, religious and law-abiding citizens, we feel that we are unprejudiced and undiscriminating in our wish to keep our community a closed community."
A few years ago I wrote a modern history of people practicing racism all the while claiming they were not. You can include this example of a Louisiana judge who refused to marry an interracial couple and then told a newspaper:
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way."The "I'm not racist even though I'm doing something actually racist right now" rationale is linked to the notion of racism as something worthy of societal condemnation. That is a good thing. As Sugrue identifies in his book, you see a post-World-War-II consensus forming in the 1950s that racial discrimination actually is wrong.
Along with that (perhaps in the 60s) comes the idea that racism is something that "low-class" white people do. It's not a system of laws and policies, so much as the ideology of Cletus the slack-jawed yokel. But Arnold Hirsch and Beryl Satter's work shows the University of Chicago quietly and privately pursuing a racist strategy of "urban renewal" while publicly claiming otherwise.
None of this is new. It's akin to proto-Confederates loudly and lustily defending slavery, daring the North to war before 1865, and then afterward claiming that the war really wasn't about slavery. The point is to save face. Last night I had the luxury of sitting and talking with the brilliant historian Barbara Fields. One point she makes that very few Americans understand is that racism is a creation. You read Edmund Morgan's work and actually see racism being inscribed in the law and the country changing as a result.
If we accept that racism is a creation, then we must then accept that it can be destroyed. And if we accept that it can be destroyed, we must then accept that it can be destroyed by us and that it likely must be destroyed by methods kin to creation. Racism was created by policy. It will likely only be ultimately destroyed by policy.
That is hard to take. If Forrest Whitaker sticks out in that deli for reasons of individual mortal sin, we can castigate the guy who frisked him and move on. But if he -- and others like him -- stick out for reasons of policy, for decisions that we, as a state, have made, then we have a problem. Then we have to do something beyond being nice to each other.
March 7, 2013
Lost in Conjugation
By my count I've studied (thought not even close to mastered) the following tenses in French: le présent, l'imparfait, le passé composé, le plus-que-parfait, le passé recent, le futur simple, et le futur proche. All of this is in l'indicatif. I've also studied le conditionnel (not quite sure how say "mood" en Français.)
All of these tenses and moods seem intimidating. But they are mostly intimidating (I suspect) because we encounter them on AP exams or while crashing through Berlitz. But as puzzles--as lego pieces--they are fascinating. The imperfect reflect some continuous action taken in the past ("When I was a child, I would run around the neighborhood.") The compound past reflects some action taken at particular time ("On Saturday, I ran a 5k.) But you can combine aspects of the imperfect and aspects of the compound past to get the pluperfect ("I had carbo-loaded, before I ran the 5k.") And these combinations spiral out into the conditional, into the future and so on. Part of learning the language is understand which combination to apply in which situation.
There's some very visual and very cool about it. I'm sure we do the same thing in English. But because I learned English at such a young age, and because I've been writing for so long, I can't really "see" it. Having to experience it this way is rather special. It is as though I am hacking my own brain or attempting to upload new programming.
And I can feel the actual effects. When I first started studying all I heard was blur of language. And then I could hear words and sentences. And then I could pick out particular words and sentences. And now I can hear whole sentences which register as foreign and know what they mean. None of them sound as native to me as English which sounds like "thought," if that makes any sense. But the language comes closer. It becomes a polite friend, whereas once it was a stranger on the street. Now I've just got to get out the friend zone.
All of these tenses and moods seem intimidating. But they are mostly intimidating (I suspect) because we encounter them on AP exams or while crashing through Berlitz. But as puzzles--as lego pieces--they are fascinating. The imperfect reflect some continuous action taken in the past ("When I was a child, I would run around the neighborhood.") The compound past reflects some action taken at particular time ("On Saturday, I ran a 5k.) But you can combine aspects of the imperfect and aspects of the compound past to get the pluperfect ("I had carbo-loaded, before I ran the 5k.") And these combinations spiral out into the conditional, into the future and so on. Part of learning the language is understand which combination to apply in which situation.
There's some very visual and very cool about it. I'm sure we do the same thing in English. But because I learned English at such a young age, and because I've been writing for so long, I can't really "see" it. Having to experience it this way is rather special. It is as though I am hacking my own brain or attempting to upload new programming.
