Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 22:06:04 -0700
From: "Marlene R. Atleo" <maratleo-AT-island.net>
Subject: Re: West is White???? 


This is my point about knowing the context....sort of a "beyond the
fictional Kip" perspective....
We could call it "racism" and it tells me as a member of a brown community
in a sea of "white" very little....or we could look at what it meant to the
Americans when they got hit Dec. 7th..........
1. loss of face with Pearl Harbour
2. no American ground troops in Japan
3. scared to death to get too close to mentalities they couldn't and still
can't understand the group think of...

Why not A-bombs in Europe....its still the cradle of American
civilization......ground troops....many American capitalists had major
sympathy for fascist policies....the war was what I would call well
underway over when Americans entered....
and as Ivison said the Fascists had already said uncle and they needed to
let the Soviets who were far too presumptuous in the Allied relationship
post Victory in Europe to know who was really in charge.....
the US hadn't been sapped by the war the way Britain and Canada had because
they were a late starter and it was a terrific opportunity to play "cowboy"
with the "BIG NEW GUN"...
...way more "telling" about America than a label of racism and hegemony....

At 03:45 AM 4/10/99 GMT, you wrote:
>-> ironic is a term I would prefer....April
>-> as I am a student and some of my best friends are GEDers who are 
>-> aspiring to become undergrads....(if we want to get into that...) my 
>-> example came from a discussion on another list a couple of days ago 
>->  on "teaching" about "Tonto and the Lone Ranger" by Sherman Alexie  
>-> which is about the FN/NA perspective and would be part of the "pop" 
>-> culture via the sitcoms of the 50's and '60's with re-runs as the 
>-> enertainment industry was reworking some important underlying themes 
>-> about Native Americans and the American hero....few North American 
>-> undergraduates would have a clue of what that was all about.....and I 
>-> realize that the undergraduates are on their way to becoming the 
>-> "cream of the crop" (is that another "white" metaphor?!)
>
>-> my example was about how it looks like cultural consciousness is 
>-> eroded by the information society  in which there is so much new 
>-> noise that there is little psychical room to breath...or FLOW >is 
>-> slightly condescending >towards "ayelet", and undergraduates in 
>-> general. I don't think it was condescending...it was a comment on 
>-> personal memory as authority....especially about historical events of 
>-> which one has had no experience... and the utility of cultural memory 
>-> in an age of communicative action in which the here and now are the 
>-> key....and almost everything is negotiatble
>
>-> >cultural memory is an important one because it leads quite easily 
>-> >into a discussion of cultural amnesia. I like the term "cultural 
>-> amnesia"...but which "culture" would we be talking about....the 
>-> culture of "America" or one of the local or ethnic or family 
>-> cultures....and all Americans seem to need to have a certain amnesia 
>-> as they get grafted into the great American patchwork...
>
>-> >I don't think that within a culture  that works very hard to >promote
>-> itself and keep people from thinking  and questioning, >that 
>-> undergraduates are the only guilty parties.
>
>-> It so interesting that even as the postmodern project "pacmans" 
>-> (making a verb out of "Pacman", a primitive computer game in which 
>-> the object was to eat the enemy) munches away there still seems to be 
>-> a modernist frame in which the digestion takes place....
>
>-> what are points of reference .....when we rely foremost on our personal
>-> memories and anecdotes....
>-> While I realize that "we" are moving to emotional technology more and 
>-> more for orientation....
>
>-> I must be lagging behind....
>
>
>
>
>  Mar.
>  
>Just for the sake of keeping in track of the first question - why did
>the U.S. bomb Japan with nuclear weapons, and did not hit Germany with
>the same energy? Kip said it had racist rational behind it, and I was
>just emphasizing his point.   
>
>would you like to comment on this point?  
>
>ayelet
>
>
>
>
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>


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