An interesting request from a True Believer progressive
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I met this guy about 15 years ago, he was a fellow student of my piano teacher and we saw each other at studio gatherings and recitals. He has a special place in my heart because he was among my first and strongest impressions after moving here that I don't really fit in socially/politically very well. I'm not exactly a champion fitter inner anyway, but whatever was my norm having lived in the midwest till then, I could sense the difference after moving here. His distaste for my vibe (it couldn't have been much more than a vibe) was a strong first experience with it.
I was reminded of him several years ago for some random reason, and I googled his name. It turns out he is a professional progressive who makes his living as an educator (having a Masters of Education degree from Harvard), who does his best to spread the good progressive word to as many impressionable minds as possible. To this end he had a weekly newsletter, and I subscribed to it. I've been getting it and browsing it since. He curates articles about education, race, and culture and provides them to his subscribers, along with his own thoughts. In yesterday's newsletter, he called this a masterpiece:
You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument
The piece to my eye is idea-free historical injustice porn. Here's a money quote:
You cannot dismiss me as someone who doesn’t understand. You cannot say it wasn’t my family members who fought and died. My blackness does not put me on the other side of anything. It puts me squarely at the heart of the debate. I don’t just come from the South. I come from Confederates. I’ve got rebel-gray blue blood coursing my veins. My great-grandfather Will was raised with the knowledge that Edmund Pettus was his father. Pettus, the storied Confederate general, the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, the man for whom Selma’s Bloody Sunday Bridge is named. So I am not an outsider who makes these demands. I am a great-great-granddaughter.
What a courageously defiant assertion of a privilege she was born to and did nothing to earn. Must be nice to be non-dismissable about all the most important stuff our culture is obsessed with.
He ended this week's newsletter with the customary newsletter promotion:
If you really like The <newsletter>, please help it grow and get better. I appreciate your support. Here are a few ways you can help:
- Forward today’s issue to a friend and urge them to subscribe
- <Donate> (thank you, Claire!)
- Become a VIP member and bask in a bounty of beauty
And then this interesting request:
On the other hand, if you consider this newsletter only OK, rather than great, or if you read it only sporadically, please unsubscribe. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT!
Nah, I think I'm going to keep subscribing, thanks anyway. But that request was an interesting insight into how echo chambers are born and sometimes actively curated, even by people who are ostensibly trying to grow their audience.
Education is extremely important.
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I met this guy about 15 years ago, he was a fellow student of my piano teacher and we saw each other at studio gatherings and recitals. He has a special place in my heart because he was among my first and strongest impressions after moving here that I don't really fit in socially/politically very well. I'm not exactly a champion fitter inner anyway, but whatever was my norm having lived in the midwest till then, I could sense the difference after moving here. His distaste for my vibe (it couldn't have been much more than a vibe) was a strong first experience with it.
I was reminded of him several years ago for some random reason, and I googled his name. It turns out he is a professional progressive who makes his living as an educator (having a Masters of Education degree from Harvard), who does his best to spread the good progressive word to as many impressionable minds as possible. To this end he had a weekly newsletter, and I subscribed to it. I've been getting it and browsing it since. He curates articles about education, race, and culture and provides them to his subscribers, along with his own thoughts. In yesterday's newsletter, he called this a masterpiece:
You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument
The piece to my eye is idea-free historical injustice porn. Here's a money quote:
You cannot dismiss me as someone who doesn’t understand. You cannot say it wasn’t my family members who fought and died. My blackness does not put me on the other side of anything. It puts me squarely at the heart of the debate. I don’t just come from the South. I come from Confederates. I’ve got rebel-gray blue blood coursing my veins. My great-grandfather Will was raised with the knowledge that Edmund Pettus was his father. Pettus, the storied Confederate general, the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, the man for whom Selma’s Bloody Sunday Bridge is named. So I am not an outsider who makes these demands. I am a great-great-granddaughter.
What a courageously defiant assertion of a privilege she was born to and did nothing to earn. Must be nice to be non-dismissable about all the most important stuff our culture is obsessed with.
He ended this week's newsletter with the customary newsletter promotion:
If you really like The <newsletter>, please help it grow and get better. I appreciate your support. Here are a few ways you can help:
- Forward today’s issue to a friend and urge them to subscribe
- <Donate> (thank you, Claire!)
- Become a VIP member and bask in a bounty of beauty
And then this interesting request:
On the other hand, if you consider this newsletter only OK, rather than great, or if you read it only sporadically, please unsubscribe. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT!
Nah, I think I'm going to keep subscribing, thanks anyway. But that request was an interesting insight into how echo chambers are born and sometimes actively curated, even by people who are ostensibly trying to grow their audience.
@Horace said in An interesting request from a True Believer progressive:
"What a courageously defiant assertion of a privilege she was born to and did nothing to earn."
Yep.
And woe betide anyone who stands up and tells her to her martyred face that she's full of shit.
