Well, I am extremely pessimistic about Mexican-American relations, not because the U.S. had done anything specifically wrong to our southern neighbor but because a (now not quite so) wealthy country has as its abutter a Latin society with all of its characteristic deficiencies: congenital corruption, authoritarian government, anarchic politics, near-tropical work habits, stifling social mores, Catholic dogma with the usual unacknowledged compromises, an anarchic counter-culture and increasingly violent modes of conflict. Then, there is the Mexican diaspora in America, hard-working and patriotic but mired in its untold numbers of illegals, about whom no one can talk with candor.I think a racist would claim that Mexican society is "congenitally corrupt." I think a racist would disparage "sub-tropical work habits." (There would be no slaves in the past, and no construction workers in the present without those habits.) But it takes a fucking racist to say all of that,and then assert that "no one can talk with candor" about illegal immigrants. Understand the difference--the racist simply argues that you are less than. The fucking racist argues he isn't allowed to say you are less than, right after he's said as much. The former deserves a dis track. The latter, only half a bar. Which means, I've already said too much.
« Why You Don't Joke About Legalizing Weed | Main | Justice Delayed » Fucking Racist30 Mar 2009 09:00 am
I'm on the journolist e-mail list, and thus by definition, a closet liberal. I don't talk much on the list, preferring to embarrass myself publicly. On that note, I don't think it's crazy to call someone "a fucking racist" for saying the following:
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So I assume Chait leaked the thing, right? He seemed to be in a pretty pissy mood over people calling Marty what he is
Nah. No one knows. And so why speculate? I didn't comment on the whole leaking/not leaking thing because it feels like gossip for nerds.
I like nerd gossip--it's one of the reasons I come here.
It's almost comforting to know that a journalist believes he/she can say something like this without people looking at him sideways. It's the beauty of the first amendment; it's also beautiful because no one has to put in effort to prove this person is a bigoted douchebag.
There's been a huge fracas in the Sci/fi-Fantasy blogosphere about racism, and one of the things that has struck me is how, I guess, entitled a lot of those pro authors feel-- they're right, because they're famous! Or at least more famous than the people they're criticizing.
Yes! I've been following it from the sidelines. Someone's created a timeline for those new to the situation. There's also a group of links related to "race fail '09" that is quite complete.
What a coup for Kaus! What a shocking leak! Nobody had any idea that many of these journolist bloggets think Peretz is racist, because they would never write this on their public blogs.
Maybe Kaus's next leak from journolist will show that many of these bloggers think Kaus is an idiot that is living in the past.
What a shock that will be!
I don't get his point...usually fucking racist's have a point, beyond the usual "poor lilly-white me for putting up with X's bullshit"...don't they??
So much for "Vex not a stranger", eh, Marty?
The sad irony is that Marty's dispariging of the Other echoes a lot of the sentiments that were directed towards his ancestors a century ago. I hope someone's reminded him of that.
The TNR commentariat let him have exactly that, replacing "Latin society" with "Judaic culture."
When I met my boyfriend's beloved aunt/godmother in Arizona last year, he was embarrassed about her anti-immigrant tirades. I always felt it was about more than just the ugliness that he saw or the politics that he disagreed with that one of his kin would be so ignorant, he felt it reflected poorly on all of them -- like I was going to somehow leave him if because he was introducing me to slack-jawed yokels. How pleased he'll be to learn that such sentiment is now accepted as gospel by the intellectual class that I'm supposedly a part of.
TNC is a member of the vast left-wing conspiracy! (How can I be the first to post that?)
Though reading the top of the post, I did think "well, 'fucking' is too generic, it needs a better adjective" and the end of the post does not unconvince me. "Overly disingenuous" or "Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth" or "Preemptively wrong"--I haven't hit it yet, but there's got to be something that doesn't come across as "very."
It's an extreme thing to call a person a racist as opposed to calling that person's views racist. Unless you know a little more about that person than what's expressed in a paragraph. There's also someone being provocative and someone expressing his racism.