And I can feel the actual effects. When I first started studying all I heard was blur of language. And then I could hear words and sentences. And then I could pick out particular words and sentences. And now I can hear whole sentences which register as foreign and know what they mean. None of them sound as native to me as English which sounds like "thought," if that makes any sense. But the language comes closer. It becomes a polite friend, whereas once it was a stranger on the street. Now I've just got to get out the friend zone.
Lost In The Conjugation
By my count I've studied (thought not even close to mastered) the following tenses in French: le présent, l'imparfait, le passé composé, le plus-que-parfait, le passé recent, le futur simple, et le futur proche. All of this is in l'indicatif. I've also studied le conditionnel (not quite sure how say "mood" en Français.)
All of these tenses and moods seem intimidating. But they are mostly intimidating (I suspect) because we encounter them on AP exams or while crashing through Berlitz. But as puzzles--as lego pieces--they are fascinating. The imperfect reflect some continuous action taken in the past ("When I was a child, I would run around the neighborhood.") The compound past reflects some action taken at particular time ("On Saturday, I ran a 5k.) But you can combine aspects of the imperfect and aspects of the compound past to get the pluperfect ("I had carbo-loaded, before I ran the 5k.") And these combinations spiral out into the conditional, into the future and so on. Part of learning the language is understand which combination to apply in which situation.
There's some very visual and very cool about it. I'm sure we do the same thing in English. But because I learned English at such a young age, and because I've been writing for so long, I can't really "see" it. Having to experience it this way is rather special. It is as though I am hacking my own brain or attempting to upload new programming.
And I can feel the actual effects. When I first started studying all I heard was blur of language. And then I could hear words and sentences. And then I could pick out particular words and sentences. And now I can hear whole sentences which register as foreign and know what they mean. None of them sound as native to me as English which sounds like "thought," if that makes any sense. But the language comes closer. It becomes a polite friend, whereas once it was a stranger on the street. Now I've just got to get out the friend zone.
All of these tenses and moods seem intimidating. But they are mostly intimidating (I suspect) because we encounter them on AP exams or while crashing through Berlitz. But as puzzles--as lego pieces--they are fascinating. The imperfect reflect some continuous action taken in the past ("When I was a child, I would run around the neighborhood.") The compound past reflects some action taken at particular time ("On Saturday, I ran a 5k.) But you can combine aspects of the imperfect and aspects of the compound past to get the pluperfect ("I had carbo-loaded, before I ran the 5k.") And these combinations spiral out into the conditional, into the future and so on. Part of learning the language is understand which combination to apply in which situation.
There's some very visual and very cool about it. I'm sure we do the same thing in English. But because I learned English at such a young age, and because I've been writing for so long, I can't really "see" it. Having to experience it this way is rather special. It is as though I am hacking my own brain or attempting to upload new programming.
And I can feel the actual effects. When I first started studying all I heard was blur of language. And then I could hear words and sentences. And then I could pick out particular words and sentences. And now I can hear whole sentences which register as foreign and know what they mean. None of them sound as native to me as English which sounds like "thought," if that makes any sense. But the language comes closer. It becomes a polite friend, whereas once it was a stranger on the street. Now I've just got to get out the friend zone.
A History of Lunarcraft
Megan Garber writes about some of our earliest forays into lighting our cities with giant "moon-towers" which imitated luna, err, lumination:
During the hot summer of 1882, the installation of the new moon towers became its own kind of brilliant spectacle. People gathered to witness the building of structures that represented Progress and Ingenuity and, in a very real sense, The Future. They also gathered to witness some drama. Since electrical engineers were just learning their trade -- that trade, in Detroit's case, being the erection of 150-foot-tall poles anchoring 500 pounds worth of lights -- accidents were, perhaps, inevitable. And falling towers -- thin metal, plus gravity -- had an uncanny way of slicing through roofs as they toppled toward the ground.
The light itself, though, was the true attraction. It was, as Brush had guaranteed, "picturesque and romantic," one observer put it. Within the glow of the manmade moons, "the foliage is weird and beautiful. All places within the scope of light are bathed in the faint but fairy-like illumination of the moon in its first-quarter."
