Dear Blog,
After reading Avery and Justin's posts about Fredric Jameson, I am struck by his quote: "The underside of culture is blood, torture, death, and horror" (410). I think this quote contributes to what they were both expressing in the sense that history is overgeneralized and we struggle to find the specific narratives that can be more powerful, or interesting, than the zoomed out picture of it. Avery was pointing to this larger idea that American history is white-washed and we have silenced many voices for way too long and I think this quote exemplifies that in a lot of ways. The underside, the context, of the "home of the brave and land of the free" is ugly and filled with death and tragedy and torture. We don't like to focus on it very much and we especially don't want the younger generations to grow up feeling guilty for things their ancestors committed (*hint of sarcasm*). However, it is interesting that we, as an American culture, want to focus on the good things and not the horrific things that this country was built on. I think it's crucial that we see the full picture of American history, the good and the bad, so that we aren't nurturing young people to become nationalistic and patriotic for a country without knowing everything. I think this is what Avery was getting at when she mentioned the backlash we saw across the country when people wanted to include Critical Race theory teachings in the education system. It's fascinating to me that parents don't want to raise critical, free-thinking children.
I am thinking of Disney and earlier conversations we have had this semester. Disney is an example of a physical place one can visit where only the "good" is represented. When we think of Frontierland and Main Street, they depict a cordial environment where there's a lack of acknowledgement of the harmful narratives, tropes, stereotypes, etc., of the impact the racial undertones can have on visitors. The underside of Disney is also ugly and full of inequities some may considered horrific. I could go on and on about the examples in our society that can fit into this quote but that would be a good theory praxis...
Signing off,
mg
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