Find a thoughtful Mexican friend and ask him whether he's offended by Peretz's views about what ails that country's economy and society.
Ok. So Peretz is either A.) too stupid to understand what he's saying, B.) a complete asshole who writes racist stuff to be "provocative", or C.) a fucking racist. In any case, fuck him.
"Find a thoughtful Mexican friend and ask him whether he's offended by Peretz's views about what ails that country's economy and society."
If he isn't, is he not thoughtful?
Okay, just find a Mexican guy and ask him why after the strong developmental trends of the 50's and 60's when the country grew at over 3% per annum in real terms while abiding by the import substitution / fixed exchange rate economic regime, things started to go horribly wrong for that country in the 1980's and thereafter (pretty much sub 1% real growth thereafter)? Ask him if the Roman Catholic Church's anti-birth-control dogma has hindered economic development. Or if its institutional corruption may be a poisonous legacy of a violent, corrupt colonial history that preceded its birth as an independent nation, Mexican society's "congenital" condition if you will. Ask him if this state of affairs has bred cynicism among the population and enervated it of dynamic entrepreneurship.
And also ask him how someone can be a "racist" against Mexicans when there are a white Mexicans, brown Mexicans, indigenous Mexicans?
what the fuck does all that have to do with "a Latin society with all of its characteristic deficiencies"...as another poster said...if he wasn't being racist why would he choose such language that is not only wrongheaded by the standards of what the virtues of latin countries are (se brazil, chile), but also by your own measurements...HE is NOT arguing that there are alot of different types of mexicans. HE is arguing that there are "near-tropical work habits" which is NOT indicative of a cultural multitude.
While your points seem to have validity ...you haven't made the case for Mr Peretz' arguments (did he make any?) because he hasn't stated the above mentioned facts. He's taken a derogatory tone against a vast swath of people because they do not live in the US of A. Is that PC enough for you? What you are doing is filling in the blanks he left there. I don't know if it was on purpose or because he's ignorant. Frankly i can't tell the difference with regards to his malicious statements.
Can we get past the idea that claiming someone's being "provocative" or "politically incorrect" is a defense against racism. It's like a venn diagram--racism is by definition "provocative." It's a subset of provocative speech. If you want to argue that something isn't racist, argue that point--claiming that it was just "provocative" is like saying you can't be racist on days ending in y, just irrelevant to the point
Note: Marty Peretz is racist on days ending in y
Nice response, Jack G. I do think it's a pity we have no distinction in our discourse similar to the 'homophobia/heterosexism' divide-- where one generally connotes ignorance and one connotes malice. But this shit about Mexicans is beyond the damn pale.
From what I've read of Peretz's stuff, he likes to stir things up but is not someone who harbors racial hatred. I think his comments here are provocative but fall outside of the "racist/provocative" intersection of your venn diagram.
Calling someone a racist shuts down discussion. It's like calling someone a liar. Once you're a liar, I don't have to listen to your arguments (because you're making it up). Once you're a racist, you're unworthy of debating me. Someone's comments may be overly reliant on racial categories and generalizations that don't move a debate forward (which is what happened on the Journolist thread -- it sidetracked the whole thing about Mexican stability and its impact on the US), but I'd try to refute the generalizations rather than condemning the man as a racist.
I too would be careful calling out someone as a racist...until I remembered this fun little nugget from Marty from just a few weeks ago:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_spine/archive/2009/02/25/chas-freeman-is-bigoted-and-out-of-touch.aspx
The title of the article is "Chas Freeman Is Bigoted And Out Of Touch"! Oh Marrrty! Of course the gist of the article is Chas Freeman, Obama's former NIE Chairman nominee, is a bigot for daring to criticize Israeli policy.
As far as I'm concerned Marty, what's good for the goose...
On a more stylistic note... The extensive use of latin words somewhat undermines Mr. Peretz' point regarding the qualities of latin societies.