But not all of the crowds were excited about the new buildings studding their town's landscape. On the contrary, "many Detroiters," Freeberg writes, "were skeptical from the start." Some found the towers to be eyesores, each structure braced with a chaotic network of wires and posts. (One man even tried to chop down the wires that hung near his home, an act of civic-cosmetic rebellion for which he was arrested.) The lights also brought unanticipated complications along with their steady illumination. Animals, for one thing, were unaccustomed to the newly extended daytime. Chickens and geese, unable to sleep in this new state of omnipresent light, began to die of exhaustion.
Humans, too, found the high-slung orbs to be as disorienting as they were ethereal. As tall as the towers were, they still left shadows in their wake -- shadows tinged with sharp blue light, Freeberg notes, which left pedestrians "dazed and puzzled." Foggy evenings, combined with the air pollution of a newly industrialized America, could thrust all of Detroit into effective darkness -- meaning, Freeberg writes, that "Detroiters could only speculate about the lovely sight that their lights must be creating as they shone down on the blanket of mist and soot that smothered the city." Even during occasions when the fog broke enough to allow some light to penetrate to the streets below, "many found themselves groping along sidewalks in an eerie gloom."
I think it was Cynic who once described The Atlantic's Tech channel as half-tech and half-history. I often think that technology is under-appreciated in understanding the advance of civil rights. In the 1860s, Northern soldiers advancing into the South were shocked to see slavery was as bad as abolitionists said it was. One hundred years, Northern whites could see that Bull Connor was every bit as bad as civil rights workers said it was, right from their own couches.
At any rate, I love the historical approach to technology. When I finished reading this, I couldn't quite get Tesla out of my head.
A History Of Lunarcraft
Megan Garber writes about some of our earliest forays into lighting our cities with giant "moon-towers" which imitated luna, err, lumination:
During the hot summer of 1882, the installation of the new moon towers became its own kind of brilliant spectacle. People gathered to witness the building of structures that represented Progress and Ingenuity and, in a very real sense, The Future. They also gathered to witness some drama. Since electrical engineers were just learning their trade -- that trade, in Detroit's case, being the erection of 150-foot-tall poles anchoring 500 pounds worth of lights -- accidents were, perhaps, inevitable. And falling towers -- thin metal, plus gravity -- had an uncanny way of slicing through roofs as they toppled toward the ground.
The light itself, though, was the true attraction. It was, as Brush had guaranteed, "picturesque and romantic," one observer put it. Within the glow of the manmade moons, "the foliage is weird and beautiful. All places within the scope of light are bathed in the faint but fairy-like illumination of the moon in its first-quarter."
But not all of the crowds were excited about the new buildings studding their town's landscape. On the contrary, "many Detroiters," Freeberg writes, "were skeptical from the start." Some found the towers to be eyesores, each structure braced with a chaotic network of wires and posts. (One man even tried to chop down the wires that hung near his home, an act of civic-cosmetic rebellion for which he was arrested.) The lights also brought unanticipated complications along with their steady illumination. Animals, for one thing, were unaccustomed to the newly extended daytime. Chickens and geese, unable to sleep in this new state of omnipresent light, began to die of exhaustion.
Humans, too, found the high-slung orbs to be as disorienting as they were ethereal. As tall as the towers were, they still left shadows in their wake -- shadows tinged with sharp blue light, Freeberg notes, which left pedestrians "dazed and puzzled." Foggy evenings, combined with the air pollution of a newly industrialized America, could thrust all of Detroit into effective darkness -- meaning, Freeberg writes, that "Detroiters could only speculate about the lovely sight that their lights must be creating as they shone down on the blanket of mist and soot that smothered the city." Even during occasions when the fog broke enough to allow some light to penetrate to the streets below, "many found themselves groping along sidewalks in an eerie gloom."
I think it was Cynic who once told me that The Atlantic's tech channel is half-tech and half-history. I often think that technology is under-appreciated in understanding the advance of civil rights. In the 1860s, Northern soldiers advancing into the South were shocked to see slavery was as bad as abolitionists said it was. One hundred years, Northern whites could see that Bull Connor was every bit as bad as civil rights workers said it was, right from their own couches.
At any rate, I love the historical approach to technology. When I finished reading this, I couldn't quite get Tesla out of my head.
'Be More Like the Jews'
After our discussion last week on the Jewish community of Lawndale, housing discrimination, and integration, someone sent me the following piece by Jill Jacobs entitled "When the Slumlord Is Us." It's a fascinating read. What you see is a community grappling with the tension between its commitment to kinship and its commitment to social justice.
