December 09, 2004
Just Call Me...
I'm waiting with excited anticipation for a special package to arrive in the mail. Others have already received theirs, and are already using them--with varied reactions from the people they meet. I am a fairly unlikely person to have requested this package.
It's kind of a long story.
Miscellaneous Background:
1. I have various memories of being called the "n-word." (Not "no" as I have spoken about in a previous entry; the other n-word). One time was by my sixth grade language arts teacher in a suburban school in a class where I was the only Black person. She instructed that as we were reading, we should pay attention to the context surrounding a word we were not sure of. Thus, if a sentence didn't seem to make sense, we should stop and say to ourselves "Hmmm, there must be a nigger in the wood pile." Then, as classmates giggled nervously and turned to look at me, she quickly added, "But by 'nigger' I don't mean you, Yvette. A 'nigger' is just any bad person."
2. I have never really been a bumper sticker person. My father, during Watergate, put a bumper sticker on his car that said "Impeach Nixon Now" and drove to work at the state residential institution for "problem girls" in Indianapolis, Indiana. When he went to his car after work he found that someone had ripped the sticker off his car. (Note: the "problem girls" did not have access to the staff parking lot.) That weekend he drove up to Chicago (where he got the bumper sticker) and bought a whole stack of stickers. Each day he would affix a bumber sticker to his car. Each day someone would tear, scrape, or otherwise deface the sticker. (Recall: the "problem girls" did not have access to the staff parking lot.)
3. I have never really been a ribbon, or armband, or button type of person either. Once in junior high school I went to a dentist's appointment with a homemade green St. Patrick's Day button on. (I had forgotten to put on something green and didn't want to get pinched.) My button said, "Happy Saint Patty's Day!" which I thought fairly straightforward and somewhat clever or at least totally inoffensive. My dentist, before placing a metal pick in my mouth, observed (with no showing of his own smiling pearly whites) "Oh, I see you're one of those women's libbers."
Later in high school me and some other Black students decided to wear green armbands to school in a show of solidarity and sympathy with the Black community in Georgia during the Atlanta Child Murders. We were told by the school administration to remove the armbands, as wearing them was a "distraction" and contrary to the "dress code."
4. I've never worn a political button. I always figure people look at me and guess who I'm voting for. (And 99% of the time, they'd be correct). Being a Democrat has always been an automatic, quasi-genetic part of my self-hood--like being right-handed or good at art or knowing the words to the "Underdog" theme song or the first verse of "Lift Every Voice and Sing." My favorite picture of my late paternal grandfather depicts him and a 3-year-old me and a circle of distinguished looking White men standing around. These men were various Democratic "power bosses" in the Gary/East Chicago area. Granddaddy was one of the "go-to men" who the Machine consulted in order to seek political help from and make political deals with the Black community.
In reality, I was probably just hanging around my grandfather at the time he and the other men happened to take this photograph; In my mind, this was the cementing of my birthright affiliation as a Democrat.
And I have kept that affiliation through good times and bad, disappointments and confusion and anger (often with my own party).
Headline:
"A Liberal Professor Fights a Label" This story of "a faculty member accused of bias [taking] on students and a conservative group" saddens me. Then angers me. I cannot accurately trace the source of either reaction. But my eye keeps going to the word choice in the headline: Not "faculty member fights students and group," but "faculty member fights a label." I keep reading and re-reading this article, haunted by slowly-forming writing on the wall just down the hall from my future PhD degree...
Headline #2:
"The Triumph and Collapse of Liberalism." In this John Lukacs' Chronicle Review piece, the author describes himself as "a historian who has never been a liberal." Regardless of the facets of his self-identification, though, he goes on to provide an informative and thought provoking essay. According to Lukacs: "The history of politics -- more, the history of human thinking -- is the history of words."
The word in question is "liberal," which Lukacs discusses as at one time being nearly synonymous with "America" and "democracy" but that began a descent into being a pejorative beginning about 50 years ago. According to the author, in the 19th century in the USA "practically with few or no exceptions, Americans believed in the concept of 'progress'; indeed, it may be said that the more liberal a man was, the more he believed in and advocated progress."
But that has changed. And not for the better. And now liberal is a dirty word.
"I don't care what you call me as long as you call me for dinner":
A growing number of people are fighting against this state of affairs. Perhaps let down by the inability, unwillingness, or fear of political leaders to confront the attack on the ideal of liberalism, these people represent a grassroots effort to handle it themselves. From the "Label Me Liberal" website: "LML is a movement to reclaim the word 'liberal,' to pull it out of the political gutter it's been relegated to over the past 25 years, polish it up, and wear it as a badge of honor. One thing the conservatives are right about: people who are liberal shouldn't be ashamed of it. It's time to stop being covert liberals, closet liberals, or quiet liberals. 'Liberal' and liberal values need to be restored to the honor and respect they deserve, and a good way to begin restoring that respect is for every self-described liberal to wear the label proudly."
This community of people is doing more than jumping on the cool-looking website bandwagon. They are not starting yet another forum to complain about what could have been. They are doing more than making a feel-good symbolic statement. They are starting a national conversation, one in which people will explore what "liberal" means to them and educate others about how the adjective "liberal" describes many of the very values they hold dear.
I'm saying "them" and "they" and "these people"; I can now go ahead and say "me" and "I" and "this person." From this person with the spotty experience with labels, tags, buttons, slogan t-shirts, armbands, club memberships and bumper stickers comes an(other) attempt at self-labelling. Look for me in a few days wearing a pin that very simply says "liberal." And if you see me, engage me in conversation about what liberal means, or should mean, or doesn't mean, or could mean.
Call me whatever else you want. As long as you call me "liberal."