I'm a regular TNR reader, and regular "Spine"-skipper. Life's too short to listen to Marty's tirades, and if you really try to understand them you risk going insane. I also regularly skip Kausfiles in my daily perusal of Slate. But, in this case, I'm glad I got to see Mickey's bilge - if the private conversations he cites are supposed to indicate something ugly about the liberals on the list, I don't see it. These guys are much more civil and reasonable in a "closed" conversation intended to be kept within the ideological family than I would have expected. Some left-of-center blogger whose name I can't remember right now - maybe George Packer -has The Corner on his blogroll because it illuminates the "conservative id." If the journolist illuminates the liberal id, our superego is working is working a lot better than the conservative superego.
Failed state and candor: two things that don't mean what Marty thinks they mean. Fucking idiot.
Peretz makes some unhelpful generalizations in that quote, but calling him "racist" is unhelpful as well. Peretz's comments weren't about any race, but a kind of society. In the quote he says positive things about Mexicans in the U.S. right after saying negative things about Mexico: if his issue were race, why would he claim that Mexicans north of the border are "patriotic and hardworking" after describing the dysfunctions he sees south of the border? That's an obvious critique of Mexican society, not Mexicans per se, and to claim otherwise by tossing the word "racist" into the mix stops a discussion about Mexico's real problems (problems that have an effect on this country) and just gives folks a chance to congratulate themselves on how right-thinking they are for agreeing that Peretz is a racist.
That said, Peretz is off-base conflating "Latin" with "Mexican". Latin America is an enormous region, and a lot of its countries are better-run than Mexico is. We could learn a lot, for example, from Brazil's energy policy, or Chile's social security system. Mexico does have serious problems though, particularly its corrupt, monopolistic economy which denies ordinary Mexicans opportunity, and its "increasingly violent modes of conflict" which have cost a lot of Mexicans their lives recently. Again, though, it's not an issue of the country being "Latin". If Mexico were as well-run as Chile, the Mexicans -- and we -- would be a lot better off.
No. You don't begin a useful discussion of Latin American policy by saying that a group has a genetic disposition towards corruption, anymore than you begin a useful discussion of Israel by claiming Jews are congenitally prone to war. It's ridiculous. And the urge to defend someone who disparages a group as "congenitally corrupt" is more so. I'd concede that I can't know what's in a man's heart. I try to hold on calling people racist. In this case, I'm willing to hazard a guess.
Ta-Nehisi,
The word "congenital" was admittedly a bad choice of adjectives, but in that sentence Peretz is specifically referring to "Latin society", not to Latin Americans or Mexicans as a race or as individuals. On the contrary, he describes members of the Mexican diaspora here positively. To use your Jews and Israel analogy, it would be as if someone said Israeli society was "prone to war", but Jews in America were "patriotic and hardworking". Reasonable people could disagree with such a statement, but would it be fair to call the speaker a racist? And isn't this the sort of charge that is often used against critics of Israel, many of whom are not racist?
Accusing someone of racism is a powerful, marginalizing charge. I don't know enough about Peretz to know if he is one or not, so I wouldn't be willing to hazard a guess based on the paragraph you quoted.
You see I don't think a reasonable person would say "Jews in Israel are congenitally prone to war," or claim that have, say, "subtropical reasoning skills." That's where you and I break. And if someone did say that, I'd have no problem with calling them racist. I've yet to hear a "reasonable critic" of Israel say that Jews in Israel are "congenitally prone to war" or anything like Peretz "subtropical comment."
You're free to not hazard a guess. I'd suggest you google around, though. The info is quite easy to find. I'm not citing it mostly because this isn't a new subject at all. I've responded because I think you make a fair criticism. But I'd rather not extend this too far.
Not to be snide or anything, but you should look up the definition of the word "congenital". It doesn't mean "genetically predisposed", but more along the lines of "deeply inclined". William Safire got the same grief when he said that Hillary was a "congenital liar", and she complained that he was dissing her parents, and he was forced to explain the meaning of the word.