Here's a section detailing the efforts by a couple of Jewish communities to expose slumlords in their midst:
Reading the article made me a little sad. On one level, I think its laudable to leverage tradition to humanistic ends. But on another level, I felt this sort of collective shame seeping through that is very familiar. The racist housing policies of this country sometimes feature Jewish individuals behaving immorally, but in general they feature garden variety white people obeying the dictates of history.
A useful parallel might be the notion that blacks were, somehow, responsible for failure to establish equal marriage rights in 2008. The story doesn't hold up to scrutiny I knew that. I wrote about that. And yet in my private moments I felt deeply ashamed. That is because I actually believe that marriage equality is a civil right. I believe the prohibition against forming family doesn't just hearken back to Jim Crow, but to the worst of slavery. And I think it's a betrayal of "our" history to act otherwise.
And yet isn't this long war about the right to be an individual? And doesn't being an individual mean the end of collective expectations? And doesn't my shame really originate in the fact that in 2008 we lent credence to the ugly stereotype of black pathology and hyper-masculinity? Doesn't much of the handwringing over Jewish slumlords come from the same place?
I think the tradition part of this is valuable. The stereotype-response portion, not so much. (Though I wonder if one feeds the need for the other.) When public opinion on marriage equality shifted it was not credited to black people anyway, but to the super-powers of Barack Obama. People believe what they want.
Here's a section detailing the efforts by a couple of Jewish communities to expose slumlords in their midst:
Using even more formal means, in 1968 a Boston rabbinic court, or beit din, forced three brothers -- Israel, Joseph and Raphael Mindick -- to make repairs to their buildings. When the Mindicks failed to comply with the initial ruling, the beit din took action again. In their book "The Death of an American Jewish Community," Hillel Levine and Lawrence Harmon recount: "Tenants in twenty of the brothers' buildings went on a rent strike that winter, charging that the landlords had failed to live up to the terms of the rabbinic court's agreement. The rabbis concurred and slapped the Mindicks with a $48,000 fine to be distributed among the affected tenants."As I've said before, when I was kid it was common for other black folks to say "We should be more like the Jews." In fact I was at a recent event where a young white man told me that "Blacks should be more like the Jews." I think what people are referring to is the kind of cohesion evidenced in this article. But culture and mores don't spring from the blood and bone, they spring from experience--lived and collective. To "be like the Jews" you'd have to have actually been like the Jews in all that that means. You don't get to cherry-pick the experience.
Just three years later, another Boston rabbi, the newly ordained Daniel Polish, publicly confronted Jewish slumlord Maurice Gordon, a prominent member of the Boston Jewish community. Speaking at a protest against an Israel Bonds event honoring Gordon, Polish said:Our gut instinct is to come to the defense of any of our own who are criticized or attacked for whatever reason....It is no accident that the office of Bonds of Israel and Capital for Israel Incorporated and the Development Corporation for Israel are all located in the building at 141 Milk Street, a building owned by Maurice Gordon. And it is no accident that these organizations, along with others in the Jewish community, have repeatedly showered this 'philanthropist' and his family with honor and distinction. ... It is time the Jewish agencies severed their dependence on, and desisted from honoring and elevating men whose values are in explicit conflict with the Jewish people and whose conduct can only be described as contemptible.
It has now been four decades since the rabbis of Boston took action, and almost two years since the Madoff scandal rocked the Jewish world. Have we learned anything? Will Jewish organizations continue to accept donations from landlords whose wealth comes at the expense of guaranteeing safe living conditions for their tenants? Will these landlords continue to be accorded positions of honor in their Jewish communitiess? Or are we finally ready for teshuvah?
Reading the article made me a little sad. On one level, I think its laudable to leverage tradition to humanistic ends. But on another level, I felt this sort of collective shame seeping through that is very familiar. The racist housing policies of this country sometimes feature Jewish individuals behaving immorally, but in general they feature garden variety white people obeying the dictates of history.
A useful parallel might be the notion that blacks were, somehow, responsible for failure to establish equal marriage rights in 2008. The story doesn't hold up to scrutiny I knew that. I wrote about that. And yet in my private moments I felt deeply ashamed. That is because I actually believe that marriage equality is a civil right. I believe the prohibition against forming family doesn't just hearken back to Jim Crow, but to the worst of slavery. And I think it's a betrayal of "our" history to act otherwise.
And yet isn't this long war about the right to be an individual? And doesn't being an individual mean the end of collective expectations? And doesn't my shame really originate in the fact that in 2008 we lent credence to the ugly stereotype of black pathology and hyper-masculinity? Doesn't much of the handwringing over Jewish slumlords come from the same place?
I think the tradition part of this is valuable. The stereotype-response portion, not so much. (Though I wonder if one feeds the need for the other.) When public opinion on marriage equality shifted it was not credited to black people anyway, but to the super-powers of Barack Obama. People believe what they want.
March 6, 2013
The Highlander Chronicles
I was really taken aback by the praise and appreciation in this article. Writing is not like performing. There's no one else there with you. I type into a box, and if I am lucky, some number of people--most of whom I will never meet--read it. I hope they like what they see. But for the most part, I'll never know, so I don't much think about it. But when prominent praise does come, it is nice and it does feels good to be acknowledged
I think though, in deference to my community, I should expand on something in the piece:
Again, this is very nice and I'm a little embarrassed by it. But I recoil at the idea of being called "the single best writer on the subject of race." Despite what I wrote yesterday, I don't recoil because of the "subject" part. My approach is never "subject." But after I've finished, the writing no longer really belongs to me. If you see it as "on the subject of race," I don't really have the right to tell you that you're wrong.
But I think that anytime you see "best" anyone on "race," you should do a double-take. Very few black writers enjoy the kind of support that I have enjoyed at The Atlantic. And very few writers--of any race--who are trying to engage this ancient divide have enjoyed the support I have here. My circumstance may well be singular. My achievements are not.
This is not false modesty. I think I am fine writer. And when I am done I hope they put the sword on my chest and send me off to Valhalla. (Mad mixed metaphors and mythology. Work with me here.) But I came up reading people do this thing in all kinds of wondrous ways. If you like what you see here. If you think it's the best writing "on the subject of race," I would encourage you read more "on the subject of race," and particularly read more black writers period.
I hope this doesn't come off as disrespect or even chiding for Jordan Michael Smith. He was the consumate professional. Just consider this a footnote.
I think though, in deference to my community, I should expand on something in the piece:
At 37, Mr. Coates is the single best writer on the subject of race in the United States. His Atlantic essays, guest columns for The New York Times and blog posts are defined by a distinct blend of eloquence, authenticity and nuance. And he has been picking up fans in very high places.
Again, this is very nice and I'm a little embarrassed by it. But I recoil at the idea of being called "the single best writer on the subject of race." Despite what I wrote yesterday, I don't recoil because of the "subject" part. My approach is never "subject." But after I've finished, the writing no longer really belongs to me. If you see it as "on the subject of race," I don't really have the right to tell you that you're wrong.
But I think that anytime you see "best" anyone on "race," you should do a double-take. Very few black writers enjoy the kind of support that I have enjoyed at The Atlantic. And very few writers--of any race--who are trying to engage this ancient divide have enjoyed the support I have here. My circumstance may well be singular. My achievements are not.
This is not false modesty. I think I am fine writer. And when I am done I hope they put the sword on my chest and send me off to Valhalla. (Mad mixed metaphors and mythology. Work with me here.) But I came up reading people do this thing in all kinds of wondrous ways. If you like what you see here. If you think it's the best writing "on the subject of race," I would encourage you read more "on the subject of race," and particularly read more black writers period.
I hope this doesn't come off as disrespect or even chiding for Jordan Michael Smith. He was the consumate professional. Just consider this a footnote.
March 5, 2013
The Echoes of War
Andrew Sullivan digs up this amazing Bill Clinton quote in the run-up to the Iraq War:
Just amazing.
"[Saddam] is a threat. He's a murderer and a thug. There's no doubt we can do this. We're stronger; he's weaker. You're looking at a couple weeks of bombing and then I'd be astonished if this campaign took more than a week. Astonished."Not to restate my post from yesterday, but what stands out for me 10 years later is how people whose entire branding was "seriousness" and "tough-minded" pragmatism were just flagrantly, catastrophically, perhaps unconscionably wrong. I can't decide if this statement is better or worse than Dick Cheney's "greeted as liberators" argument. It's not just being wrong about the war (which is bad.) It's the being wrong while blustering.
Just amazing.
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