Peretz really shouldn't use the word, it's like saying something is "inflammable". Too many people have the wrong idea what the word means, it doesn't help if you run around waving a dictionary complaining that you were misunderstood.
Here's the definition
Congenital--1 a: existing at or dating from birth b: constituting an essential characteristic : inherent c: acquired during development in the uterus and not through heredity 2: being such by nature
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/congenital
You're right. I shouldn't have said "genetically predisposed."
This is why I wrote before that Peretz's use of that adjective was a bad choice. I happened to have the Safire example in mind as well.
Kaus feels left out. Betrayed! Pity the poor Sucker, he just admires his cousin Pete so much.
Ta-Nehisi,
"You see I don't think a reasonable person would say "Jews in Israel are congenitally prone to war,""
I agree with you on that one. It's a fine line, but I guess where I draw it is when you refer to "Jews in Israel" instead of "Israeli society" or "Israel". The first refers to an ethnic group, albeit limited to the members of it in a particular area; the second and third could refer to the country's laws, customs, institutions, etc.
"I've responded because I think you make a fair criticism."
Thanks.
"But I'd rather not extend this too far."
Fair enough.
It seems a lot of people here haven't read a lot of Peretz's work. His thoughts on Arabs and Persians are just about the most vile published in a mainstream publication in the US. Former New Republic writers like Spencer Ackerman claim to have heard him say absolutely horrible things. The portrayal of him in "Broken Glass," the movie based on TNR's Stephen Glass's serial lying in his pieces for the magazine, portrays Peretz as a crazy, megalomaniac sadist (making the staff circle every comma in the magazine as a punishment), which is basically his reputation. His main protege, Jaime Kirchick, is the type of guy who smears and lies for the sake of it (to the point that when he was one of Sullivan's guest bloggers, one of the other guest bloggers asked him on the blog pretty much what he thinks he's accomplishing by being so dishonest and misleading his readers). If you don't believe me, just go through his stuff on how there are no Arab nations (I guess Egypt doesn't exist) and how the Lebanese should have been more appreciative of Israeli radio shock jocks prank calling them while Israel was bombing them. That's just the tip of the iceberg with him.
Spreading the topic:
Back in high school, one of our wide receivers got tackled after a catch and the opponent called him a "gook". The next play, my friend blocked him to the ground, looked down at him, and said "At least call me a fuckin' gook."
Well, OK, if you admit that Peretz didn't refer to any genetic predisposition, then isn't calling him a "fucking racist" out of bounds? You might not like him dissing on Mexican culture, and he may be a jerk, but he's not making a racist statement.
After all, Mexico is a mess. I've known several Mexican ex-pats who wouldn't disagree at all with his statement in toto.
Nope. I think claiming that Mexican society is corrupt "by nature," or that corruption constitutes an "essential characteristic," paired with claiming that Mexicans, themselves, have "sub-tropical work habits," and finally asserting that "no one can talk with candor" about illegal immigrants, is exactly the sort of line I'd expect to hear from a "fucking racist."
I'm sure this Mr Peretz is a true expert on Latin America...
If congenital is meant relatively literally, as something inherent from each person's birth, and not as part of the culture and politics of the country, than it would seem to be racist, but I'm not so sure its meant literally here. Most of the things mentioned in your quote are cultural or political, not genetic or something inherent in, or because of the race of the people in question. Corruption, authoritarianism, battling with anarchy, poor work habits, dogma, social mores, etc, these are mostly social and political things. Esp. in terms of work habits he seems to be pointing to culture, politics, and circumstance, rather than genetics and race, since he talks about poor work habits in Mexico, but calls people of the same race who move to the US "hard working".
Now statements about the culture, politics, and circumstance, could also be inspired by racism, so I certainly couldn't say that the statement wasn't racist, but they don't amount to sufficient evidence of racism for me to call someone racist.